UC-NRLF I COLLECTION OF ANCIENT AND MODERN BRITISH AUTHORS VOL. CCCCXIX THE DEBUTANTE ••fniNTED BY (:rapi:jj<:t Rl'E I'E VAUCIKARI). i) Tin: DEBUTANTE THE LONDON SEASON BY MHS (iORK /( AUIHOK OF '• MOIIIKIIS AND DAUGHTERS," " HEKK.S ANIi PARVENUS,' ETC., K'K PARIS B A i; 1 ) H V S M U R O P 1', A i\ 1. 1 li l\ A U V ■1, Tii>KNT I 1S'<« BERNARD MOSES THE DEBUTANTE/'^ '^ CHAPTER Jul. What tbink'st thou of the fair Sir Eglamour :• lAX. As of a knight well-spoken, neat, and tine ; But were I you, he never should be mine. Shakspeare. The closing of the London season constitutes, for the fashionable world, the grand crisis of the year. Like the Black Monday or set- tling-day after the Derby, or the division on the amendment of the Address to the Throne, it serves to recall thoughtless people to their senses. Squanderers of their money, squanderers of their time, squanderers of their reputation, are suddenly brought to book by the grand exigency of leaving town. But above all, those who have been tasting for the first time the (lircean cup of dissipation, (/e'6?art, from the trouble of Miss IHE DfiBUTANTE. 13 Brenlon's guardiaiisliii), should tHiicy il incoiivciiienl lo make tlio necessary chaui^o in iheir establishment for receiving her before Christmas next; when it will not signify a straw whether she goes or comes, since i have all but consented to Charles's spending the wintei' abroad.'' '' 1 am really very sorry" — Mrs. Harrington tried to begin. But she was silenced in a moment. " No, you are not sorry, — you arc delighted to see me exposed to what you call 'needless' anxiety 1 It is, in fact, all your own doing. You persuaded me to let Maria Brenton become our inmate. You are always praising her sweet temper and notable qualities in presence of Charles ; nor have you ever attempted the smallest precaution to prevent the young people being together." " Thanks to which," replied his wife, " they are, at this moment, totally inditierent to each other I If anything, 1 suspect that Charles rather dislikes his cousin ; — in the first place, from jealousy of my affection for her ; — in the next — " she paused. "Well, madam I — In the next? — Have you any objection to finish your sentence? " " Not if you require it. In the next, (I was about to say,) as the origin of constant altercations on the part of his lather. I am con- vinced that Charles never hears you indulge in in abuse of poor Maria Brenton, — without heartily wishing her out of the house." " Thank you I — I see now why you could not afford to be candid I — Whenever my back is turned, you and your son and niece doubtless amuse yourselves by sitting in judgment on my harsh- ness. But I am accustomed and prepared to meet, in my own fa- mily, with nothing but opposition and ingratitude I Make up your minds, however, on one point;— that the day on which I discover anything like a mutual understanding between Maria and Mr. Charles Barrington, is the last she stays in my house ! — Home or no home, out she goes! — She will be of age next March ; till when, there are plenty of respectable boarding-schools where they would be glad to receive her. " Mrs. Barrington loved her husband's niece too sincerely to uttei" a syllable in reply. Aware that it was essential to her comfort and respectability to find shelter for the present at Easton, she took care not to render poor Maria still more obnoxious, by any show of partizanship ; and right thankful was she when a gleam of sunshine was soon afterwards followed by the dispersion of the skiey in- fluences which had so unfortunately overclouded her husband's cornfields, and temper. Away he went to rec;all his scattered harvest-men ; and a few mi- nutes sufficed to restore the mild wf»man, who had suffered herself lo be almost irritated by his unjust aspersions, to the even tenor of her way. 14 THE DfiBUTANTE. .S^e had no fears for her son on poor Maria's account. She al- most wished she liud. To have found her handsome Charles in danger from companionship with a girl chiefly remarkable for the sweetness of her temper and gentleness of her manners , would have proved him to be far less worldly, far less a slave to fashion and appearances, than of late she had reason to suppose him. With something of a sigh, however, she admitted that all was for the best; or, at least, that it was well such complete incompatibility of character existed between the cousins. ForMf. Barrington was a man whom no sort of consideration would have swayed from his opposition to a match so imprudent; and in the struggle, the hap- piness of the poor orphan would have been sacrificed without remorse. When, after her usual round of domestic duties, Mrs. Barrington found Maria Brenton seated quietly at work, as usual, in the morn- ing-room, which she had set silently in ordei' and adorned with flowers of not too powerful a fragrance, selected according to the well-studied tastes of her aunt; — she patted the kind-hearted girl affectionately on the shoulder, contenting herself with a secret expression of thankfulness that matters had turned out as they were. Highly as she could have prized Maria as a daughter-in-law, she was satisfied that, for the happiness of all parties, it was better she should remain her niece. The home of the Barrington family , whose sovereignty was thus unequally divided, was a small seat on the boundary line between Bucks and Herts; a line so perplexed by hill and dale, and so lost in woodlands, as to render it difficult to all but Mr. Barrington himself, to be certain that the former county contained his place of residence. He would as soon it had been anywhere else. Though the site was strikingly pretty, and the grounds, fof the size of the estate, unusuallydiversified, and though the place was his by some centuries of inheritance, it found little favour in his sight. In the first place, it was settled upon his wife ; and the notion that, in case of her survival, she would be able to enjoy her indei)endence there and say her soul was her own, connected itself painfully with the pleasant aspect of the spot, so as often to suspend his hand when meditating improvements. But a far greater source of irritation was it to reflect that the Easton estate was all that remained to him of a property of five thousand a-year, which he had alienated by wanton imprudence. i As is often the case, Mr. Barrington's temper having been squandered with his fortune, he was disposed to revenge upon others the evils of his own creation. Every year, he seemed to grow angrier and angrier with his wife and son, that his folly should THE DfeBUTANTE. 15 have wasted foivr-fiflhs of their substance; and that the paltry shifts to which he had recourse for the improvement of his income, had no other result than to make the family uncomfortable, with- out leaving in his banker's hands, at the closeof the year, a balance worthy the noting. Though he contrived to be thought a shabby fellow by his neighbours, to be called a skinflint by his servants, and to reduce his wife and son to the necessity of preserving the strictest silence touching his proceedings, the sum realized by his sordid economy was almost as contemptible as his former flighty improvidence. Surprise was often expressed among his country neighbours that a man of Barrington's sordid nature should have been moved, even by the death-bed appeal of a sister, to admit a supernume- rary into his household. For, even those most familiar with his parsimonious habits, were far from suspecting that of the pittance of 130/. per annum, inherited by his niece, one half was annually retained by her niggardly uncle for Miss Brenton's board and lod- ging ; or that he was never weary of reproaching his wife for bring- ing up the poor girl in habits of extravagance, because the remain- ing half was necessarily appropriated to her personal expenses. It is true that Mrs. Barrington was forced to content herself W\\h considerably less. But she seemed to think there was no occasion that her husband should be propitiated by a second victim. On finding, therefore, that, in spite of Maria's contribution to the maintenance of the house, — nay, in spite of her amiable sub- mission to her uncle's coarsely expressed command, that " the girl should be made useful," their Pharaoh still hardened his heart, still grumbled, still threatened further encroachment on the residue of her small allowance, — and, above all, still tormented the poor girl with prohibitions concerning her cousin Charles, such as might have tempted any other young lady into a fit of co- quetry, — the compassionate aunt had not only acceded to his pro- position that the Cornburys should be applied to on Miss Brenton's behalf, but earnestly encouraged Maria to be thankful for the ex- change. She could not bear to see the best years of the young girl's life fretted and fumed away in listening to unreasonable reproaches. The neighbourhood contained few young people, — none in cir- cumstances to afford her the chance of a settlement in life ; whereas, with the Cornburys she had better prospects, — a more cheerful house, a wider circle of acquaintance ; and the prudent aunt wiped away the tears with which her young charge submit- ted to the arrangement of her destinies ; assuring her, with an affectionate kiss, that all was for the best. Impossible for her to insinuate to poor Maria, that, in addition to the harshness of her uncle, she would soon perhaps have to 16 THE DfiBUTANTE. endure the slights of her cousin ; Charles Barrington having al- ready more than once insinuated that Maria's presence in the house was a vexatious restraint, — a perpetual aggravation of his father's ill-humour. So strong was this impression on her mind, that, as the moment announced by Charles for his arrival from town drew near, she was thankful to find that Maria was engaged to dine early at Easton Vicarage ; little suspecting that the invitation had been eagei'ly canvassed for by the poor girl, who was better aware than she appeared to be of the antipathies of which she was the ob- ject. By walking home late in the evening, Maria trusted she should have afforded sufficient time for confidential discussion between the mother and son. But previous to quitting the house she had taken care that all should be arranged in the nicest order, in Charles Barrington's room ; the toilet cover and muslin curtains renewed ; the old-fashioned drawers neatly papered ; the bureau furnished with the best writing materials ; and even the old spai- ornaments on the chimney-piece, brightened with flowers. More, indeed, would have been attempted, but for Maria's ap- prehension that her interference might attract notice. For, though the greater part of the allowance so grudged her by her uncle, was wasted in procuring for the fastidious Charles, during his visits to the Hoo, some portion of the luxuries to which he was accustomed elsewhere, and which his father would have regarded as a criminal indulgence, she contrived to obtain them, as for herself, from the nearest market town. "So, Maria is with you still?" — said Charles, carelessly, to his juother, as they sat together, waiting for tea, while the master of the house proceeded on his usual stealthy twilight round of his little farm, to satisfy himself that no depredations were going on, and that all was sale for the night. " Ves; the Cornburys cannot receive her before the winter.'' " So much the better. Before that time, something may, per- haps, occur to prevent her leaving you at all. In the secluded life you lead, mother, she is rather a comfort to you than an incum- brance." "A comforL, indc-d ! But 1 have no right, poor girl, to consider only /Art/ .'" rejoined Mrs. Barrington. " At her age, it is better for her to reside wlierc she will see more of the world." " I don't suppose Maria would bo happier anywhere than here. She always seems c?heerfnl.'" " Still, my dear Chai'h^s, young people require recreation." " A girl with three thousand pounds and no conncKion to push her in the world, had much better learn to do without it. Maria Brenton was born to lead a humdrum life. You, mother, whose THE DfiBUTANTE. 17 early years were spent in the Avorld, have much giealer cause l. Bacon. It was one of the few consolations of Maria Brenton's cheerless life, that she was admitted further into the conhdence of her cousin Charles, than either his father or mother. It did not occur to her that this was a further proof of his indifference ; that he stood as little in awe of her opinion as under submission to her authority. He could " say what he liked to Maria." And say it he did; — not only because no better listener was at hand; but because her aid was essential to him in a thousand selfish arrangements. Such was the real origin of the occasional fetr.-a-trlc. which so alarmed the narrow prudence of her uncle. " Were you not surprised, Maria," said the tine gentleman, on finding Miss Brenton employed in sorting garden-seeds for her aunt in the parlour the following day, after breakfast, while his father and mother were occupied in their household inspections, " to hear of my coming down to Easton at this detestable time of year? " " Not much surprised. I have heard you say that all country- houses are insupportable in August; and Easton, insupportable all the year round. So, perhaps, if not at Cowes, you may as well be at home." " Admirably argued! 1 had no idea there was half so much logic in that housewifely little head!" replied he, laughing. "But, between ourselves, Maria, I have other motives for my visit. Some particular friends of mine are coming into this confounded neigh- bourhood, whom you must do your best to help me to entertain." Miss Brenton, whose notions of the neighbourhood were con- fined to the Vicarage, the Chalkneys of Pountney Hill, and two or three squires of moderate dignity, living near them, readily pro- mised her assistance. " I need not tell you, however," added she, " how little I have it in my power to influence the movements of Easton. — i\o chance of any person being invited here at my request." " Invited herd'' retorted her cousin, shrugging his shoulders with an air of indescribable scorn. " Surely you don't fancy my 22 THE DtBUIANTE. frionds have deserved so ill of me, as that 1 should betray them into a visit to this dullest of dull houses? — No, nol — All I ask of you, my dear Maria, is, that if Sir Wolscloy Maitland and his sister should, by any unlucky chance, call here in the course of their rides or drives, while staying at Greensells — " '' At Greensellsr' reileraled Miss Brenton, aghast : for, to Aer simple comprehension, the rarely-inhabited mansion of the Mar- quis of Heriford was a spot scarcely less august than Windsor Castle. " you will second my endeavours," added her cousin, without noticing the interruption, "to prevent their being fright- ened awayagain by the nakedness of the land. My mother, thank God, is a gentlewoman, of whose quiet and ladylike manners and appearance no one need feel ashamed ; and my father, whose highlows and corduroys, and other personal peculiarities, arc cer- tainly far from fascinating, is, fortunately, seldom at home of a morning. But think, dear Maria, what it would be to have the hall-door opened, in such an emergency, by John, in that dreadful duffel jacket, and with the hands of a blacksmith, — as he served us, in short, at breakfast!— Abovp all, imagine what an Easton luncheon must appear to people accustomed to those of Green- sells!" " But surely those who come from the Marquis of Heriford's to such a place as this, do not expect to find exactly what they leave behind?" argued Maria. " Neither are they intitled to expect, in a gentleman's house, a sandwich -tray that would not be allowed to appear on any other person's second table !" rejoined her cousin. " But the question is not what they expect, but what they are to find ; and I count upon your kindness, Maria, to assist me to the utmost in parrying so frightful a show-up. " Maria Brenton promised ; and again received a shallow compli- ment on her good-nauire. " Nothing but the dread of all they might discover if they came here during my absence," said he, "determined me to undergo the martyrdom of a visit to my father during harvest time. But it was necessary to make a few preparat'ons. It was necessary to prepare the way. So here I am !" continued he, with a self-suflicient smile, as if demanding a compliment of his prudence. " But surely," pleaded Maria, again with more logic than was altogether satisfactory to her cousin; "surely there is no great probability that visitors staying with Lord Heriford, who never takes notice of my uncle except during the county elections, should suddenly cross the country to Easton, where there is nothing to be seen ? " Charles Harrington looked earnestly into the inquiring face THE DfeBDTANTE. 23 turned towards him, beforo lie attempted to reply ; perhaps to ascertain whether Maria's question wore a bond fide one; perhaps to satisfy himself how far she was to be trusted. " Mailland is an old acquaintance of mine," said he at length; "and 1 have seen a great deal lately ol his sister. It is but natural, therefore, that, knowing our fiimily place to be within a few miles* distance, they should make some excuse or other for coming over to sec what we are like.' The words "family place" applied to so small a residence as Easton Hoo, might have induced a less guileless girl than Maria to suspect that her cousin had been talking somewhat over-largcly, in London, of his future possessions. But the real family place df the Barringtons, Hexholm Manor, an ancient seat upon the Tees, having, thanks to the follies of its present representative, passed into the hands of strangers, — so far from surmising that her cousin htid been unduly magnifying his consequence, she felt only fnr his mortification at having to exhibit so poor an establishment to his friends. To her indeed, it appeared almost impossible, that persons ho- noured with the friendship and preference of Charles Barrington, should care for his being landless or houseless; and when, after signifying that the Marquis and Marchioness of Heriford would be "down" in a day or two, and the large party they were expecting arrive in the course of the ensuing week, he again alluded to the cracked china and shabby decanters that usually figured on his father's table, Maria could not forbear reverting, with a faint smile, to the Lenten entertainment of the Master of Ravenswood. "You must persuade this beautiful Miss Mai tland," said she, " to be as indulgent as Lucy Ashton." For a moment, the brow of her cousin became clouded. Ac- customed to the persiflage of fashionable society, he suspected that he was laughed at ; and Maria was forced to defend herself from an imputation which appeared to tier very much like a charge of high treason. "Yet you cannot but perceive," said he, "that this cursed mousetrap of ours, — a farm-house in all but comfort, is somewhat different from the picturesque dignities of Wolfscrag. To me, the Hoo is a source of such unfeigned disgust, that I often regret it does not lie near some manufacturing town to run a chance of being burnt by the Chartists !" He failed, however, in inducing Maria to join in abuse of Easton. " She had been too happy there, — she had received too much kindness from her aunt — to find fault with the place." Conscious of the limited extent of the kinclmss for which she was thus grateful, Charles Barrington experiencod a passing qualm of conscience at his own want of sensibility. 24 THE DtBUTANTE. "What I want you to do I'or me, Alaria," resumed he, after producing considerable confusion in her task by officious attempts to afford her assistance, " is, that you will offer, as a present from yourself to my mother, a few things I have ordered down from town, which the squire would be furious if he thought me extra- vagant enough to have purchased." " But will he be less angry with weT inquired Miss Brenton. " My uncle knows the exact amount of means at my disposal, (not a sixth part of yours I) and you saw how much he was displeased, last night, at my having even a wax-candle in my possession." " Positively my father grows more and more curmudgeonly, and more morose every day I" cried Charles, shrugging his shoul- ders. " There is no living with him ! Every trace of a gentleman is becoming effaced from his nature ; he who was once, they say, one of the best dressed and most fashionable men about town ! " " Extremes meet, you know. My uncle is making atonement for early extravagance. Some day or other, you may, perhaps, feel in- clined to do the same." " If 1 were only secure of the means of 'early extravagance,' 1 would be conlent to take my chance," retorted Charles. " My years of peace and plenty are drawing fast to a close; and, should my mother adhere to her unkind determination not to apply for an extension of my uncle's allowance, by Jove, I shall have nothing left for it but to go and fight against the Bedoweens, or throw myself into La Trappel"' " But on what plea could she ask for it! " quietly remonstrated his cousin. " The allowance was expressly granted to secure you an education such as would enable you to work your way to inde- pendence; and, from all I have heard of my uncle Humphrey, I should think him very unlikely to part with his money, except on sufficient grounds." " And what better grounds would you have,*' interrupted Charles, with indignation, " than redeeming his only nephew from leading the life of a snob? Of what use the excellent con- nexions I have formed, if I am to buiy myself in chambers for the next twenty years, with an occasional excursion to Easton, by way of recreation ?" " As you did not form those connexions by his wish or desjre — " Miss Brenton was beginning — " My dear Maria," interrupted her cousin, " spare mo the rehearsal of next Sunday's afternoon sermon I 1 am aware that you dined yesterday at the Vicarage. But if you want me to con- sider you the same kind, scrxircable little cousin I have always found you, give me your helj)ing hand, without adding a touch of the pulpit. — Had I wanted a lecture, I would have consulted my mother. " THE DfiBUTANTE. 25 MaiMa lookod up from her task and smiled, as she was expected to do; and havini; ascertained that the presents of which she was required to pass for the donatrix, consisted of a pretty hnicheon service of china and glass, of no alarming cost, she agreed to allow her uncle to be misled, (her uncle, who, right or wrong, found something to blame in her actions,) provided no deceit were prac- tised on his mother. " We have no right to deceive her, — we have no right to distrust herr said Miss Brenton. " Still, just now,'' hesitated the less candid Charles, " when I am about to persuade her to write to Madras, any thing like extra- vagance on my part might dispose her against the commission." " My aunt is not easily disposed against a wish or project of yours,'' replied Maria, frankly. " Better rely implicitly on her affection." And, on finding that. no co-operation was to be expected, unless his mother were taken into their counsels, the deceiver was forced to comply. As Maria had anticipated, a few gentle words of reprehension from Mrs. Barrington sufficed to express her sense of annoyance at the threatened visit. From her son's preparations, she inferred that the riding parly from Grcensells to Easton, was a preconcerted thing; and was vexed, that, in the levity of his heart, he should have exposed her to the mortification of contact with an order of society from which she had receded from the moment the exposure of her husband's distresses rendered it impossible to maintain among them a becoming independence of position. Of noble descent, a slight tincture of the pride which had been the original sin of her gentle nature, still rendered her sensitive to the vexation of being looked down upon by those of whom she felt herself the equal. Her quiet lesson at an end, however, and her promise given to assist in making the best of an untoward business, the thing that struck her most was the earnest kindness with which .Maria hastened, under Charles's directions, to set the house in order ; obtaining assistance, without her uncle's knowledge, for the flower- garden, which in harvest time was apt to be neglected ; and lending her own aid in arranging the flower-beds near the house, and bringing with her own hands the choicest plants from the little green-house to ornament the porch, while the gravel walks were creaking under the roller, and the mower stood whetting his scythe. All this passed unobserved of Charles, who lay sleeping the sleep of the sluggard, while his more active cousin was astir in the morning dew. During his visits to the Hoo, indeed, she was accustomed to forestall her usual hour of rising ; that she might 26 THE D£BUTANTE. enjoy her customary morning round of her favourite shrubberies, without danger ofmcoLing him in her wanderings, so as to incur her uncle's displeasure. Reared in the country, having scarcely quilled Easton for a day since she entered her fifteenth year, Maria's attachment to the spot was greater than to her birth-place. She knew every tree, every plant, every green thing wilhin the boun- daries of the place. The dogs and horses were as familiar friends ; the cottages and hovels, objects of interest. The changes wrought by the seasons u|)on those simple objects afforded the sole inci- dents of her life ; as a severe reprimand from her uncle, or the blooming of one of her favourite plants, constituted its light and shade. A nature originally harmless, and thus wholesomely nourished, affords no ground for the growth of evil thoughts or graceless feelings; and the kindness and generosity with which she endea- voured to accomplish her cousin Charles's wishes, in order to welcome to his father's roof a person whom, her jealous con- sciousness apprized her, was in possession of the shallow heart in whose mere shadow she would have been content to live, was little short of angelic. Easton Hoo, the home so loved by Maria, and so disparagingly thought of by Charles, was, nevertheless, a spot which strangers seldori visited without interest. To those who had nothing to apprehend from the draughts of wintry wind that swept the house through the ill-htling casements of its many-gabled frontage, there was something pictuiesque and striking in the aspect of the old place; which, after falling from its high estate of manor-house into a farm, and sufficing for that purpose so long as the Harringtons kept possession of their grander residence at Hexholm, had been promoted anew, after their downfal, to the honours of a gentleman's residence. But the mere re-painting and re-papering of the house, though sufficient to impart an air of cleanliness to the dilapidated walls, had done nothing towards its reparation. The rain penetrated into all the upper bed-rooms; and, though the high oaken mantel- pieces of the sitting-rooms had been re-varnished, the wind howled not the less fearfully at Christmas in their huge chimneys. The unsightly floors of the inhabited rooms were concealed, indeed, by shabby carpets; but the creaking, crooked staircases exhibited their grim and worm-eaten texture; and the long passages, of varying level, their damp and mildewed walls. While serving as a farmer's granary, the grange had become infested with rats and mice; and in the mouldering wainscot of the bed-rooms, the deathwatch kept up a perpetual clicking, till its monotony lost the evil influence of an omen. The house was, in short, such as a thriv- ing landlord razes to the "round as untenantable,- and is called a THE d£butante. 27 Goth for his pains, by all who ever took pencil in hand or a page of poetry to their heart. In the estimation of the young squire, the sort of musty atmo- sphere that prevails in such oul-worii tenements was not more in- compatible with the perfumes exhaling I'rom his dressing-box, than the customs of his father's house with his habits of life. His ambi- tious were unluckily formed on a scale as little suited to the mode- rate scale of his future fortunes, as to ihc still narrower frame of his father's domestic economy. The rare flowers, reared with such care and difficulty by his cousin, found no favour in his sight, because they had not sprung as if spontaneously to perfection, under the in- visible art of a head gardener ; and when, after all poor iMaria's sun- burnings and heartaches, the place had been put in complete order to welcome his friends, swept and garnished and watered, and adorned with all the blossoms her parterres could afford, till it looked as if got up for a honeymoon, or to sit for its |)ortrait as the vignette of a fashionable annual, all that Charles could tind to say in compensation of her cares was, — " What onearih will Mail- land and his sister think of such a wretched old rat-hole I— Rather live in the poorest London lodging for the remainder of my days, than reside in such a kill-joy of a place." Poor Maria was sorely disappointed. She had expected some- thing better. She had expected something kinder. But she trusted the tears in her eyes were not very apparent when she sat down to her sewing. Her hands trembled, indeed, almost too much to work, from the heavy loads she had been lil'ling. But as her cousin voted it too hot to go out without risk of a coiqj de soleil, and com- plained bitterly of having been left alone, with nothing and no one to amuse him, while she was fulfilling the tasks undertaken for his good pleasure, she had no choice but to pretend to find occu- pation with her needle, while gratifying the idle man by answers to his purposeless questions, or questions to which he deigned to offer no reply. Blind as she was to the faults of one whom she loved as the nearest and dearest thing that remained fur her to love, — whom she loved, because, where once that feeling has taken root from childhood, we cease to argue with ourselves concerning the merits of its object, — whom she loved, because she would as soon have thought of questioning the mercy of Providence, as the goodness of the son of her kind aunt,— blind as she was to his faults, it struck Maria as a little strange that Charles should have derived so little advantage from his season in town. In reply to her in- quiries abuul the great men to whom he had probably sought an inlroduclion, — the political circles to which he must have obtained access,— the excellent music he must have heard,— the fine pic- tures he must have seen, it startled her to be told, that " all that 28 THE DEBUTANTE. sort of thing was a bore! " and that " people went to the Opera to talk, and to exhibitions to show themselves." To be otherwise than mortified at finding him thus flighty, was impossible. But nothing was easier than to attribute his being " a little spoiled " to the flattery of the world. And whatever his defects, he was still her childhood's companion, her dear, hand- some, clever cousin ; whose letters, during his absence, w^ere looked for with such a throbbing heart by his idolizing mother; the only person of her own age who had ever fallen within reach of the sympathies of her kindly nature. ^' On s'attacfie jmt ses bienf aits, '" sdiys a discerning French writer; and so many a long year had she done him cousinly service, and taken his faults and their evil consequences upon herself, that she could not leave ofl' loving him because he was less worthy than she could desire. " For goodness' sake, Maria, contrive to have fresh muslin cur- tains up in the drawing-room to-morrow. The new ones have been in the house since yesterday, and might surely have been finished by this time," was an injunction which she accepted as a proof of his favour and confidence , and when he reproached her that a table-cover which she had sat up the greater part of the two last nights to complete, could not be available for a day or two, tears stood in her eyes that she had not been more diligent. Could she have surmised, indeed, that her cousin would return home intent only upon the embellishment of Easlon, no exertion should have been spared to second his wishes. But she was accus- tomed to find the aspect of the place uncared for, as her own ; — an object of interest to no mortal breathing, except for the use and service to which it could be converted ; and to be obliged to expend all her little coquetries of adornment upon what, in her eyes, pos- sessed so much intrinsic charm, merely that a stranger might not find it too disgusting, taxed to the utmost her untirable self- devotion. Fortunately for Maria, her uncle's attention was so absorbed by his harvest, that the transposition of the old Chelsea vases from the china closet, and the renewal of the covers of his arm-chairs, excited no notice. It was not till the embroidered table-cover made its appearance that he was suddenly tempted to exclaim. " Who in the world has been taking so much trouble to make the house uncomfortable? I hate gimcrack rooms! It is one of the comforts of living out of the way of fine people, that one is able to have chairs and tables for use, and not for show. The Chalkneys of Pountney Hill, are afraid to light a fire in their polished steel grate. Mine, thank Heaven, can have a kettle boiled on it, and none the worse ! " While his son turned away, ineffably disgusted, Maria was pre- maturely congratulating herself on having escaped a reprimand. THE DfiBUTANTE. 29 "What can have become of the green baize belonging t<» the round table ?" continued he ; "and tvho took the hbeity of putting that stupid piece of ])alch\vork in its place ?" " It is Maria's work," interrupted his son, "and beautifully done. My friend, Lord Henry, brought some Greek caps and tobacco pouches from Constantinople, embroidered in the same style, but not halt so neatly." "Smoking caps and tobacco pouches I" reiterated Mr. Bar- rington, affecting to whistle. "In that case, you can't do better than take the red rag off the table yonder, and convert it to the same important use ; for it shan't stay here, I promise you, making the curtains and carpets look shabby I" "They do not look very shabby, considering they have been more that ten years in constant use," said his wife, as if it were the furniture he was attacking. • • " If they have done well enough for use for ten years past, they are likely enough to do so for ten years to come !" was his peevish retort. "I have difficulty enough in making two ends meet, madam, without taxing myself to new furnish Easton. My house is quite good enough for people of my modest means. If Miss Brenton has a taste for grander doings, I trust ^Ir. Cornbury's establishment will prove more satisfactory." Maria coloured to the roots of her hair, but said not a woi-d. " I am only afraid,'' continued he, "that she may find it difficult to gratify her extravagant fancies out of an income which, even if the whole of it, instead of half, had been claimed, as it ought to have been, for her maintenance, would have been wholly inade- quate to her cost." " Miss Brenton was kind enough to place that handsome cover on the table, "interrupted his son, conscious of his own unfairness in sittiug by to hear the poor girl thus cruelly attacked, "in order to do honour to some fine engravings I have brought down with me, and which I was afraid of hazarding on the old baize." " Engravings ?" — sneered his father. " You are setting up for a (litedaiite, then, among other fooleries? As no one knows bettei- than I do the cost of such a pretension, Charles, (particularly when, as in your case, attended with complete ignorance of the arts )" " My dear father, believe me, I have not the smallest pretension of the kind," interrupted his son, dealing with a temper of which the storms were not to be trifled with. " The prints in question, which are after the Heriford collection, were presented to me by the marchioness." " If they are of any value, why not have them bound up?" in- quired Mr. Barrington, somewhat mollified. " Engravings left to he about are sure to get damaged." so THE I)£IJUTA.\TE. " They appeared in numbers, of which a few still remain un- published. I am keeping them till the set is complete," said Charles. *' So that if my lady lakes a fit of caprice, and sends you to Co- ventry, in order to assign any value to the set, you will have to throw away Heaven knows how much money, to purchase the remainder?" — " 1 am not afraid that Lady Heriford will grudge me one of the many sets for which she was forced to subscribe," persisted Charles, with a smile. "Out of sight, out of mind! — The Hcrifords are the most whimsical people in the world. NoLwiihslanding the fine property they possess in this county, they have not set foot in it these five years." " Nearer six," added Mrs. Harrington, in a low voice. " Six, is it? I don't exactly recollect. I suppose I am not called upon to swear to the comings and goings of people, who, in the little I had to do with them, ti-ealed me with the basest ingrati- tude!" Impossible for Maria to repress a glance of sympathy towards her cousin ; but Charles was a man of expedients, and not easily cast down. " Perhaps, sir," said he, addressing his father more respectfully than was his wont, " the marquis may have become alive to his fault ; for nothing can exceed the kindness with which I have been recently received by the family." " No doubt ! A general election is coming on. His lordship has suddenly called to niind, not only that there exists such a county as Buckinghamshire, but that the landowners, snobs though they be, may as well be conciliated." "Lord Heriford never mentioned yours or my mother's name to me except wilh the utmost respect," said Charles, in an extenu- ating tone. " I should think not, — as he would otherwise, I trust, have in- curred the risk of a hard blow in return for his hard word. But it is not the less sure that he despises me as much as I dislike him. Not much consequence to either, considering how far our orbits lie asunder I" — " Slill, now that there are young people in both families," argued his son, "there exists the greater chance of contact, and — " " Contact?— Not by rmj act or deed, I promise you !" cried Mr. Barrington, growing slill more angry on finding his son assert an opinion of his own. " No mortal power would get me across the threshold of Grecnsells; and there is luckily snjall chance that Lord Heriford will take it into his head to cross mine ; for you may THE DfeBUTANTE. 31 depend upon it I should spare no pains to prevent his repeating the visit." Somewhat alarmed by this threat, the young man muttered a few incoherent phrases about the " forms of society," and "old English hospitality." . " I am somewhat too old a bird, (Charles Barrington, to be caught by claptrap!" sneered his father in reply. "Old English hospitality carries a good sound. But I will thank you to tell me how many grains of it enter into the intercourse between a peer of the realm with a place at court and thirty thousand a year, and such of his shabby country peighbours as cannot assist him in preserving his game or outlawing his poor? 1 am a brokendown man, Charles; a man who, but for the help of others, could not have afforded you the education of a gentleman ; a man who has a hard matter to shuffle through the year and look his Christmas bills in the face. But I have just sense enough to know that one so situated, can't keep itoo far out of the way of a grandee like Lord Heriford. 1 cut my coat according to my cloth ; and it needs no conjuror to discover that my cloth will not bear measuring by the ell of a marquis." The London dandy all but groaned at this matter-of-fact expo- sition of the case. He hazarded, however, one more attempt to mollify his father. " Nothing can be more just than your theory, Sir," said he, " but you have a little misconceived the character of the Herilords. Their house is one of the pleasantest in London ; — open to people of all parties, — of all conditions." "London!" interrupted the irritable father : "■ivho talks about London? — What has London to do with it? — In London, people are accepted as what they pretend to be. In London, people are judged by the surface. His lordship saw in you, for instance, a fine-spoken, mealy-mouthed chap, as well dressed as his own sons' — (in spite of his anxieties, Charles Barrington, recalling to mind the person of the Earl of Clandon, could not refrain from a supercilious smile,) — " educated at the same school, the same college ; and, having too much on his hands of higher interest to be at the trouble of calculating how much a-year less than your grandfather you were likely to inherit at my death, admitted you into his liiled mob. But at Creensells the case is dillerent. There, the old aristocrat will be at leisure to consider your claims to be- come his guest; or rather how much dirt he has a right to cram down your throat with every dinner he gives you !" Charles Barrington's face flushed crimson. It was difficult to hear this, even from his father. " Understand, therefore, once and for all," continued the frac- tious man, perceiving that be was silenced, " that the sooner you 32 THE DfiBUTANTE. break ofl' this foolish acquaintance the better ; and that all the copies of the Heriford gallery extant, will not purchase my vote and interest for the county of Bucks." CHAPTER IV Loves she? She loves not I— She hath never loved. Her walk is easy,— her discourse is neat ; She sighelh not,— her smile hath mirth in it. Her gaze is firm, untroubled, cloudless, cold, No fear makes pale her cheek. Ko hopeless pain Lies there,— nor hope, half-hidden. No sweet trouble Stains it with beauty, like the rose's leaf. -^ I'ltocTor.. " Sorely, Charles," faltered Miss Brenton, when she recovered her breath after the concussion produced by her uncle's slamming the door, when, at the close of his peroration he qiiiUed the room, — a concussion that served to set the dust in motion irom all the crevices of the old wainscoting, and caused all the furniture in the room to jar, — " .swre/y it would have been better to tell him the whole truth, at once !" " In order to drive him into a tit of passion that must have pro- duced some odious extremity?" — " My uncle cannot be more determined than he is. Perhaps if he found the visit you anticipate a settled thing, the startle of such an event might bring him to reason. At all events, be would be prepared to offer a proper welcome to your friends. Believe me, perfect openness is always the best." "With perfectly open people. But it does not do to expose one's palm to those Vvhose fists are as close as wax. ^'o, no, Maria I I must act in this instance, with my father, as I always do ; keep my game to myself, and linesse for the odd trick. But you quite mistake me in fancying that I have the smallest desire io promo fr the visit in question. I only wish tfo be on the spot that 1 may be able to palliate the evil." Maria was puzzled. If she did not appi'ove the use of subterfuges between father and son, still less did she understand the advantage of manoeuvring with the friends of his choice, or the object of his allections ; and lucky was it perhaps for her candour that Mrs. Bar- lington, who had followed her usual practice of retreat when she saw her husband's temper on edge, at this moment re-entered the room. A glance from Charles towards Miss Brenton implied that the subject was sacred. l']ven his mother was not to be fully admitted into the mystery of his connexion with Creenscllsl It was perhaps to divert h(!r attention from the forbidden topic, THE DfiBLTANTE. 33 that Charles Barringlon, for the first time since; his arrival at home, began to talk of London otherwise than in relation to his selfish pleasures ; and from the nature of her aunt's inquiries concerning persons and ihinijs, Maria was astonished to perceive how large a share Mrs. Barringlon had formerly laken in the pleasures of the metropolis. So complete was the self-adaptation of the excellent wife to her altered fortunes, — so thoroughly had she appeared to efface from her mind all memory of more prosperous days, — that it was only from her careless inquiry concerning the present tenant of a certain box at the Opera, with which she interrupted her son's account of the brilliancy of one of the royal visits, that Charles was apprized of its having been once her own. " Did you see much of the Coylsfields?" said she, when her son was describing the difficulty of reconciling the dinner-parlies of the fashionable world wilh the riding hour of the Park. " Not so much as they seemed to wish ; for Lord Coylsfield, ]n spite of his parliamentary duties, which have been pretty urgent this session, called upon me several times. They do not see ranch com- pany, I fancy ; but I was twice asked to dinner." " You did dine wilh them then I" " No; his invitations were for Saturdays, when there are always pleasanler engagements in hand than a humdrum party with people like the Coylsfields ; where one meets a set of long-headed, long-winded quizzes, who expect one to sit out dessert and coffee, listening to tlaeir ex cathedra debating, instead of getting off to the Opera." " 1 am sorry you refused, however," said Mrs. Barringlon ; " for in my letter, I made their attentions to you, during your stay in town, an important object." " Your letter? — What letter? — You gave me no letter to them. You only desired me to leave a card in St. James's Square, as at twenty other houses." '' I wrote previously to Lady Coylsfield to introduce you to her kindness." " And why not give me the letter to deliver in person? [ could then have ascertained whether Lady Alicia de Capell's account were correct, that the Coylsfields are the slowest coaches on the road I" said Charles, betraying the origin of his remissness in St. James's Square. " Your father might have been displeased at my appearing to solicit a renewal of their kindness." " By the way — I now remember your telling me that the Coyls- fields were people you had long lost sight of." " As my trustee, Lord Coylsfield had some sort of misunder- standing with your father, at the time of his difficulties." " Trustee of your settlements? Why, you must have known hirn 3 34 THE DEBUTANTE. intimately ! You must have known him, my dear mother, previous to your marriage ?" "i thought you were aware of his being my cousin," replied Mrs. Bairinglon in a low voice. " Your lather is not fond of having the connexion alluded to." '* Because it happens to be the only one we possess that does us honour, or is calculated to do me service '" — said Charles with acrimony. "Because Mr. Barrington considers it at variance with our altered habits of life." " As if relationship had a right to cavil at habits of any kind. But surely, mother, yow might have explained all this to me pre- vious to my visit to town." " I was uncertain how my overtures of reconciliation would be received. Lady Coylsfield did not answer my letter; and 1 was willing to spare you the mortification that might possibly arise from being disowned by such near relations." " By which reserve, I have lost every advantage that was to be derived from their notice I But what is their exact degree of rela- tionship?" demanded Chailes, pushing, in his eagerness, his arm- chair closer to the work-table where the two ladies were sitting. " You?- maiden name was Tarlelon, mother, and Lord Coylsfield's, if I remember, is Mervyn?" " My mother's name was Mervyn. My mother was only daughter to the fourth lord." "The Honourable Mrs. Tarleton then?" cried Charles, with brightened and brightening countenance. ' ' The Honourable Mrs. TarleLon. But she died so young, that I scarcely remember her; and my father soon married again." "Yes, the admiral's second choice is unluckily still extant, to attest its badness; for I believe you come in for something consi- derable when her jointure falls in?" *' Four hundred a-year. But Mrs. Tarleton is only ten years older than myself." " Lord Coylsfield, then, is literally your first cousin I" resumed Charles. " And wiih^iuch good blood in your veins, you have ac- tually gone on submitting to take the lowest place among the vulgar squires' wives of this odious neighbourhood?" — • "My mother's rank entitled me to no precedence," replied Mrs. Barrington; "and among persons of our class, my dear Charles, how little difference exists between the first place and the last! But let me beg of you to make no allusion to the Coylsfickis in pre- sence of your father. He never liked them ; and would be irritated at the idea that you attached much importance to the connexion. " As she sat silently over her work, Maria could not forbear a heavy sigh at hearing of further necessity for family dissimulation. THE DfeBUTAlNTE. S5 It was not the least of the evils arising Jroni her uncle's moroso temper, that hedeterioralccUhe sincerity of all who approached hinri. The lapse of a few days afforded new grounds of vexation. Her cousin, who by Avay of rewarding their ready compliance with his projects, was at unusual pains to render himself agreeable ; propos- ing eveningwalks to his mother, or reading to them, while they sat at work in ihe heat of the day, the few new books he had brought down from town, gradually relaxed in his attentions. iVot de- signedly. He evidently did not intend to be less civil; but he was growing too uneasy within himself to take heed of the comfort of others. From the date of the arrival of the Heriford family at Creeusells, or rather from Lhal of the arrival of their ex|)Octed guests, his ears and eyes became constantly on the alert. When the hour for the cross-post, passed without bringing letters, the flush of terror with which he had beeii watching fur its arrival subsided in a mo- ment, to leave him listless for the remainder of the dav. Every unusual sound in the house startled and displeased him ; and more than once, the ringing of the cracked old door-bell caused him to turn as pale as dealh. If they should after all discover his being in the country! If they should come at last! Even his father's sneers at the indolence of London fine gentlemen did not rouse him to habits of exertion. Morning after morning, even when the weather was cool and inviting, was idled away at home. He seemed airaid of quitting the house till all chance of visitors was over; oral the utmost, stiolled along a green lane which formed the ridgeway of a hill predominating over the Hoo, and commanding a view of the high road, so that no one could approach unnoticed. " Charles is getting lazier than ever," was Mr. Barrington's bitter comment on all this to his wife. " I never saw a more complete sluggard. How he is ever to attain the active habits of a professional man, would be hard to say. Half his inertness, however, may belaid at Maria's door. The mean obsequiousness with which she does his errands, and the cunning with which she keeps him dawdl- ing after her while she pretends to sit stitching, as though for her daily bread, is truly oH'ensive. " " Surely there is no object just now to entice him out in the heat of the day?" pleaded his mother. " This is the Hrst time Charles has been at Easton since he grew up, at a season when there was no sporting to occupy his mornings."' " Which you think a sufticient reason for devoting them to thai languishing girl I But as 1 don't happen to be of your opinion, madam, I will thank you to tell her that so long as her cousin is lounging about the house, her own room is the fittest place to spend the afternoon. She has tricked it out fine enough for a princess; and so much cost and trouble should not be thrown away." 36 THE DEBUTANTE. The hint to this ettecl, which was given with a varying complexion and tremulous voice by her aunt, was in facta reUef to Miss Bren- ton. — Of her own accord, she would not have presumed to with- draw herself from Charles's society, so long as he seemed in want of companionship. But it was a comfort to be privileged lo abjure the sight of his lestless movements, and escape his fretful injustice . Originating in any other cause, it would have been borne with her usual submission. But it was hard to see him thus stimulated from his customary apathy, only because dreading the arrival of Miss Maitland. One showery afternoon, however, which in spite of divers mes- sages from her cousin she had persisted in passing in her own room, the sudden appearance of a rainbow having afforded enfranchise- ment to all parties, she saw from her window her uncle shuffle in clogs into his farm-yard, which was in the rear of the house; and a few minutes afterwards, the gentle voice of Mrs. Barrington an- nounced that she and Charles were going to walk as far as the Vicarage. " Your cousin has not called on the Forsyths since be arrived," said she. And Maria, who understood all this to indicate that she was no longer a prisoner, and might come and enjoy her books and work in the drawing-room, was thankful for the attention. As she descended the creaking old staircase, the delicious summer breeze, which, after so close a morning the hall-door had been left open to admit, so refreshed her senses, that for a moment she stood transfixed within the porch, feasting her eyes upon the grass, still glittering with a thousand raindrops, and inhaling the fragrance of the jessamine that nearly covered the garden front of the house ; while the warbling of a thousand birds seemed to har- binger the return of tine weather. The weariness of her young heart gave way at once before the pleasantness of the hour. Blue skies above and sunshine on the earth sufficed at any moment to make her forget that human beings could be selfish or cousins unkind. On entering the drawing-room, she set about her usual tasks with unusual glee ;-rcarefully removed the snippings from under her aunt's work-table, watered a favourite fuchsia that stood in the embayment of the old wiudow, and replaced on the book-shelf the volume which Charles had been reading to his mother; noi. perhaps, without glancing at the passage in Crabbe's Tales, where his mark announced him to have left off. So engrossed was she in her good offices, that it was not till a scuffling of feet in the hall, and the coarse voice of the country footman responding to some person unknown, announced the door-bell to have been rung, — that she was aware of visitors being at hand. THF. DfeBUTANTE. '^7 " Is Mr. Barrington at home?'' was a question naturally answered by the intelligence thai, though not at home, " he could be fetched in a minnit, being only in the fairm-yaird." " What shall we do"? " demanded the unseen visitor lo his com- panion or companions. " Dismount, or return?" " Return? afier all the trouble we have taken, and without so much as a glass of sherry to prevent our catching cold after being wet to the skin?" cried the individual addressed. And before Maria had time to take cognizance of the strangers from the drawing-room window, she heard orders to fetch Mr. Bar- rington issued in a somewhat peremptory tone to the footman; who, previous to going in search of his master, threw open the drawing-room door, Justin time to exhibit her still standing beside the fuchsia, with a decanter of water in her hand, to two ladies in riding habits, who entered the room with laughing self-possession. Their sole escort was a dull, surly-looking young man; who, till he caught sight of her, dit not remove his hat from his head. No mistaking the dreaded party from Greensells. Already, Miss Brenton, understanding for whom the visit was intended, was about to apologize for her cousin's absence, and propose sending for him to the Vicarage, in case his friends could wait for his return; when the least well-looking of the young ladies advanced graciously towards her with explanations of her own. " 1 know not how to apologize for this intrusion," said she, with highbred mmi-froid, " unless by announcing myself as a delegate from my mother, Lady Heriford, lo Mrs. Barrington, with whom she had formerly the pleasure of being acquainted, and whom we hoped to find at home. I conclude 1 am addressing her daughter^" " Her niece," replied Maria, with an embarrassed blush ; not from finding herself for the first lime in company with great ladies ; but because, sympathising in the vexation of her cousin Charles at finding his anticipations so disagreeably verified. While her guests were accepting the seats she hastened 'o ofter, she was able to steal a glance at the Eleanor Maitland of whose charms she had directly and indirectly heard so much. But the mirth that brightened the young lady's face was so manifestly of a satirical nature, that it was diflficult to find more to applaud than the brilliancy of her complexion, and deep azure of her eyes. As to the cavalier by whom they were accompanied, and whom, on hearing him addressed by one or other of his fair companions, as "brother," she concluded to be Sir Wolseley Maitland, he took neither part in their conversation nor share in their move- ments : no uncommon thing with young EngHshmen, who pretend to excuse their dulnessin amorning visit, by calling themselves shy. A more practised eye than thai of Maria might have detected the contemptuous nature of the glances exchanged between the ladies 33 THE DEBUTANTE. after a scrutinizing examination of the objects around them, while listening to her kindly expressions of a hope that they had found shelter from the recent showers, on their way across the country. But, on hospitable thoughts intent, and wholly occupied by her previous promises to her cousin, her mind M^as harassed between the desire to offer the refreshment of which she had heard her guest announce themselves in need ; and the dread lest, as she could not, with propriety, leave them, to superintend the prepara- tions for luncheon, something should be presented calculated to offend the nicety of Charles and his friends. But for the dread of her uncle's threatened incivility, she would have almost longed for his arrival, to set her at liberty. Meanwhile, $he was forced to listen to Lady Alicia de Capell's expression of the Marchioness's wish, that, as the stay of the family at Greensells was to be so short, Mr. and Mrs. Barrington would dispense with the ceremony of a mutual exchange of morning visits, and dine and sleep at Greensells, with their son, the following day. Before Maria had stammered her acknowledgments for the graciousness with which Lady Alicia added that her mother was at present unaware of their good fortune in the hope of so agreeable an addition to their party, Mr. Barrington, hot and discomposed, shuffled into the room, to make his uncouth bow to the silent young man, and listen to a repetition of the invitation. "My servant having understood that Sir Wolseley Maitland and his fiiends had waited upon me rather than my son, unluckily brought him in search of me to the stable-yard," said he. Then, referring the question to the decision of his wife, as plausibly as though she had a voice in any matter in which he was concerned, "but being bent upon seeing Charles," added he, "Sir Wolseley has gone on as far as the Vicarage, and Mrs. Barrington will doubt- less accompany them back, and answer for herself." Never before had poor Maria seen her uncle so deferential. In- stead of the rudeness he had all but threatened, his address was that of Barrington of Hexholm, rather than of Barrington of the Hpo. And yet, in the eyes of the two fair visitors, his overheated face, drooping and discoloured shirt collar, and dirty plaid jacket, afforded no indication that he had ever been more than a petty squire, who deserved the stocks for wiping his forehead with a coloured cotton handkerchief, while addressing one of the finest ladies in the land. Poor Charles I The worst he had anticipated was come to pass. The naked iruth of Easton lay bare, in all its unsighlliness, before \he fastidious eyes of Miss Maitland ; and Maria could almost have counted the moments by the throbbing in her temples while anxiously awaiting the first indication of her cousin's return, to ©nablc her to escape from the sight of his distress. THE DEBUTANTE. 39 It was by the gentle well-bred Mrs. Barrington, however, who preceded her son, that the happy change was elVected which con- verted the awkward group into a sociable circle. With the good breeding which naturally cmanatos from good sense and good-na- ture, Mrs. Barrington intioduced herself to her young guests; and provided so promptly for their comfort and refreshment, that so far from persisting in their consciousness of flighty superiority, both Lady Alicia and Miss Mailland were induced to exert them- selves to conciliate the simply-dressed, but ladylike woman, who was doing the honours of a house so much beneath their expecta- tions of Ciiarles Barrington's " family jilace," Accepting her otfers with thanks, Lady Alicia endeavoured to obtain in return her ac- ceptance of the olive branch extended by her parents. But, alas I the cheerfulness of their pleasing hostess subsided the moment a project of any kind was submitted to her decision. The smiles faded from her face, as she was under the necessity of submitting the matter to Mr. Barrington. Lady Alicia, however, was now sufficiently interested, both in the wife and cousin of their London friend, to desire in earnest, and for their sakes, a visit previously projected in the family with the view of obtaining some insight into the connexions of Eleanor Maitland's favourite partner. Turning towards the moist, cross squire, who had instinctively resumed his domestic face of opposi- tion the moment Mrs. Barrington entered the room, she renewed the invitations to him in terms so nearly amounting to blandish- ment, that refusal was impossible. To Maria's amazement, all was soon settled. They were to go. They were to reach Greensells for dressing-time the following day. Lady Alicia hinted something about a project for fishing, next morning, one of the extensive ponds which constituted the charac- terising leature of (he place. But, in answer to this, Mr. Barring- ton cited the important fact that it was market-day at Aylesbury ; an event to which he seemed to think even Marquises must be amenable. The explanation had hardly ended, and Mrs. Barrington was doing the shamefaced honours of a tray, containing a plate of sand- wiches, another of very stale biscuits, with a modest allotment of strawberries, pals of butter, and some preserved apricots, to make out the customary Five nothings on five plates of delft, which completed the limits of Easton hosi>itality, accompanied by a bottle of Marsala, heroically labelled with its own name lest it should be supposed to atfect the alias of sherry; when the door was thrown open by a showy -looking young man, dressed in the extreme of fashion, though of the slang oi' sporf- !iO THE OftBUTANTE. iiig kind, who entreated Charles Barrington ^by whom he was followed into the room with the air of a pointer that has re- ceived recent casligation, or a schoolboy caught birdnesting by his usher,) to present him to his family; but who, so far from seeming 10 stand in need of introduction, was apparently disposed to do the honours of Easton to the Barringtons. '' We have been seeing the horses looked to, my dear sir," said he, coolly addressing Mr. Barrington, whose acquaintance he had previously made. " As you were good enough to warn me that your coachman was not accustomed to deal with any thing better than I saw in your stables, as soon as I found my friend Charles, we thought it better to be sure that Lady Alicia's mare, (the great- est beauty in England, if you will be at the trouble of looking at her when she comes round) was properly attended to. — Your ladyship need be under no anxiety on Berengaria's account," continued he, in an audible aside ; " I have saved her out of the hands of the Philistines." Lady Alicia, shamed by the pleasing manner of Mrs. Barrington out of the impertinence which she had both sanctioned and sug- gested as they approached the house, and detected the deficiencies of the establishment, endeavoured to silence Sir Wolseley by ex- pressive frowns; while Charles Barrington, with lips pale from emotion, was endeavouring to engage the attention of Eleanor by inquiries touching their long ride, and the expression of his anxiety lest, her habit being wet, she should have taken cold. But while hoping to give an absorbing turn to the conversation by assuring his gay guests that, by traversing one of Lord Heri- foid's woods, described by Miss Maitland, they had come more than three miles out of their way, having unluckily suggested that their direct road lay across Drosshill Heath, nothing could be more natural than Lady Alicia's entreaty that he would be kind enough to ride part of the way back with them, to show them the right road. " Ay, do, Barrington ! " cried Sir Wolseley, tapping him patro- nizingly on the shoulder. " Undertake the pilotship of the parly, — there's a good fellow, /never set foot in the county before in my life, (though 1 have occasionally whirleil through it at the tail of four horses on my way to Oxford,) so that I cannot pretend to expound the carte du pays. But to yo" it must be familiar as your glove. So bid them saddle Whyle Surrey for you, when we order the horses. You can be back by dinner time. — I suppose you don't dine much before eight?" Lest his father should interpose an angry answer that they dined at half-past four, and that it now wanted but a quarter of an hour to their dinner time, Charles was prompt with expressions of i-e- gret that it was oui of his power to have the honour of ace m- panyingthem. THE DfiBUTANTE. ^1 " He had, at present, no horses at Easton." The '■^ at prcaoit'" was luckily inaudible in ih(- gallery; foi- Mr. Barrington was likely enough to have added, on such a hint, that his son had never possessed, on his own account, any four- legged thing of higher degree than a shooting pony. But Sir Wolseley, thus confirmed in his suspicions that the fine horses on which Charles Barrington had figured throughout the season in the Park, throwing, thanks to his excellent horsemanship, greater men into the shade, were hi reality hired of some horse- dealer, — had no mercy. " No horses?" — cried he. ''Why, what have you done with your bay hack, Charles? — And what has become of the Arabian?" — *' You will readily believe that they are not within reach," im- plied Charles evasively; "for you cannot doubt how rejoiced 1 should be to officiate as guide to your parly." "But, my dear fellow," persisted Sir Wolseley, perceiving that though Lady Alicia appeared engaged in conversation with Mrs. Barrington, not a syllable that was passing escaped her ears ; " if you have no horses, what in Heaven's name do you do with yourself in the country at this time of year? You are in no case to require training for the first of September; nor must you inflict such a shock upon our nerves, as to tell us that you have degenerated into an Izaak Walton ! Even then you have no stream here-abouts worth mentioning; and it is too late for Stockbridge!" " Do not exhaust your well-known ingenuity in devising sport for me," said Charles, writhing under his impertinent irony. "Be- lieve me, I am in no want of means of amusement." But that Maria Brenton had quitted the room on her aunt's ar- rival, to see even the moderate entertainment which had been set before the visitors properly sent in, Sir Wolseley would probably have discerned in her fair face an abominable explanation of lh(^ vaunt of his victim. As it was, he glanced round the maagrely fur- nished rooms, where not a semblance of the lighter pastimes of life was perceptible, with a smile bitter as a north-easter. Instead, however, of saying openly, "Then, by Jupiter, you are more easily amused than most men !" he affected to discover, in the course of his scrutiny, that one of the party was wanting. "But Where's Clan ?" — cried he, starting from his seat. " Surely Clan came in with us?" "Yes, I liad the pleasure of presenting my brother to Mr. Bar- I'ington," replied Lady Alicia, who, till then, had not noticed his disappearance. "Clandon is so shy," added she, as if in explanation to the lady of the house, "that he is only too apt to make his escape from a party in which ladies are inciiided." "Nothing more likely than that he has gol on his horse, and h2 THE DfiBUTANTE. returned home again, leaving us to find our way through the brambles and briers, which he was please 1 to call the cross-road to Easton, as best we may !"— cried Sir Wolseley, with atfccted indignation; "unless, indeed, he have crept into the house-dog'S kennel, to dry himself in the straw, till our visit is over." " If you will give me leave," said Charles Barrington, glad of any pretext to absent himself from the sight of Eleanor Maiiland's facdj no longer turned upon him with the beaming smile of girlish fa- vour, but wearing a constrained and wondering expression, " I will go and ascertain from the servants whether Lord Clandon is really gone." But, as he was leaving the room in search of John, or the old coachman, (who answered in his father's scanty establishment to the comprehensive name of " servants,"") he was forestalled by the entrance of the Earl, — his hat, as usual, on his head ; and his hands, as usual, in his pockets. *' Why, Clan, my good fellow !" cried Sir Wolseley, while Mr. Bar- rington rose awkwardly from his seat to offer it to the future teprcsenlalive of the illustrious house of Heriford, " what, in the name of all that is unaccountable, have you been doing with yourself? Absent in the spirit, you have long accustomed us to see you ; but, on finding you absent in the body, and knowing my friend Bari'ington's prepossessions in favour of your brother Henry, I was afraid he might have left some draw-well uncovered, into ■which, like a true philosopher, you had walked with your eyes open." To all this, Clandon vouchsafed no other reply than by removing his hat, on noticing the presence of the ladies; then, proceeding to the window, he began surveying, from within, the grounds through which he had, to all appearance, been sauntering. " Belter come and try a biscuit and a glass of wine. Clan, my boy!" cried Sir Wolseley; "for, if I remember, you announced yourself to be starving, as we approached the house. Sandwiches, we have been of course much too wise to leave for a laggard like yourself." " Ring the bell, Charles," said Mrs. Barrington; " they will bring more sandwiches in a moment." Inslanlly advancing towards her with more courtesy than might have been expected from his boorish exterior. Lord Clandon en- treated that no trouble might be given on his account. " I have been rambling about your curious and most interesting premises," said he, "and look the liberty of rcquosling a crust of bread, and glass of water from one of the servants. I never take any other luncheon." " Your lordship shows your wisdom," cried Mr. Barrington, struck with so admirable a trait of character in so young a man. THE D£BUTANTE. A3 " Luncheons are good for nothing but to render people as heavy in the morning as Ihoy have no right to be before night. Luncheon* spoil one's dinner and digestion I" " You are of opinion then, my dear sir," interrupted Sir Wolse- ley, " that men, like dogs, digest but once in the twenty-four hours? I don't dispute it! I leave such points to the lecturers at the public hospitals. But allow me to deny your major. The solid dejeuners a la Jourehef.te of the French, entitle us to doubt the stultifying powers of the luncheon. By Jove! it requires some courage to call the French a heavy nation." " Or the Germans a light one ; whose mtttag and supper amount to our luncheon and dinner," observed Charles, coming to his father's assistance, only because dreading lest, having heard of the starvation of the Earl of Clandnn, Mr. Barrington should propose to bis noble guest a slice of the fillet of veal or leg of mutton awaiting the family dinner. For the clock having now struck the hall'-hout* after four, fumes of roast meat pervaded the house more power- fully than was altogether pleasant in the glowing month of August. But Lord Clandon chose to be heard in his turn. Having been forced to break the ice of his reserve, he lost his usual fear of hearing his own voice sufficiently to enquire of Mr. Barrington the supposed age of Easton Hno. " I saw the dale of 1515 on the stone lintel of one of the nut- houses. The house itself is, perhaps, still more ancient?" said he, really desirous of information. " Only by a few years, my lord," replied his host, scarcely less embarrassed than pleased to have the question of his proprietor- ship canvassed. " The estate came into my family in Henry the Sixth's time, by bequest from Sir Hugh de Barynton. About the beginning of the last century, the branch I represent altered the name to Barrington, and settled in Northumberland." "■ As the Barringtons of Hexholm, perhaps?" said Lord Clandon, who, shy as he was, was wanting neither in information or curiosity. " As the Barringtons of Hexholm," replied Mr. B.; not caring to add that the denomination was already lost to the family. '' But you chiefly reside here?" persisted the shy man, whose unusual loquacity seemed to have run away with him. " The Hexholm estate came into my family by marriage, and has passed out of it again," replied Mr. Barrington, in whose voice a slight indication of emotion was perceptible, as he made the an- nouncement. " We now live wholly at Easton." " I wonder you ever quitted it !" was Lord Clandon's cool reply. "It is a place to be proud of. We came into this county little more than a century ago, yet the breaking up of so many old families has already given us a certain standing. My great grandfather all but ruined himself in building Greensells, a house too damp to be 44 THE D£BUTANTli. lived in ; and to lay the foundations pulled down an old (iiange of the same order as Easton, which, no doubt, was fifty times more comfortable." " My neighbours are civil enough to advise rne t<» pull down tlie Hoo!" observed Mr. Barrington, trying to smile. " In our case the act was folly ; in yours it would be sacrilege," observed Lord Clandon, warming to a subject that inle.osLed bis archaeological tastes. " A house which has been three ceiiinries in your family I" — " Surely it does not look as if it had been a day less !" observed Sir Wolseley Maitland, with affected naivete, anxious to pal an end to a conversation which was assigning an unsatisfactory dogree of importance to Charles Barrington and his possessions. For, having been at the trouble of riding across the country in showery wea- ther, at the suggestion of Lady Heriford, to decide a point which, much to his dissatisfaction, a very cursory view of the house and lands of Charles Barrington had enabled him to determine, — namely , that he was no match for his sister, — it was provoking to hear a single argument in his favour. " But now that you have deigned to find your way back to us, my dear Clan," continued he, " pry thee let us order the horses for our start I Should you be taken with another fit of truancy, Lady Alicia and Nell will, perhaps, have to bivouac in the woods all night, under my misguidance." The horses were accordingly brought round; not without re- newed anguish on the part of Charles Barrington, at sight of the superannuated and meagre old coachman, in a napless Welsh wig, who assisted the natty Greensells groom to hold them, while the ladies were mounting. Proper compliments were exchanged on both sides. But before the riding-party was out of sight, a sigh, almost amounting to a groan, escaped the parched lips of the impostor; on whose cheeks a flush of feverish excitement certified the anguish under which he had been labouring during the visit of friends so little friendly. What a relief to see vanishing in the distance the form of one whom, in more infatuated moments, he had fancied so prepossessed in his favour, as to be capable of sacrificing for his sake the brilliant prospects awaiting her I Alas! he was undeceived noiv ! A glance, such as he had inter- cepted on its way from the eyes of the fair Eleanor to those of her fashionable friend, might have sufficed to extinguish the flame of Lovelace himself! — TMF. n^RUTANTE. /l5 GHAPTEK V. Yuu may rave as much as you please about purity, and por- celain ware, and varlue. - But there are some women as have more of the devil, and less of the angel, in 'em, than you're thinking on— A can tell you! Sam Slick. VViiKA the t'ainily assi^inbled thai, day round their Irugal dinner- table, not one of Ihem but appeared in unusual spirits; each being intent on conceaUng iVoni the others the unpleasant impressions derived from their recent ordeal. The master of the house felt committed in the eyes of all present by the readiness with which he had accepted the first overtures of conciliation from the long vituperated Marquis. His gentle wife was annoyed at the prospect of the morrow's visit; while Charles, who was writhing under a thousand mortifications, kept secretly re- viewing every word and gesture that had escaped his inopportune guests. Bui the person who felt most and said least, was Maria. Emo- tions, such as she regarded as too culpable for disclosure, were stirring within her ; and it was difficult to prevent the tears from springing into her eyes which had arisen out of the well-spring of her heart. Not because she had been mistaken by Lord Claudon for an upper servant, while occupied in preparing the luncheon in a housekeeper's room that was attainable from the stable-yard ; — not because the immense distance was suddenly revealed to her that divided her from the lovely and prosperous object of Charles's afl'ections ; — not because the envied Eleanor Maitland had jjioved a thousand times fairer and moi-e graceful than even his enthu- siastic descriptions prepared her to expect. But because some- thing in the flighty manners of the beautiful equestrian, and a cer- tain expression in the brilliant glances of her keen sea-blue eyes, filled her with anxiety for the future happiness of her cousin. Maria could not forbear wondering whethei-, aftei' Charles had joined the party with Sir Wolscley, they ventured to persist in the bantering tone of compliment on the beauties of Easton, in which they had indulged in addressing her uncle and herself. Though thankful when, immediately after dinner, Mr. Bar- rmgton proceeded to the otlices to superintend certain repairs in- dispensable to set his quizzical old family chariot in motion, on its way to Greensells, she dreaded being left alone with her consin. She was afraid he might question her concerning her opinion of Miss Maitland. And when Mrs. Barrington, equally intent upon preparations for a visit so out of their usual quiet routine of country Zl6 THE DfelJUTANJE. neighbourship, also quilted Ihc room, Maria endeavoured to steal out after her, on a similar pretence. But Charles Barrington wanted to be listened to; and, calling after his cousin, begged her to come and take a turn in the shrub- bery, to enjoy the beautiful sunset closir)g that every-way stormy day. The garden-bonnet was accordingly tied on ; and the hasty strides wiih which her companion tried to get out of sight of the house prepared her for a lover's raptures concerning the ivory smoothness of Miss Maitland's beautiful brow, and the airy light- ness of those siiken ringlets, which not even rain could uncurl. But her fears were soon set at rest. Charles Barrington's thoughts were wholly absorbed by himself. " Was ihere ever such a confounded businessas this!" said he, throwing himself on a rustic seat that occupied one of the windings of the shrubbery, and motioning to his companion to place herself by his side. " You know all the horrors 1 anticipated from the visit, Maria? Yet you see they were fifiy-fold exceeded !" " 1 was in hopes nothing had occurred that ought purticularlij to annoy you," replied his cousin. " They all expressed themselves delighted with the Hoo. And what could exceed the cordiality of inviLalion to Greensells?" " Delighted! — Cordiality! — My dear Maria, you know little of people of their class ! The whole lime they were in the house, ihey were laughing at every thing and everybody it contained — Mailland openly — the others covertly." " Then thank Heaven that 1 do know little of them," rejoined Maria! with honest warmth: "for they dissembled so well, as thoroughly to take me in." " If by any possible management to-morrow's visit could be evaded !" mused Charles Barringlon in despair. " There is no lit of illness so severe that I would not risk to get out of the scrape!" " My uncle seems bent upon going, which I should scarcely have expected, after all his resentment against Lord Heriford," rejoined Maria. " But 1 suppose that, like ?///', he was deceived by the ap- parent sincerity of Lord Clandon's overtures." " Clandon? — Oli ! he was sincere enough — stupid brute! But Clandon counts for nothing at Greensells. Nobody pays the smallest attention to what lie says or does." " Yet, surely, he does not appear a stupid person?" argued Maria ; " that is, not ignorant, not unobservant. The questions he asked about Easton were more to the purpose than all ihe nonsense of Sir Wolseley Mailland— and — " She paused. " And his sister. True! But it is their cue to talk nonsense; whereas Clandon is a matter-of-fact person, full of information, and all that sort of thing ; made for a county-member, if one could THE DfiBUTANTE. hi only get him canvassed for, without his knowledge ; hut of no more account in Lady Heriford's drawing-room, than one of the family pictures. The consequence is, that they can't bear him. The con- sequence is, that Henry is the favourite." " Poor Lord Clandon ! His manners are not in his favonr. But his mother is surely not the person to visit them upon him ; for they must be the result of his bringing up." " Perhaps so. I believe, however, that some people are natu- rally awkward. But never mind Clandon ! He is ihe last person to care for in the business. Do you think, Maria, that any thing could be contrived to determine my father and mother against going to Greensells I" " I lear not. You allowed your wishes on the subject to be too apparent, when my uncle spoke about the broken axle-tree. The moment he fancied you wanted to prevent his going, ho became obstmately set upon the visit. After dinner, he did what I never knew him do before; he gave a five-pound note to my aunt, and desired her to send off to Tring for any thing wanting for her toilet, or mine." " A five-pound note ! When five times the sum would not make either of you presentable I And finely will the rubbish you can pick up at Tring improve the matter! If Lady Heriford had only shown the civility of giving one a few day's notice, I could have got new dresses from town, both for my mother and yourself." " How kind of you! Thank you, dear Charles. But I assure you we shall do very well. My aunt and I were forced to be unusually fine a few weeks ago, for JustinaHarman's wedding." " Fine! — yes; h\i\. that is precisely what you must 7iot be at Greensells!" " Do not be uneasy," replied Maria, with a patient smile. " My aunt's good taste ought to satisfy you that she would never do any thing out of place. Besides, if you remember, you sent us our dresses from London. Depend, at all events, upon my doing my best, Charles, not to disgrace you with your friends." " You mean to go then?" " I have no choice about the matter; you heard what my uncle said." " Then 1 have a fair excuse for absenting myself and being off to town in the morning," observed Charles, "in the impossibility of going four in a chariot, but 1 prefer even grillmg myself in the rumble, to the annoyance of having to surmise what passed during the visit. I must be on the spot ; — or Sir Wolseley will be draw- ing out my father for the amusement of the whole party !" — " It is unlucky your friend, Lord Henry de Capell, is not with his family. He would take care that nothing was done to annoy you." kS THE DfiBUTANTE. "Henry? Henry would b'^" worst of all I Provided Heniy de Capell finds something or somebody to laugh at, he cares very little whose feelings are wounded. Had he been of the parly to- day, I should have heard of nothing but the Eastoii fast-day for the next ten years." " And to such shallow friends you give up your time and affec- tions!'' burst from the indignant lips of Maria. " The Forsytbs and Harmans, whom you despise as humdrum, are not, I admit, very amusing. But, at least, they are not double-faced ; and even Sir Hildebrand and Lady Chalkneys, with all their absurdities, would think it treachery to laugh at a friend." " Very shabby of them, considering how much laughter on ihr part of their friends they have to return I But it is seldom the elders of a family whose quizzing one has to apprehend. Lord Heriford, for instance, has quite as much good faith as old Barman or Sir Hildebrand. Lord Heriford is a solemn old prig, who never was within leagues of ajoke in his life. Even Clandon, as becomes the future head of the family, is perfectly in earnest. It is the sharp-shooting of the girls, and the satirical set they always have about them, you have to dread. However, there is no remedy, — no alternative. Go we must. I only recommend you, my dear Maria, to say as little as you can during the short time we remain at Greensells; and do as much as possible whai you see done by other people." It was not likely that a person so dazzled by the superficial varnish of worldliness as Charles Barrington, should perceive the impossibility of offence or vulgarity in a nature vSO elegant as that of his cousin; or that, in his mother's society, she could have contracted any habits but such as became the highest order of society. But even he was astonished — so little was he accustomed to notice Miss Brenton's appearance — when, on the assembling of the large party in the state drawing-room iil Greensells the follow- ing day, before dinner, he saw every eye directed towards the lovely girl who entered the room leaning on his mother's arm. The four fashionable-looking daughters of the house, arrayed m the faded finci-y of a London season, — Eleanor Maitland herself, (jverdressed and loaded with trinkets, — to say nothing of the gaudy damsels accompanying two families of country neighbours, as fine as pink satin and lilac gauze could make them, served only as foils to one whose fresh white muslin dross, and well-braided hair devoid of a single ornament, served to set off to greater advantage a purity of complexion and intelligence of countenance, which, at eighteen, are adornments in themselves. An air of peculiar distinction was in)parted by her simplicity of attire. Even Charles, who had not seen her before for years in even- ing costume, was struck by the symmetry of her figure ; and could THE DEBUTANTE. ^9 scarcely believe that the slender waist marked out by her white satin sash, was the same he had so long disregarded in her heavy ill-Gtting morning dress. The glow imparted to her face by the excitement arising from the innumerable objects of interest collect- ed around her, rendered her scarcely recognizable to those who, on their visit to Easton, had decided her to be a pleasing girl, but " tant soil peu pecore .'" But the person most startled by Miss Brenton's appearance was Lord Clandon. Seated opposite to her at table, by the side of a disagreeable Lady Ironsides, who, by virtue of her husband's fine park in the neighbourhood, he had been obliged to take in to dinner, he could scarcely recover his amazement at finding the civil, modest young person to whom, mistaking her at Easton for Lady Barrington's housekeeper, he had applied for a crust of bread, a guest in his father's house. But whereas other people arc struck dumb by astonishment, the habitually-silent man was struck loquacious. The great lady with the great park, who had heaid Lord Clandon described as so shy and reserved, was sur- prised, in her turn, by the pertinacity of his questions concerning the young lady opposite; into whose ears Sir VVolseley ]\Iaitland was pouring the most egregious nonsense, for the amusement of Lady Mary de Capell, who was seated on his other side. But the great lady with the great park could not be brought to acknowledge that she knew anything of such very small deer as theBarringtons ! " They lived at the other side of thecounty. They were people she was not in the habit of meeting. She believed the person to whom the gentleman in the blue silk waistcoat was talk- ing, was companion to Mrs. Barrington, or niece, or cousin, or something of that sort." And she forthwith endeavoured to direct his attention to the damsels in pink satin and lilac gauze, whom she held so much worthier to be noticed ; informing him, that the former. Miss Vicary Arable, was "a great Buckinghamshire belie;" and the latter, who was seated beside Mr. Barrington, and looking as cheerful as one of the criminals people go to stare at, in a condemned cell, a daughter of her own. But already " Clan" had relapsed into his customary reserve, • a reserve that deepened into moroseness, when he saw, by the heightened colour and downcast looks of his opposite neighbour, how painfully she was embarrassed by the audacious bantering of Sir Wolseley. No less at home at Creensells than, in the course of five minutes, he had made himself at Easton Hoo, — more so in- deed, since, conscious that he was invited there as a victim to be paired off with whichever of the four ugly daughters found him least insupportable, he felt entitled to make Lady Heriford i)ay for her flagitious designs, — he was making his stav in the house as i 50 THE DfiBUTANTE. pleasant as he could, by turning their guests into ridicule; with the best intention of doing the same in their turn to the Ladies de Capell themselves, at VVolseley Hall, for the amusement of his cub friend, Lord Esher. The only consolatory moment enjoyed by poor Maria, amidst her embarrassment, was when the slow movements of the pon- derous Mr. Vicary Arable, a man about the dimensions of one of his own prize oxen, who intervened between them, enabled her to catch sight of her cousin. Attributing to the smiles of Miss Maitland, beside whom Charles was seated, the air of joyous animation which at Easton seldom lighted up his handsome face, and which, in fact, arose from the agreeable discovery that his father and mother were able instinctively to reassume the tone of the Barringtons of Hexholm, on regaining the sphere of society from which they had been alienated only by a change of fortune, Maria conceived his happiness to proceed from the joyful certainty that the deficiencies of Easlon had not rendered him less pleasing where he was am- bitious to please. Of the impression she was herself making, she took no heed. Her utmost desire was to creep unnoticed through her visit to Gieensells, so as to bring no shame upon her cousin; and be able to admire, unmolested, the cool expanse of its glassy waters, the fine architecture of its Vilruviaii structure, and the treasures of its valuable picture-gallery. For, though such sights were familiar to all the other persons assembled, she saw them for the first time. Her life had been divided between the seclusion of a strict school, and the scarcely less monotonous solitude of Easton, — a radius of five miles from the Hoo comprehending her knowledge of the world ! Even the fine old oaks, therefore, adorning the domain of GreenscUs, and supposed to be coeval with the old priory on whose ruins the present habitation was founded, were such as she had never seen before; and the sight of the beautiful conservatory, enriched with a thousand tropical plants, of whose existence her wildest flights of imagination had never dreamed, startled her, as with a new view of creation. To Lady Alicia and her sisters, such newness was as new as, to Maria, the aspect of the New Zealand and Mexican rarities. A little less complete, and they would have laughed at it; but the frankness with which she avowed her ignorance and delight, was sacred. The girl whom, afler their visit to the house which they had named the Tower of Famine, they had also signalized by the name of Cinderella, was accordingly adopted by acclamation as a gene- ral lavouriie. They were at the pains of showing her the house and gardens, — a concession after which Miss Vicary Arable, in all her pride of provincial fashion, might have sighed in vain. Lady THE DEBUTANTE. 51 Alicia was even at the trouble oC securing Mr. liarrington's promise lliat he would remain till after luncheon the following day ; when she promised that the fountains of their miniature Versailles should be played for. the amusement of the novice. At this wondrous favour shown to a person so insignificant, the pink satin and lilac gauze sat wondering and enraged. It was not for them to perceive, that by patronizing an obscure girl like Maria Brenton, the Ladies de Capell risked nothing,— their degree of intimacy with her depending solely on their will and pleasure. Whereas, with themselves, as daughters of great landed proprietors in the county, if familiar once, they must be familiar always , congregating with them at races and hunt-balls, and even endur- ing, in London, a renewal of the acquaintanceship barely tolerable in the country. The only circumstance of the affair, meanwhile, which impressed Maria, was the comparative coolness of Miss Maitland. As less ele- vated in rank, it could not be pride that kept her aloof from one whom the daughters of a marchioness delighted to honour ; and it struck her (and what emotions were produced in her bosom by the mere surmise I) that the beautiful Eleanor might be jealous of the good-will apparently existing between her and her cousin. For, true to the instincts of his worldly nature, on finding her an object of general admiration and panegyric, Charles was pleased to bestow upon her the courtesies and compliments she was little in the habit of receiving from him at home. Far, however, was her guileless nature from surmising the real origin of the feelings overclouding the fair brow of Miss Maitland ; and causing her to recede from the group of young ladies, which, according to the custom of the de Capell family, collected in the course of the evening round a table covered with work-boxes and albums, as far as possible from the heads of the family. Instead of taking her usual share in their gossip, she kept edging her chair towards the divan in the centre of the room ; lounging dozily on whose cushions of yellow damask, sat the Marquis of Heriford, emitting the fleecy flakes of his shapeless politics, like cotton from a carding machine, for the benefit of Mr. Barrington, Mr. Vicary Arable, and Sir Justinian Ironsides ; who, though satisfied that the same would be unfolded to them in a more compact form, in the course of the month, in an '' Address to the iNohility, Gentry, and Clergy (as though the names were incongruous!; of ihe county of liucks," sat with their mouths deferentially open, to swallow the common-places of one who had so recently filled ihem with good things of a better kind — viz. venison and claret. Had Lady Alicia, or one of her sisters, taken up her position ihere with the same air of edification, her proceedings would have been understood by the rest of the family as a capital joke — as 52 IHE DfeBUTANTE. though she were enacting fugleman to ensure the proper attitude of attention incumbent on country neighbours towards the potter of their lord-lieutenant. But the attention bestowed by Miss Mailland on his lordship's exceedingly prosy prose, was hard to conceive ; unless she fancied that, in her gilded fauteuil, with a volume of engravings open upon her knee, she displayed a pic- turesque grace likely to recall the roving eyes of Charles. For she had not appeared wholly inattentive during dinner to his allusions to the fine speech made on the eve of the dissolution of Parliament by " his cousin, Lord Coylsfield ; " or to the com- pliments paid him by Lord Clandon on the ancient standing of his family in the county. And when, in answer to Mrs. Vicary Arable's encomiums on the beautiful texture of Miss Brenton's dress, he observed with ineffable impertinence that " they kept a rich uncle in India for the express purpose of supplying the family with shawls and muslins, en attendant that he was obliging enough to die and do better for them still," Miss Maitland, though she said nothing, evidently thought the more. Considering how little acquaintance subsisted between the He- rifords and their heterogeneous guests, the evening passed less heavily than might have been expected. Lady Alicia and Lady Mary, having no accomplices but Sir Wolseley Mailland to abet their system of finding a butt among their visitors, were glad to take part in the general circle; whereas when their brother Henry was with them, they sat in a knot apart, laughing and quizzing, and making every one present uncomfortable. But there was something in the genuine character and ladylike manners of Miss Brenton thai compelled them to civility; and Lady Sophia was not, as usual, the only member of the family who exerted herself to prevent a stranger from feeling otherwise than at home. As to Lord Clandon, after serving as a target for the rough jokes of Sir Wolseley, who seemed to think he could not better amuse the Ladies de Capell than by laughing at their brother, he made a slow calm relreal into the library, for the perusal of the newspapers which had ar- rived by the second post; and an hour afterwards, the party sepa- rated for the night. Maria, who had imbibed that day a greater variety of new im- pressions than in any preceding year of her life, — who had never before seen such a blaze of artificial light; never heard such a confusion of voices, — or beheld in bright conjunction such a host of the means and appliances of aristocratic life, — chambers so lofty, halls so echoing, staircases so gigantic, — had no right to wonder as she did that, at the close of a day thus diversified by pleasurable sensations, she should feel so weary. On the morrow, though almost disappointed to v/ake, for the first time for so manv vears, in anv other than the tent-bed in her TUE DfiBUTANTE. 53 little white-washed atlic at Easton, it was something to know that, the gralifications of the preceding day were about to be renewed ; that she might wander at leisure among those spirit-stirring pic- tures, and learn the names of those mysterious flowers which looked as if transplanted from the banks of the Euphrates. On stealing to the lofty window, the summer-glories of Green- sells lay displayed before her; long canals unrolling like silvery ribbons as far as the eye could reach ; while between them, a vast lake extended its mirror-like expanse. On the lawn intervening between its margin and the stalely mansion, bubbling fountains threw up their translucent jets from marble shells which commu- nicated by a single stream with the lake. All that met the view beneath the glowing sky, was water and freshness. If sufficiently regal in fortune to have a habitation for every month in the year, Maria could not but admit that Creensells was the very spot for the dog-days. "Frightful, — is it not?" said Sir Wolseley Maitland, startling her from her reverie, as, on her way to find Mrs. Barringlon's room for the purpose of accompanying her to the brcakfasl-room, she stood transfixed before the vast window that supplied light to the grand staircase and commanded a view of the park. " For my part, I wonder the de Gapells are not born with fins! — Lord Heri- ford ought to set up over the gates the arms of the Fishmongers' Company, with a couple of water-nymphs for supporters; or por- traits of Lady Mary and one ofher sisters as mermaids, — a character they are not ill -fitted to represent, being seldom without a looking- glass in their hands." Annoyed at finding herself tete a Ute with the bold, familiar man with whom, of all the Creensells party, she was least in charity, Miss Brenton, instead of pursuing her way along the corridor towards which the steps of Sir Wolseley seemed directed, walked leisurely downstairs, meaning to return when he bad disappeared. But proceed as slowly as she would, he still kept his place by her side; chatting and laughing till the domed ceiling of the staircase rang with his mirth. Mrs. Vicary Arable, Miss Vicai-y Arable, and Miss Emma Vicary Arable, who overtook her on the first landing place, clinging as closely together as the three gilt graces of an epergnc, appeared inexpressibly shocked at beholding Mrs. Barrington's " companion, or niece, or something of that sort," thus familiarly accompanied ; more especially on hearing Sir Wolseley accost her, as they passed, with " I hope xjou are not going to risk an ague at this con'o inded fishing-party? Make no scruple in throwing it over, I entreat you ; for my valet assures me that the last time one of these froggeries was dragged, the smell of the mud was perceptible as far as Hydo Park." 54 THE DfiBUTANTE. Tho throe Buckinghamshire ladies with the double name which they fancied doubled their consequence, hurried past in a cluster, thanking goodness that no man had ever ventnred to address them'm terms so flippant; while SirWolseley, who was much in the habit of doing the honours of his friends' houses to their friends, (and sometimes even to themselves) began to inquire whether, instead of leaving them after luncheon, Miss Brenton and her friends could not be persuaded to stay another day? More and more harassed by importunities which her ignorance of the jargon employed by her companion rendered it difficult to parry, yet afraid to retrace her steps without a pretext, right glad was she to catch a glimpse of her cousin Charles in the vestibule below ; on reaching which, she mechanically placed her arm within his. Only four-and-twenty hours before, the first impulse of Charles Barrington would pi-obably have been to drop it, or bluntly ask her *' what she wanted?" — But he had received too many compliments at Greensells on the beauty of his fair cousin, to hazard an act of discourtesy. " I dare say you are looking for the breakfast-room; let me show you the way," said he. On theirroad thither, they encountered the old Marquis ; who was in the habit of making as reverential a bow in his own house to every thing of the female gender as be- came one of the last surviving courtiers of the old school ; and the ceremonious greeting that ensued enabled him to take a survey of the cousins, such as afforded some justification of the compliments which, while waiting after breakfast under the portico for the car- riages that were to convey them to the water side, he saw fit to address to Mr. Barrington. "A very sv^reet creature, that niece of yours. I have already expressed to you, my dear sir, my opinion of your son. A fine young man, — really a very fine young man ; and a charming couple they will make." Though burning to vent his feelings of dislike against his niece, Mr. Barrington contented himself with expressing his disapproval of marriages between cousins, or early marriages of any kind. " The boys of the day, " observed he, " appear to look for a wife before they have done with their Latin grammar." *' In a certain rank of life," was Lord Heriford's stately rejoin- der, " they can hardly marry too soon. A young man who has a stake in tho country, substantiates it, my dear sir, by an earlv settlement in life. Look at my S(m Clandon. From the day of his coming of age six years ago, it has been the wish of all belonging to him to see him happily married. But as if from mere perversity, he not only will not hear of it, but the more to mark his opposition, shims pvery thing like female society. Half his shyness and oddity THE DfeBUTANTE. 55 is attributable to the dread of being persecuted into matrimony." " Perhaps Lord Clandon may have formed some choice which your lordship is unUkely to sanction? " pleaded Mr. Barrington, wishing only that Lord Hcriford's confidence and the fishing-party were at an end, that he might get back the earlier to Easton, and surprise his labourers taking advantage of his absence. " By no means! Such is our anxiety for his establishment, that no young person of good character and connexions would be ill- received by his family. But I suppose it is because 1 have made it the wish of my heart to give my blessing before I die to a grand- son, that he seems bent on frustrating my wishes." A succession of equipages bearing the family emblazonments, (the perpetuation of which appeared so important to the mumbling old marquis,) arriving at that moment at the door to convey the party to the Western lake which was at some distance from the house, luckily put an end to his oration. Some minutes were lost in arranging the numerous guests in the various carriages; nor was it till they reached the water side, and took possession of the tent which had been pitched to protect the ladies from the noon-day heat, that the absence of Lord Clandon was noticed. "Clandon! — Where's Clan ?— We shall never get on without Clan! "cried Sir Wolseley Maitland, beginning to fear that too large an allotment of young ladies might be thrown upon his hands to entertain. And while some of the party proposed that a messenger should be despatched back to the house iu search of his lordship, all pretended to be mightily concerned at his absence. " I dare say he has gone out riding ! " said one of his sisters. "My brother hates anything like a party of pleasure !" cried Lady Mary. " I was sure he would stay away, the moment 1 heard you ask him to come!"continued she, addressing Eleanor Maiiland. " I suppose Lord Clandon has found out that some people ne brillent que par leiir absence ! " replied the fair coquette, in a voice not intended to reach far. But the ear which her observation purported to propitiate, was inattentive. Charles Barrington, carrying on his arm the shawls and cloaks of the marchioness, was engaged in a lively conversa- tion with Lady Alicia de Capell. 56 THE DfiBUTANTE. CHAPTER VI. " Dis-moi,— crois-tu vraimciit posseder cc royanme B'onibre et de flears, oil I'arbre arrundi comme un dome, L'ctang, lame d'argent, que Ic coucher fail d'or,— L'allce, entrant au bois comme un noir corridor; Et \k, sur la foret, ce mont qu'unc tour garde, Font un groupe si beau pour Tame qui regarde?— Lieu sacre pour qui sail, dans I'immense univers, Dans les pres, dans les eaux, et dans les vallons verts. Retrouver les profils de la face eternelle ? " Victor Hugo. Maria Brenton was more astonished, than might have been expected from her rational good sense, at finding herself seated, at a later hour of the day, beside the self-same meagre old dinner- table of Easton they had left behind; for, though before they set forth on the fishing expedition, the carriages of the visitors were ordered to be in attendance after luncheon, it seemed impossible that people who appeared to take such delight in being together, should separate so soon, merely because such had been their intention before they discovered each other to be so charming. She was not yet sufficiently schooled in the tactics of country visiting, to know that new visitors were to arrive by dressing-time, to occupy their rooms, and be noticed, questioned, flirted or drunk wine with, in their turn; to give place on the morrow to a new detachment, till Ihe whole neighbourhood had received an equitable distribution of the hospitalities of the great man whose son was likely to start for the county. Charles Barrington, indeed, remained behind at Greensells; a bachelor's lodging being always accomplishable, and, with five young ladies in the house, an additional man an acquisition. And though it was probably his absence which caused his cousin to look wistfully round, and fancy the faded dining-room a /////c cheerless, the darned table-cloth almost too shabby for use, and the stillness of the room unaccountable, she could not help reproaching herself, that an absence of only twenly-four hours from Easton, should have exercised so great an influence over her feelings. Both her uncle and aunt, on the other hand, were cheered by their visit. Contact with persons of the class with which in their brighter youth they had exclusively associated, seemed for the moment to restore them to themselves. It was pleasant to find that they had not forfeited caste. Lady llcriford and her daughters, distinguishing at once be- tween the quiet well-bred manners of Mrs. Barrington, and the flashy, pushing, overdressed familiarity of the Vicary Arables and THE DfeBUTANTE. 57 Ironsides, had accepted her at sight, and delighted her by their encomiums of her son and niece; while her husband, whose con- stant residence in the county, and circumstantiality of mind, enabled him to afford valuable cleclionecring information to the marquis, finding himself of more consequence than he expected, had forgiven all former slights, and was content to hear Greensells called a magnificent place, and the de Capells a charming family, as often as any member of his own thought proper. He even deigned to overlook the reverie in which he surprised his niece that evening, seated on the old garden seat of the shrub- bery, (and with him reverie was only another name for idleness,) believing her to be lost in reminiscences of the compliments ad- dressed to her by the Heriford family ; and especially of the alacrity with which, on hearing her avow her ambition to become a horse- woman, the lubberly Lord Clandon had muttered an offer of his mare, which he recommended as a favourite capital lady's horse. It was not, however, upon this, that Maria was ruminating. The new world into which she had been introduced, had made her acquainted with other novelties besides Gobelin tapestry and buhl cabinets, Dresden china or marble columns. She had heard, for the first lime, the jargon of the world. She had seen, for the first time, an exchange of glances invalidate, in a dialogue, the words that fell from the lips of the speakers. She had seen one feature give the lie to another in the same countenance ; and heard axioms plausibly delivered, at variance with every action of the hie of him who mouthed them. The hypocrisy of social life was unveiled before her. '^ If such double-dealing be perceptible in the country-house of a respectable nobleman," thought the poor girl, " how much more in those brilliant scenes of fashionable life in which my cousin appears to concentre his hopes of happiness I" A still heavier sigh burst from the depths of her heart, as she admitted the fitness of the beautiful Eleanor to share in the pams and pleasures of such a career. For of those whose insincerity had been most apparent at Greensells, Miss Maitland was the one whose hollowness of purpose she had been quickest to discover. As if stimulated by the attention bestowed by her handsome admirer on Lady Alicia, Eleanor had contrived that, on their return from the water party, he should occupy the same Pelham with herself and his cousin : when the whole de Capell family was dis- cussed without mercy. " I have been trying to get off the Heriford Castle party," said she; "but Lady Heriford will not hear of granting leave of absence to my brother. Having overcome his objections to the bulrushes of Greensells, for the purpose of placing three of her daughters— ugly, uglier, and unglie^^, at his disposal,— she evi- 58 THE DEBUTANTE. dently hopes to complete in the air what has been commenced on the water ; so that we are irrevocably booked for the eagle's eyry in the North.". " And Avhich of your friends is likely to become your sister-in- law?" inquired Charles, apparently a little embarrassed by her confidences. " Not Lady Alicia, 1 hope, — for she is both too clever and too plain for Wolseley. Not Lady Sophia, I fear, — foi- she still wears a willow, which seems likely to bpcome an evergreen. Not Lady Mary, I suspect, though on that point, as on most others, we do not agree. And not Lady Blanche, I am sure, — for he would as soon have a black wife as a blue !" — Shocked at these bitter allusions, Maria trusted her cousin was meditating a defence of those with whom she hud seen him on terms of such friendly familiarity. But his only answer was a smile. And now that Miss Brenton had leisure to reconsider the matter, she could not help fancying that, unrestrained by her presence, their comments must be more cruel than ever. Absorbed in them and their movements, she seemed to imagine that, now she was gone, though the house remained full of company, Eleanor and her cousin would be tete a tete; left to sharpen each other's worldly wiL by a mutual exchange of heartless bons mots. Reproaching herself, however, that from all the kindness lavished upon her at Greensells, and all the noble and interesting objects unfolded there to her view, she should have extracted only food for painful rumination, the poor girl resolved to dismiss from her thoughts her transient glimpse of aristocratic pleasures. She would think no more of that brilliant saloon, — those gleaming lights, — those fragrant odours — those murmurs of playful compliments. Easton was not changed. The skies were still as soft there, — the trees as green ; and Easton should be all in all. It was difficult, however. For even her uncle, gratified to have seen his son moving with high distinction in a lordly circle which it cost him less to propitiate than to keep on visiting terms with the old Forsyths, or his self-sufficiont neighbours. Sir llildcbrand and Lady Chalkneysof Pountney Hill, could not forbear expressing his surmises, next morning at breakfast, concerning the new party assembled at (ireensolls. He wondered whether Charles would continue his stay till the family proceeded to Heriford Castle? — He wondered whether the Harmans would be invited by the mar- quis, in their turn? — He wondered whether his lordship would choose to make acquaintance with the Chalkneys? — On the latter point he was not long in doubt. In the course of the morning, the Pountney Hill pony-phaeton drove to the door, to the utter annoyance of the master of the house; who, having been so vociferous among his country neighbours in his declaration THE DEBUTANTE. 59 of war against Greensells, fell a little ashamed of having to confess his bloodless defeat. It is one of the many nuisances of country life, however, that the plea of " not at home" is untenable, even against the least agreeable visitors; and the Chalkneys, who, in a city, would have been excluded as bores, were, of necessity, ad- mitted atEaston Hoo. They were not bad people. They were not ignorant people. Their offence was one against which there exists no enactment of Church or State ; — they were eminently disagreeable. A spirit of envious letchiness placed them on bad terms with themselves and their neighbours. Even the advantages which qualified their self-consequence, were a source of heartache and mortification to them. Sir Ilildebrand wrote himself a Baronet; but his father having been baronetized at the prayer of a gouty governor-general of India to whom he offi- ciated as physician, ashamed of the cause and date of his creation, he envied every K.C.B. or K.C.H. to whom it fell to his luck to address a letter. Again, though his fortune of three thousand a-year rendered him the richest man in the parish, as three fourths of it had been amassed in trade by his wife's father, he conceived himself looked down upon by the landed proprietors of the county. And yet, as if these raivs were not enough for a man of such extreme susceptibility, he had been rash enough to purchase a seat at the top of a high hill, — the nightmare of the coachmen and coach-horses of the neighbourhood ; — and on finding himself less visited than people more conveniently located, chose to consider himself a victim to the jealous ostracism of the county. His pretty little wife, who, married to a more reasonable man, might have become an agreeable member of society, had con- tracted from her husband the propensity for grafting their golden pippins with crab-apples, and their green-gages with sloes, till she was almost as unpopular as himself. She had given up singing, in which she excelled, from having been warned by her husband that people invited them only to amuse their company ; — and even went so far as to quarrel with her own delicate features in the glass, because assured by him that somebody had called her, in somebody else's hearing, " a pretty little fool." — The Harringtons, as people of a more ancient family, and long seated in the county, were objects of their especial envy ; and the purport of their present visit was to boast of an invitation they had received to dine at Greensells the following week, — the Marquis of Ileriford having written to inform them that archdeacon Rubric and his family would be of the party, for the express purpose of introducing them. "And, as i have no outstanding grievances against his lordship," added Sir Hildebrand, with a consequential air, alluding to the former pro- 60 THE DEBUTANTE. testalions of Mr. Barrington, " I have, of course, no scruple about accepting so very flattering an invitation." "Of course not!" was Mrs. Barrington's genuine reply. *' It is always lobe regretted when personal enmities arise between those whom county interest ought to unite. I was truly glad when Mr. Barrington accepted the olive branch offered by Lord Heri- ford." " We meet you, then ?" inquired Lady Chalkneys, with an air of chagrin, having flattered herself that they and the archdeacon's family were the only persons of the neighbourhood distinguished by an invitation. "No ;— 1 scarcely think we shall be invited «/7am.— Charles may, perhaps, prolong his visit till then." " I do not exactly understand what you mean by prolonging his visit?"— said Sir Hildebrand, becoming a little fidgety. " My son accompanied us to Greensells the day before yesterday ; but was prevailed upon by his young fi-iends to remain a few days longer than ourselves. We came back yesterday afternoon." " You dined and slept at Greensells I"— ejaculated the astonished baronet. "Without Barrington, of course? — Barrington has sworn to me hundreds of times that nothing would induce him to set foot in the house of a man who has used him so shabbily." " 1 am happy to say," replied Mrs. Barrington, "that his resent- ments gave way at once, on finding Charles had been receiving in London the greatest kindness from the Heriford family." " Most extraordinary I — A man whom I always thought so con- sistent and conscientious as Barrington, to snatch at the first ci- vility ofl'ered I" — " It was ofl'ered in so kind and conciliatory a manner," pleaded Mrs. Barrington, " that I should have been sorry indeed to see him persist in ohduracy. Lord Clandon and Lady Alicia de Capell called here, in person, two days after they arrived at Greensells; and in the course of luncheon, our visit was arranged." " Called in person I"— reiterated Sir Hildebrand : "and tome, with whom they have never had any coolness, they think it suf- ficient to send a card !" — " On that account, perhaps." " Why, on that account?"— " They may have felt some atonement to be due to Mr. Bar- rington. With a new comer into the county, there were no ante- cedents to be smoothed over." " A new comer into the county I" reiterated Sir Hildebrand, bitterly. " Yes f/iat precious word is perpetually thrown in one's teeth ; after purchasing an estate at double its value, and expending twice as much money there as any other person in the neighbour- hood!— Always at the tag of every thing!— Always at the bottom THE DfeBUTANTE. 61 of the list!— Lord Clandon must have literally passed my lodge- gates in crossing the country from Greensells hither,— yet was not at the trouble of so much as leaving a card I" " Surely it would not have been very courteous to leave a card at your lodge ?"—mterposed Maria, hoping to soothe him. " And their horses were, I assure you, quite knocked up even without attempting the hill." " And whom had you at Greensells?" inquired Lady Chalkneys, less from the desire of pacification than because unable to repress the promptings of female curiosity." " The party from town, which is a large one, and the Ironsides, and Vicary Arables." " The Vicary Arables, and Ironsides !— The two leading families of the county !"— cried Sir Hildebrand. "And the Nevilles and Hampsons, it seems, are going there to-day I — Every one has the preference over us .'" — " Because they were old acquaintances of the family," pleaded Lady Chalkneys, in some alarm lest her husband's wrath should wax so great as to determine him to send an excuse, and extinguish her only chance of becoming acquainted with the marchioness. " Who on earth is there left of the neighbourhood to meet us, I should like to know?" exclaimed Sir Hildebrand, disregarding her. " You mentioned the archdeacon's family," observed Mrs, Bar- rington. " Yes! The halt, the deaf, and the blind,— the last resource of one's visiting list. But the Rubrics will not suffice to fill such a dinner-table as that at Greensells!— I dare say we shall have the Tring apothecary, and the curate of the parish, to make out the party!" " You will find the de Capell family very sociable and pleasant," said Maria, addressing Lady Chalkneys, who was beginning to look a little dismayed. " On the second day, 1 began to I'eel quite at home among them." " Yes, the second day !"— interrupted Sir Hildebrand. "In a house one sleeps in, there is some chance of becoming acquainted with people. But a country dinner-parly, at seven miles distance, leaves only a quarter of an hour for colfce, before the carriages are ordered to come away again; especially where people have the impertinence to invite one for half-past seven, and with such a hill as mine at the end of the journey !" — Remembering how often they had heard that hapless hill de- scribed by the baronet as no obstacle to man or horse, Mrs. Bar- rington and her niece remained judiciously silent. . " 1 ought to have thought of all these things before I accepted their confounded invitation I" resumed Sir Hildebrand, on finding that no one was kind enough to contradict him. " However, Lord 62 THE D£BUTANTE. Heriford must be taught that second thoughts are best ; for / shall certainly find myself indisposed to-morrow, and decline the honour of the expedition." " It would be a pily to lose the opportunity of making a pleasant acquaintance," observed Mrs. Harrington, rightly interpreting the chagrined air of his wife ; "for the family will remain but a short time longer at Greensells. They are on their way to Heriford Castle." " "Very likely ! I know nothing about their movements, — and care as little I" — rejoined her irritated visitor. "Marquises and marchionesses are people out of our line! — T^e never pretended to society above our sphere. — Lord and Lady Heriford might have spent six months at Greensells, without our troubling ourselves to inquire about them or their movements." Maria could not but admire the mildness with which Mrs. Bar- rington abstained from self-vindication ; and the angry man who had visited Easton with the view of mortifying his neighbours, on finding that he could not provoke so much as a peevish retort, observed that. " As they had to call at the Vicarage, it was im- possible to await the chance of Harrington's return." Whether or not lie fulfilled his threat of excusing himself to the Herifords, he would not deny himself the satisfaction of parading to Dr. and Mrs. Forsyth the invitation he had received. Thetj, at least, had nolbeen dining and sleeping at Greensells! As the phaeton of the spiteful couple drove away, the face of Sir Hildebrand flushed with suppressed ire, and the brows of poor little Lady Chalkncys knit with vexation, — (how different from the triumphant attitude they had assumed on approaching the house!) Mrs. Barringlon could not help thinking, that the absenteeism of the Marquis of Heriford's family, lamentations over which form- ed one of the staple commodities of county-talk, — was, perhaps, after all a lucky thing for them ; since their sojourn at Greensells, for only a single fortnight, had sufficed to make half the families in the neighbourhood malicious or discontented. In the course of a day or two her opinion was confirmed. The Harmans of Hedgington, and others of the minor county gentry who could not reconcile to themselves that the son of persons so nearly of their own account in the shire as the Harringtons, should be the established inmate of the great man who look no co- gnizance of their existence, resented the distinction against his parents; and wagged their heads significantly, while lemarking in audible whispers, that "It was all very well. But the election would soon be coming onl" Even Mrs. Barringlon, when the first llutter of motherly weak- ness subsided, which had induced her to rejoice at seeing "her own — her only, " feted and caressed by those for whose favour so THE DfeBUTANTE. 63 many competitors were disputing, and who, during her sojourn at Greensells, had triumphantly compared her son with Sir Wolseley Maitland and Lord Clandon, till the boorishness of the latter, and the flashiness of the former, served to diminish the flagrancy of Charles's minor offences, — could not help fearing, when day after day elapsed without bringing him back, or a single line in explana- tion of his prolonged absence, that the circle in which he was moving would only serve to estrange him still further from home. There had been moments of late, when, on noticing the hard and scornful eye with which her son surveyed all that was nearest to him, she bitterly repented having ever made the application which had proved the means of placing him in a sphere of action remote from their own. And now, when she thought of him, sunned in the glare of fashion and prosperity, — laughing with the insolent, and smiled upon by the heartless, and beheld Maria seated humble and anxious by her side, renouncing all thought or care of her youthful loveliness, in solicitude for his welfare,— she could not repress a wish that he had never formed an ambition beyond the range of their humble fireside. " Had Charles been brought up as his father wished him," mused she, while her tearful eyes rested upon the downcast looks of her niece, " he might have been less accomplished in njind and person. But he would have been happier himself, perhaps ; and would certainly have made us more happy." At the end of ten days, even his father expressed surprise at his silence. But having no horse to ride over to Greensells, and the distance being too great for his coach-horses to go and return, a morning visit was impracticable. He contented himself, therefore, with assuring his wife that she was a fool to expect any token of respect or explanation from their son, so long as he could obtain harbourage under the roof of a marquis. Mr. Barrington was even on the verge of resuming his former tone of antagonism against the de Capells, in all their generations, as the origin of the truant's neglect ; when, lo ! one sultry afternoon, near enough the first of September to send country gentlemen into their turnip-fields to keep an eye on the coveys, he was fortunate enough to encounter, in a narrow lane, the pony-phaeton of Sir Hildebrand. The harvest and the quarter-sessions supplied them with topics for the five minutes' colloquy inevitable between even the bitterest country neighbours, con)pclled to sociability betwixt the ramparts of two quickset hedges. But just as Sir Hildebrand, perceiving that the ponies were getting fidgety from the Hies, and his lady cross from the fidgetiness of the ponies, began to give short answers, with an evident intention of proceeding in his drive, Mr. Bar- rington placed one of his heavy high-lowed feet detainingly on the 64 THE DfeBUTANTE. spoke of the fore wheel, and, leaning his elbow on his knee, inquired familiarly of her ladyship — " how she liked her visit to C.reensells?" " Oh I amazingly ! — Charming young people the de Capells, and a most agreeable party in the house!" replied Lady Chalkneys, — ■with affected raptures, to conceal her husband's embarrassment at this abrupt broaching of the subject. " Such a comfort to escape, for once, from the routine of Ironsides and Vicary Arables, — whose good stories and best gowns one knows by heart!" — " I concluded the party must be a pleasant one," rejoined Mr. Barrington, trying to look unconcerned,—" for my son has not yet been able to tear himself away. My son is still at Greensells." "At Greensells! On a visit, then, to the old housekeeper?" — ■ exclaimed Sir Hildebrand, with a provoking chuckle — inexpressibly delighted to have at length detected his aspiring neighbours at fault. " The family set off on Tuesday last for Heriford Castle." " Gone to Heriford Castle!" cried Mr. Barrington, startled out of all presence of mind. " Why, you don't pretend that, after the long acquaintance with Lord and Lady Heriford, to which you alluded the other day, you have to learn from me — a stranger in the county — their comings or goings? But, of course, you are joking, — of course they took leave of their old friends before their departure." " I had no idea they would fulfil their threat of going so soon; or I should not have been remiss enough to let the marquis leave Buckinghamshire without the common civility of returning his son's visit," replied Mr. Barrington, relapsing into his habitual surliness. " But your son — did not he apprize you? — What can have become of your son?" — cried the triumphant baronet. " Ay, what can have become of Mr, Charles Barrington?" added Lady Chalkneys, re-animated by the manifest discomfiture of their neighbour. " Gone with the family, doubtless, to Heriford Castle," said Mr. Barrington, removing his foot from the wheel. " Most likely I" cried Sir Hildebrand, nourishing his whip over his ponies preparatory to a start, with as much affectation of coachmanship as though driving a team. '' But I am not sure that I should feel easy at knowing a son of mine to be enrolled in Lady Heriford's brigade. You must look sharp after the young gentle- man, Barrington, I can tell you; or you will be having him swallowed like an oyster, before he is aware of it, one of these days, by one of those ugly girls ! " — THE DfiBUTANTE. fiS CHAPTER VIl. She'll none of tlie Count. She'll noi match above her degree, either in estate, years, or wit.— Shakspeauk. Two days after this encounter, and long before Mr. Barrington was weary of harassing his wife with expressions of indignalion at the conduct of Charles, in fancying that the independence he enjoyed entitled him to dispense with all show of respect towards his family, Maria and her aunt were startled by the footman's announcement that " a man as had been inquiring for master, on finding he warn't at home, desired to see missus." And lo ! before they had time for further inquiries. Lord Clandon walked into the room. Conceiving that he had business with her husband, Mrs. Bav- rington did her best to entertain him till the return of the master of the house. But so difficult was it to extract even monosyllables from the shy " man," that it was not till the close of half-an-hour, his hostess managed to discover that he was remaining behind at Greensells to avoid the tumult of the fashionable party assembled at the family residence for the despatch of dinners and daughters, on pretence of pursuing his canvass of the county of Bucks. Less interested in the parliamentary prospects of Lord Heriford"s son and heir, than the movements of her own, Mrs. Barrington soon ascertained that Charles had indeed accompanied the family to their seat in the north ; and it afforded some palliation of his neglect, that when they quilted Greensells, he had been on the point of starting for home, had not the marchioness suddenly prevailed on him to alter his destination. " You must not expect much consistency from those whose measures are influenced by my mother and sisters," observed Lord Clandon, (who appeared to be in an unusually communicative vein,) on perceiving that Mrs. Barrington was deeply wounded by the neglect of her son. ' ^ They never know what they are going to do; and keep those they live with in the same uncertainty." Mrs. Barrington parried the remark, towhi(;h rejoinder was diffi- cult, by observing that she should probably hear from her son in the course of a day or two; after which, the shy guest relapsed mto silence. Even when the master of the house made his appear- ance, hot and cross from his barn-yard, the monosyllables of the taciturn lord did not expand into phrases ; and though he prolonged his morning visit so far into the afternoon as to reach the family dinner-hour, which announced itself by the savoury vapours that place the sitting-rooms of a small house in possession of all its 5 66 THE DfiBUTANTE. culinary secrets, he made as little apology for staying so long, as explanation of coming at all. When, however, Mr. Barringlon, while accompanying him to ihe porch to see him mount his horse, chanced to observe Ihal Charles's absence from home would pre- vent his going out on the first of September, (which was the Monday following,) somewhat to his surprise, Lord Clandon proposed to ride over from Greensells to breakfast at Easton, that they might shoot together over some farms possessed by Lord Hciiford in the neighbourhood, as coolly as though he had been conferring an order of knighthood. " Your very shy people certainly do the most impudent things I" observed the astonished Mr. Barrington, on returning to his fa- mily. " This chap, who looks as if he would run his head into a holly-bush to avoid looking one in the face, makes himself twice as much at home in my house as Charles ever did in his life I We shall be having him invite himself, on Monday, to take his mutton with US; or, perhaps, dine and sleep I However, the Rousley farms afford the best partridge-shooting in the county; and, as I shan't be sorry to let that sneering fellow Chalkneys, whose land lies con- tiguous, perceive that, for once, I have the upper hand, I did not throw cold water on the proposal." Trusting to learn from the young earl further tidings of her son, from whom succeeding posts brought not a line, though she had now addressed a letter to him at Heriford Castle, Mrs. Barrington welcomed Lord Clandon cordially on the appointed morning; nay, though he had not a syllable of news to afford of the truant, both aunt and niece received without much betrayal of surprise, the intimation that his lordship had accepted Mr. Barrington's pro- posal that, after lunching at Bousley, he should return and share their family dinner, so as to ride home in the evening. " Since my son is so hospitably entertained in his father's house," observed Mr. Barringlon, apart to his wife, as if apolo- gizing for his unusual exercise of hospitality, " we cannot decently avoid showing this young man such civility as lies in our power." It was unnecessary to avow further the satisfaction he ex|)e- rienced in proving to the country neighbours, by whom he fancied himself estimated in proportion to the paucity of his acres, that, by greater people, he was valued according to his deserts ; and on returning home to dinner, conscious that his larder was supplied with game for a week's consumption, and not so much as a par- tridge at the expense of the Easton estate, he found himself in such good humour with his noble guest, as to be only moderately frac- tious with his family. Lord Clandon's apologies for his shooting- jacket were received by his host with an entreaty that he would fancy himself one of the family. It was difficult, however, for his wife and Maria to look upon THE DfiBUTAME. 67 the heavy, reserved young man, who seemed as uncomfortable in Mr. Barrmglon's house as in his mother's castle, as belonging lo the same species with him in whose accustomed place he wns sealed, — the Charles, whose expressive eyes might have supplied the want of words, had his words been ever wanting ; and though, by degrees, Lord Clandon became more sociable, he had notihe art of making himself more agreeable. " No, I have not yet heard from Heriford Castle," said he, in reply to Mrs. Barringlon's inquiries ; " 1 do not correspond regu- larly with my family. With the exception of my sister Sophia, none of them care much about me. For, as you have probably foimd out by this time," continued he, with an awkward attempt at a smile, — " I am but a bumpkin, and far below the level of fashion- able life." Startled by this strong declaration on the part of one habitually so reserved, Mrs. Barrington had nothing lo answer. But Maria seemed desirous of profiling by his start of talkativeness. " But there are others besides your lordship's family at the Castle? " said she. " Lady Alicia de Capell told me the house was to be full of company throughout the shooting season. I think I understood, too," added Maria, in a less assured tone, " that Sir Wolseley Maitland and his beautiful sister were engaged for a long visit?" — Lord Clandon looked steadily into her face. Perhaps to ascertain whether the tremulousness of her voice regarded the young baronet or the beautiful sister. And as, unlike the young ladies of his own family, every impulse of her nature was genuine, he was not long in forming his conclusions. " Do you know much of the Maillands?" said he, in return. " Very little. I have seen them only twice; both times, in your company." " On which occasions, you saw me as you still see me always," was his blunt rejoinder. " I have not, like the people we are talk- ing of, a holiday and a working-day suit, so that 1 am soon known and easily remembered." " I should not think it re/?/ difficult to remember Miss Maitland I" pleaded Maria, on perceiving that her uncle was too busy in carving a quarter ol lamb to observe that she ventured lo have an opinion of her own. " Perhaps not!" retorted his lordship. " But neither brother nor sister is easily known ; and they are people I am glad lo forget!" " In that case," exclaimed the frank Maria, " lam no longer surprised that you did not accompany the party lo Heriford Castle. Yet my cousin thinks so differently of them ! — Charles arrived from town talking of nothing but the charms of Miss Maitland !" — " So might I, perhaps, were I in Barringtoa's place," rejoined 68 THE DEBUTANTE. Lord Clanrlon. " Fine ladies are pretty toys to those who are only required to admire them in the shop-window. But when one finds them seated by one's fireside, — interrupting one's pursuits by their idle chattering, — discrediting one's name by their foolish levity, — and frustrating all the business of one's life, — then, indeed, one sees through the varnish into the coarseness of the materials, and esti- mates them at their true value." "You really alarm me!" said Mrs. Harrington, astonished at this sudden burst of eloquence, " for alas I these pretty toys con- stitute the idols of my son I'" " What signifies?" — was Lord Clandon's prompt rejoinder. "-He js not likely to be made their victim. There is nothing in his si- tuation or circumstances to tempt them into spreading decoys for him. Charles Harrington may go and flirt his fill among them without danger." "Without danger?" faltered Maria in a subdued voice, partly because her uncle's attention was now divided between their con- versation and the salad he was stirring. "Is the danger nothing of wasting his affections where return is impossible, — or of his heart becoming callous and unprofitable as their own?" — "A man who cannot fight his way through the influences of so- ciety," rejoined Lord Clandon, almost sternly, " is unworthy to fill a place in it. But depend upon it, Miss Brenton, if your cousin should fall a victim to the smiles of Eleanor Maitland, it will be through no desire of hers. — Eleanor Maitland flies at higher game." Maria longed to follow up the hint by further questioning. But the despot of Easton, having now appeased his hunger, chose to be heard in his turn. The gentlemen had encountered Sir Hildebrand Chalkneys and his keepers, in the course of their morning's sport; and it was impossible not to revenge himself on the Cockney set- out of his arrogant neighbour, by a random shot or two at the pony, dogs, guns, and accoutrements, the first to be had for money and the worst for sportsmanship, which had sent the testy baronet home to Pountney Hill, after a hard day's shooting,with his heart full of grievances and his game-bag empty. " Sir Hildebrand. who fancied himself a crack shot I Sir Hildebrand, who had given thirty guineas a brace for his pointers, and as much more for his retrievers!" — "An absurd person enough !" rejoined Lord Clandon in reph. " The Chalkneys dined one day at(ireensells, and gave tbemsehts such airs that the house seemed hardly large enough to hold them. After dinner. Sir Hildebrand favoured my father with a lecture on the Poor Laws, that was worth its weight in lead." "A lecture to a man of twice his age and more than twice liis understanding?" — observed Mrs. Harrington. " VVhat a consummate ass!" — added her husband. THE DfeBUTAlNTE. 69 " It would be unfair lo laugh at him were he merely an assi/" added the earl. " Folly is a natural infirmity, and deserves com- passion. But a blockhead who chooses to set the world to rights, is as legitimate an object of derision as the lame man who atlenipls to dance." " How true, — how very true V cried Miss Brenton, struck by the good sense which was beginning to flow from the unsealed lips of their visitor. "A true sentiment, but a borrowed one. 1 found it among the maxims of the Due de Levis I" added Lord Clandon with a smile. And the candour of the acknowledgment did him more honour in the eyes of his fair audilress, than if he had originated all the apophthegms of Bacon. " Sir Hildebrand," continued he, as much surprised to find himself listened to, as the others to find him talkative, "will not allow his egotism to be overlooked. A quietly selfish person is a mere epicurean, who, demanding no elbow-room for his egotism, has a right to pass on unmolested. But one who knocks you down to make way for himself, must expect hard usage in return." "Poor Chalkneys was in the right!" was the secret commentary of the narrow-minded host on these observations. " Having no influence in the county , they would not attend to him at dreensells I" A very different impression was, however, made on Mrs. Bar- rington, by the sayings and doings of their guest. She was begin- ning to understand that, with such matter-of-fact views of men and things, the levities of fashion with which Lord Clandon lived sur- rounded, must render his home-circle sadly distasteful. Her hus- band had accidentally related to her, on their return from Green- sells, the observations of the old marquis concerning the marriage of his son ; and now that she was becoming better acquainted with the nature concealed under the rough coating of the young lord's reserve, it was easy to understand that the idea of being entrapped by one of the fair-faced puppets dancing like motes in the sunshine of aristocratic life, might have driven him, in self-defence, into his present bluntness of address and habits of seclusion. He was notthe first whom the worthlessness of the company that calls itself the best, has driven into obscurity for refuge, as eels glide into the mud. Albeit devoid of a grain of the match-maker in her compo- sition, the good aunt could not but perceive, moreover, when their noble visitor took his departure for a two hours' ride across the country, through a drizzling rain, on a moonless night, that there were strong symptoms, on the part of the young earl, of being touched by the merits of her niece. Mr. Barrington's county interest was not sufficiently important to have made him brave su much, for electioneering purposes •, or Mr. Banington's conversa- tional powers so attractive as to suffice for an inducement. .Nor wat; 70 THE DfiBUTANTE. it so long since Mrs. Barrington had been young and pretty her- self, as to render it difficult to conceive, that a face so fair as Maria's and manners so ingratiating, might have achieved a con- quest which half the coquettes of May Fair had attempted in vain. Under other circumstances, the distances dividing the son and heir of the Marquis of Heriford from her portionless niece, would have prevented her indulging, even for a moment, the feelings of satisfaction with which, (since the accomplishment of a marriage between her son and the amiable Maria was hopeless,) she allowed herself to contemplate the possibility of Lord Clandon's attachment. But the anxiety of his family for his settlement in life afforded hoj)es that they would not very bitterly oppose his union with the daughter of a soldier who had died in the service of his country, well-con- nected, and irreproachable; and with an earnest prayer that the gratuitous predilection entertained by the poor girl for her less worthy cousin, might give way under the influence of an assi- duous courtship on the part of one possessing so many claims to her regard, Mrs. Barrington resolved to afford every facility in her power to Lord Clandon's advances, by forbearing to draw her hus- band's attention to the subject. Aware that, in such conjunctures, interference of any kind is injurious, she felt that she was but forwarding the interests of Maria, by allowing matters to take their course. Time and tide were in her favour. Deserted by the family, Greensells had again become a desert. The long canals lay glisten- ing in the sun, in wearisome uniformity ; and the domed hall gave back a hollow echo, whenever Lord Clandon set foot on its marble floor. His solitary breakfast-table looked out of proportion to the vast chamber in which the housekeeper chose it to be placed ; nor did itoccur to the listless earl to interfere in his own behalf.— It seemed easier to order his horse and ride over to the quaint old Grange, where a seat awaited him at the frugal board where he felt himself' entitled to replace the son entertained under his father's roof,— than to make himself comfortable at home. There was always some knotty point of county jurisdiction to refer to Mr. Harrington's opinion ;— always advice to ask for the direction of his agricultural studies ;— and in return, the preserves and keepers of LorI Heriford were placed at the disposal of one who was only too ready an acceptor of any thing and every thing that could be had for nothing. By degrees, Maria, who, on finding that he did not correspond with Heriford Castle, discovered his constant visits to be a re- straint, grew accustomed to the company of a person, for whose entertainment so little exertion was necessary. Lord Clandon's chief delight seemed to be let alone; and, so long as he was per- mitted to come and go when he pleased, and eat, without ceremony THE DfiBUTANTE. 71 or apology, a worse dinner than was served to his father's footmen, he was more than content. To be released from the ceremonial of life and unimportLined byhollowobsequiousncss, was a considerable relief. And when, to this sensation of release was added the satisfaction of being listened to by one who made no pretence of coinciding in his opinions, and smiled upon by a face, every change of whose mutable expression he knew to be governed by the emotions of an honest heart, it was, as he said to himself in secret every lime that from the turn of the road he caught sight of the twisted old chimneys of Easton Hoo, a happiness seldom enjoyed by one of his degree. The neighbours were begiiming to feel a little surprised. Though Mrs. Barringlon judiciously forbore all objection to her husband's proposal that the Chalkneysand Harmans should be invited to meet Lord Clandon some day at dinner, so that, for want of opposition, the project fell to the ground, it was not likely that the transit of such a Phoenix as the heir apparent of a marquis should pass unnoticed of servants and farmers; and Pountney Hill would pro- bably have contrived to insinuate that the intimacy was clandes- tine, but from the incontrovertible fact of Charles Barrington's prolonged visit to the parents of the earl. They might have insinuated it, however, — might have said it, and proved it, — and Lord Clandon would have cared nothing about the matter. The same independence of spirit which made him cross the country on a shaggy shooting pony, in a jacket in which Sir Hildebrand Chalkneys's keeper would have been dis- charged for appearing, would have made him heartily enjoy the wonder expressed by the house of Vicary Arable, in all its branches, at his familiarity with a family who never went to town for the season, and had no housekeeper's room. Satisfied that he was happier at Easlon than he had ever been in his life, the climax of his felicity at length arrived, though in a somewhat questionable shape. A tornado, which served to uproot some hundreds of the finest old trees in Greensells Chase, seemed to render it an act of inhumanity to send forth into the midnight storm a guest to whom the unoccupied chamber of young Bar- rington extended its arms; and Lord Clandon would have thought the loss of the finest avenue of his father's domain a thousand-fold repaid, by the joy of sleeping, or, more properly, lying awake, under the same roof with the object of his now impassioned love. The room allotted him might have been an attic, and he would have thought it achamber of dais. It was, however, such as might con- tent a daintier mortal than himself; since every moment of Maria's leisure hours was devoted to embellish and renovate every object promoting in the remotest degree the comfort and enjoyments of one to whom her own were a matter of indifference. 72 THE DfiBUTANTE. " How glad I am that the storm last night obliged you to sleep here!" — exclaimed the smiling girl, as he entered, next morning, the little breakfast-room, cheered by the brilliant sunshine which so often succeeds a hurricane, — as though the weather had spoken its mind, and was better. " How verij glad I am I that is, if no serious accident has occurred," was an emendation produced by the reproving looks of her astonished aunt. Mrs. Barrington was evidently afraid Lord Clandon might inter- pret in his own favour the beaming countenance and bold self- gratulalion of poor Maria. But Miss Brenton's candour soon set the matter in its true light. " We have heard from Heriford Castle at last!" — resumed she, as soon as their guest had taken his place at the breakfast-table, opposite the seat wailing for her uncle, who was slill occupied in his early perambulation of the farm. " My aunt has received a long, long letter ; and Charles refers to so many people of whortn we know nothing, that your aid is wanting to explain all we cannot understand. But, in the first place " " In the first place, my dear Maria, pray make us some tea," interrupted Mrs. Barrington, apprehensive of what she might be about to communicate. " I was only going to observe," resumed Miss Brenton, placing, in her absence of mind, more than double the usual allowance of tea in the tea-pot, and mistaking green for black, " that Chailes certainly does not seem half so much infatuated as he was, by the beauty of Miss Maitland.- Will you believe that he talks much more of Lady Alicia de Capell?" — " I could have predicted that, without seeing the letter !" replied Lord Clandon, unable to avert his eyes from the bright and flower- like face before him, waking into the world with the joyousness ot a happy child. — " 1 foresaw that Barrington was near the close of his delusions; for before we left town, my mother engaged young Newbury, the Duke of Huntingfield's grandson, to join the party at the Castle." " But why should that alter my cousin's admiration of Miss Maitland?" rejoined the matter-of-fact Maria. " Because in his case, Barrington was likely to believe what, in that of a boor such as 1 am, he could not bring himself to credit; namely, that the fair Eleanor (as they call one who is one of the least fair of her sex!) was making her flirtation with him a blind to more serious designs against myself."' A cry of indignation escaped the lips of Miss Brenton. But it was against the vanity of her informant. Had he, indeed, the folly to suppose he could be preferred to her cousin? " She attempted a skirmish against me in London,' added his lordshi)), persisting with a laughing face, in his caluniuies. " Bui THE DfiBUTANTE. 73 there I escaped lier. There she Found it would not do ; whereas, at Greensells, she fancied it would be easy to run me to earth. A shy fellow, avowedly averse to women's society, (as il is constituted in the fashionable world,) has no chance in a country-house, where three meals a-day place him at the mercy of the enemy." " And you reaUy fancy that you were her object? ' — cried IMaria, scarcely able to resist her inclination to tell him her opinion of his presumption. " Not 1 1 — The future Marquisate of Heriford was the thing ; and the fact was as apparent to Charles Barrington as myself, long before the Greensells party broke up." " This is the most unaccountable story I" murmured Maria to herself. " But if aware that he was indifferent to her, why did he accompany them to Heriford Castle?" " Time will show!" said the earl, replying to a question that was not addressed to him. " But what more natural than that a pleasure-lover, hke Barrington, should prefer a house full of com- pany, and mirth, and feasting, to a quiet spot like this — abounding in happiness, indeed, but in happiness unaccordant with his tastes?" Maria was sorrowfully silent. " But before Mr. Barrington comes in to demand our sympathy for his oats and clover," resumed Lord Clandon with a smile, " what further do you want to know about the people staying at the Castle?" In vain did Mrs. Barrington interpose to reproach her niece with indiscretion, for having alluded to the contents of Charles's letter. Lord Clandon chose to be questioned. One of IMaria's great charms, in his eyes, consisted in the total absence of conventional tact. He loved her for being free from the canl of worldly righteousness, and the jargon of worldly fashion. Disgusted, from his boyhood upwards, by the hypocrisies of the beau monde, the beauty of an angel would have made no impression on his heart, if accompanied by symptoms of the trammelling of fashionable art. " In the first place, then, tell me who are the Kilsythes?" said she; after venturing a glance through the open casement, to ascertain that her uncle was not yet at hand. " It v/ould be easy to suspend your inquiry by a single word," was his prompt reply. " But I would ralhci- enlighten your mind about them than merely aniiwer, that Lord Kilsythe is my mother's brother." " 1 warned you, Maria!"— said Mrs. Barrington, with a heightened colour. • But Charles said not a word against them, dear aunt?" pleaded Miss Brenton. " It would be difficult," resumed Lord ClaMd.m, cheerfully; 74 THE DfiBUTANTE. *' for I am proud to say, that my uncle is one of the worthiest as well as most agreeable men in the kingdom ; clever too, as far as regards what I consider the best of cleverness; the power of self-govern- ment in public and private life, and making the best of himself and all who belong to him,— or rather, of all who belong to him and himself, — for ihe precept of ' love thyself least!' — so hard to accom- plish — comes easy in his case." " And is there a Lady Kilsythe? " " You ask as anxiously as if desirous to know whether the post of wife to such a man were vacant?" — said Lord Clandon, with a good-natured smile. " And well you may, for he is as exemplary a husband as in all the other relations of life. There is a Lady Kil- sythe, however, and one every way deserving of him ; except on one unlucky point, for she will die and leave the world no copy. Thfy have no children. My grandmother, the Dowager Lady Kilsylhe, is still alive; but she, I am certain, is not staying at the CasLle." This circumstantial evidence afforded great comfort to Maria, who had fancied, from the enthusiasm with which both Lord Clandon and her cousin's letter spoke of " the Kilsythes," that they must possess a legion of pretty daughters. " And who are Mr. and Lady Barbara Bernardo?" said she. ' ' Those people at Hertford Castle ?" — exclaimed Lord Clandon in his turn. "Charles speaks of them as just arrived." "Beinardo is a fellow with whom my brother Henry became intimate at Eton. His f^ilher, or grandfather, was a Jew, — a stock- broker, share-agent, something connected with the money market; — or, as Henry used to call him, one of the money-changers driven out of the temple ; and Jew is still inscribed as legibly in Ber- nardo's face and costume, as INature and his tailor can write it." " Even if christianized for a generation or two, such people are apt to be over-dressed," observed Mrs. Barrington. " And as abject in their ideas, as offensive in their appearance," added Lord Clandon. " Bernardo had the cunning to render himself useful to certain of his old schoolfellows, by whom, on his debut in London life, he was pushed in society; till, last year. Lord Oiilatelbows, a connexion of ours, consented to give him his daughter, and all the rest of the family, of course, their acquaint- ance." " You do not give a very flattering account of the party," said Mrs. Barringlon,a litllc startled by his severity. " I will make it a'^Jhiffcmig as you please : Miss Brenton asked me for a true one," replied the earl. "And Lord Newbury, of whom you were speaking just now?" inquired Maria. THE DfeBUTANTE. 75 " Is what 1 then told you,— eldest son of the eldest son of the Duke of Huntingfield." " And nothing more ?" — " Nothing more ! But most people think that enough. An heir- apparent to a wealthy dukedom, whether allacliod lo some foreign embassy, or placed in the guards to be utuvhelped, or allowed the run of iiis grandfather's racing stables before he is breeched, or crammed fur parliament by a private tutor, and dwarfed in his pupjiyhood by overdoses of learning, as temersaud tigers by gin, — is always a very great man !" "To what dukedom, then, is Lord Morlayne heir-apparent?"— inquired Maria, hastily, for she heard her uncle's highlows creaking in the hall. ^ " Morlayne?— To none!— Mortayne is simply one of our oldest Barons.— But who has been talking to you about Mortayne?" " My cousin mentions that he is expected at the Castle," said Maria, hastily— for Mr. Barrington's hand was now on the handle of the door. ' ' Mortayne at the Castle ? Mortayne again a guest at my father's ?" —reiterated Lord Clandon,— though his host was already in the room, and commencing his chapter of grievances concerning the mischiefs effected by the storm. " Then I shall have to join this confounded party at last !"— To account for the emotion betrayed by one habitually so un- demonstrative, we must recede a step or two into the mysteries of the Loudon season. CHAPTER VIIL Some rumour, also, of some strange adventures Had gone before liim, and his wars, and loves ; And as romaniic heads are pretty palmers. And, above all, an Englishwoman's roves Into the excursive, breaking the indentures 01' sober reason wlieresoeVr it iicovcs. He found liimself exceedingly tlie fashion ; Which serves our thinking people for a passion. BVRON. About a fortnight previous to the farewell fete at Heriford House, and at some six of the clock, — for in dealing with a world so compounded of pride, pomp, and circumstance as that of fashion, much may depend upon the minuting of an hour, — a sallow- looking individual, who in country life would have passed for five and forty, but who, among the parboiled visages of the beau monde, was readily guessed at his real age of thirty-four, lounged 76 THE DfiBUTANTE. leisurely across Si. James's Street on his way from Fenton's Hotel to White's. The whirl of carriages which had been distracting the street throughout the day, v/as just then somewhat appeased by the translation of man and beast, coach, chariot, and brougham, — to the drive in Hyde Park. Nothing was to be seen on the pare but the stray barouche of some fashionable duchess, too delicate to attempt the great labour of female life, — shopping, — unless at an hour secure from collision with the horde of country baronets' wives, and other remorseless bargain hunters, — never so happy as when " tempted" by rolls of satin, or pieces of lace ; — or the hack of some official man, gradually relaxing his grim visage from the plaits and puckers of business, in his transit between Whitehall and Hyde Park Corner, till qualified for companionship with the triflers who enable him to add nights of folly lo his days of care. — The ensign on guard was slowly creeping towards Grange's, lo modify, by a third ice within three hours, the influence of the red- hot pavement, and his scarlet coat. The very bricklayers ascending with their hods the scaffolding of a new club-house, (the natural growth of the soil of St. James's Street as poplars of Lombardy, or cedars of Lebanon!) panted for breath,— languid under the in- fluence of the atmosphere of July, in a district so over-paved and over-peopled. •' All as I left it, — all, to a hair, as I left it 1" murmured the sallow man, glancing towards the gilded sofas and chairs of crimson damask, visible through the still open upper-windows of Crock- ford's, while, in the lower range, a gleam of white tablecloths an- nounced that the dinner-hour of well-dining people was not far distant. " If ever there was a city that could be learned by rote, 'tis London I — Sail for Pekin, — mount your camel for Senegambia, — and you may calculate to a second whom you shall find in town on coming back ;— whose charger will be crossing the bridge in Kensington Gardens,— whose family coach waiting at Howell and James's,— and who will have hail the honour of entertaining ' at their noble mansion the preceding day their royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. !' Onemight have a model made of this confoundedly little great Metropolis, that would perform its petty routine, like the mechanical mice, and other interesting quadrupeds, furnished by Germany to our toy- shops I" — A verij slow hackney chariot, the physiognomy of which he seemed to recognise as that of an old acquaintance, rumbled, at that moment, so deliberately past the crossing of Jermyn-street, as ti. -'uablo him to pursue his lucubrations. •' !*aris, liial ' wilderness of monkies,' 1 liav^' luuiai, ai liaif-a- du/.en intervals," mused he. THE DfiBUTANTE. 77 •' 'Wearing strange shapes, and bearing many names,"- duU, dirty, and exclusive under the Bourbons; — vulgar and vi- vacious under the citizen king ; — the Place de Louis XV — XVI — Concord — Discord (what is il?) now a muddy morass, and now a glare of gilding. — But London, my London, is London the im- mutable I Whether King or Queen be on the throne, let Whig or Tory hold the seals, the same soul-killing atmosphere weighs down soul and body! I could'sketch to a wrinkle and|a grey hair, the faces which another minute will bring before me in yonder window, plaster models of the wares within, like the wedding-cakes at Gunter's! — There will be Old Vassall, unchanged in dress and feature since he came out of the ark I — There will be Grose, with his scanty locks smoothed down in lines, as though he slept in a corduroy night-cap ; and poor Brocas's rubicund face, which would make the fortune of the last new cookery-book, by way of frontis- piece." For once, however, the shrewd interpreter of men and manners who was giving vent to these heresies of caste, was at odds with fact. On reaching the doorsteps of the club, and glancing through the panes of the 6m?A-window which, even in the dog-days, are pretty sure to intervene betwixt the winds of heaven and the nobi- lity of the well-preserved specimens of ancient art, all but per- manent in their places, — the only objects that met his eye were the very slim person of a callow lordling, who, because unknown to him, he fancied unknown to fame ; but whose claims to Whitehood he admitted at once, on hearing him afterwards made a butt of, under the name of " Newbury;" — and a hook-nosed, biack- whiskered individual, wearing an emerald pin the size of a water melon, and a parti-coloured waistcoat that would have done honour to the premier amoureiix of the Surrey Theatre. " Had I met the beast near the White Horse cellar with a lemon net on his shoulder, instead of occupying the place I left filled by poor dear Shawersford, I should have known what to think of him," resumed the individual, during whose absence from England the golden image of Meshech Bernardo had been set up by the better men, or betting men, — the betters who were his debtors, — And with the customary inconsistency of human nature, he began to resent the very symptoms of change, after which for the last twenty minutes he had been repining I — He was half-disposed to pass the well-known steps, and proceed up Bond-street, on his solitary voyage of discovery. But his face had been descried from the Hall by the veteran .Joseph, who happened to be receiving a mysterious three-cornered note from a ticket-porter, to be delivered " werry part'clar, to Lord Noobry ;" and the old man's exclamation of surprise at suddenly 78 THE d£butante. beholding one of the most popular habitues of the club where, for three years past, he had not set his foot, was repeated from lip to lip, till all but the slim lord and black-whiskered nondescript, rushed forth to ascertain the truth. "iMortaynel" — "iMorty!" — "my dear Mortayne!" was reit- erated in divers tones of wonder and delight by the owners of the brown brougham, the blue cabriolet, and the black pony, which looked as though moored in White's Roads ever since Lord Mor- tayne took his departure, three years before. The Hrsl accused him of having stolen a march upon his friends,— the second of never having answered a single letter during his long absence, — while the third kept grinning with such heartfelt and strenuous satisfac- tion at seeing him again, as to be unable to utter a word. " You'll find everything going on in the usual jogtrot way, Morty," — criedLord Alfred, the proprietor of the brown brougham. " You'll find London, and every body in it, confoundedly al- tered!" exclaimed, at the same moment, the owner of the black pony ; while the warm-hearted master of the blue cab could only exclaim, " By Jove ! how glad I am to see you again ! — Give us your hand, old fellow I — You must dine with us to-day." As soon as the joyous barking of the three heads of the Cerberus of fashion would allow, Lord Mortayne threw himself into an arm- chair, for a more deliberate survey of his loving friends. But while listening to their somewhat less than civil interjections concerning the alteration of his own looks, it was impossible not, secretly, to return the compliment. Lord Alfred was grown seedy, Sir Alan Harkesly grey, and the cordial lord of the blue cabriolet, fat. All three were more than half-a-dozen years the worse for the three, to which the absence of Lord Mortayne had extended. Late hours and claret, smoking and a scold, had done the Avork of a seven- years' apprenticeship. "But why did you never write, Morty?" demanded the kind- lier-hearted of the party, possessing himself of the arm-chair nearest Lord Mortayne. " Because letiers would have brought answers," sneered Lord Alfred, " and we all know, my dear Bowbridge, that to get through your hieroglyphics is harder work than sapping Hebrew for a fellowship." " But now you are come, you mean, I suppose, to stay?" — resumed the first speaker, hoping that this time, Mortayne would be allowed to answer lor himself. "Slay — where? — In London, now that half the world is at Cowes, and t'other half in training for the moors?" — cried Lord Alfred. "And how did you like your tour, Morty?" demanded in his turn Sir Alan Harkesley, much as he would have asked him how he THE DfeBUTANTE. 79 liked the new ballet, " Wc none of ns could ever make out what took you away in such a deuce of a hurry ! " "1 suppose you have seen Old Vassall?" interrupted Lord Al- fred. " But, perhaps, you diti not know him, in llie patent caout- chouc wig to which his grey hairs have been brought in sorrow at last!" "Do you remember that bay filly you sold to Hollingforth ?" interrupted, in his turn, Sir Alan, — not one of Loid Morlayne's three friends allowing him a second to answer their idle questions. " I suppose you know that its brother won the Derby ! Holling- forth had sold it, however, to a blackguard of a horse-dealer, be- fore there was money to be made of it. Cut Hollingforth 's dead now. —Of course you have heard that V — "I should think he ivas dead ! " added Lord Bowbridge; " Lady Mary is going to be married again, to some ensign in the Guards ! " " She was sure to marry again. Hollingforth left her every guinea he had in the world. By the way, Morty, you recollect the Welsh heiress that Sittingbourne proposed to, the year you left England ? — Think of his ill-luck ! She turned out to be in a deep decline! What he used to call her delicate complexion was a deep decline. Well, — six months after she refused him, to marry a cousin of her own — (some snob of a country curate!) — she died, and made the happy man all the happier by six thousand a-year ! " "And you remember that beast of a fellow, Allcash, who, some- how or other, when the Duke and the Horse-guards were napping one day, got into the Blues, and was perpetually bragging about his father's Irish estates! He came to the devil of a crash last Ascot; for, after all, there was no father, and no Irish estates ; — and the ready money we used to see him run through at hazard came from his mother, who was some Dublin sugar-baker's horrid widow. — The Blues wer'c glad enough to hush up the affair; and the fellow, (v.-hom /, from the first, pronounced to be a vulgar dog,) was blown to — no matter where. The best part of the business was, however, that Jack Spilsby, that knowing lad of Lady Susan's, got the cornelcy, and is now the smartest officer in the regiment." " But why don't you tell him about Lady Susan's own show- up?" — spitefully suggested Lord Alfred. " Where is the use of talking about such a woman as that'f — One has been hearing stories about kcrQ\CY since one was born. I remember having to fight her brother at Eton, for repeating some foolish paragraph about her outof the ' Age.' HWIorty wants scan- dal, the best thing we've had this season is Sir Bruce's business ; only the bloom is off the plum by its having been pawed about in the newspapers." " You forget that Sir Bruce is his cousin?" " Raison de phis, that he should be glad to hear him abused ! 80 THE DfiBUTANTE. But, talking of your cousins, Morty, you know, of course, that the two pretty little Trevors are married? and tolerably well, too, for beauties. Professed beauties usually makejiasco " " 1 dun't see that the ugly onesdo better I " retorted Lord Alfred. '' Witness the four faces yonder in Lady Heriford's family coach : Lady Alicia and Lady Mary gazing as vacantly at our sacred win- dows, as if staring the sea out of countenance from the Brighton Parade I " " None of them yet disposed of?" said Lord MorLayne, in a languid tone, though it was the first word he had bestowed on his soi-disanf. friends. " But there seems to be a new lace in the carriage; and I don't recollect that the Herifords had a Jifth daughter." " Nor, if they had, was she likely to show such features as those your quick eye caught a glimpse of I I knew Alfred was about as right as he usually is, when he pretended to see Ladv Mary." " Oh ! it was Miss Maitland, was it?" — drawled Lord Alfred, to whom the change was a matter of little moment. '^ One woman, unless one happens to be in love with her, is much the same as another. xNot to yov, though, Morty; for the fair Eleanor is new since your time, and a deuced pretty girl, too, — though out of my line. — A girl with fifty thousand pounds can't afford to flirt, except for le bon motif; and a younger brother, like myself, can't afford, as times go, to marry a girl with only fifty thousand pounds." " I don't know a more expensive thing than a girl with fifty thousand pounds I " added Sir Alan Harkesley, as sententiously as if uttering an aphorism. " She expects to have her whole iucomo for pocket-money, and is sure to have been three times as extrava- gantly brought up as the daughter of a duke." " But how comes it," inquired Lord Morlayne, " that Lady Heri- ford, who knows better what she is about, and what other people are about, than most women, undertakes to chapcMon so pretty a girl, by way of foil to her frights? " " You forget, my dear fellow, that she is the mother of sons as well as daughters." " Clandon must be amazingly altered since I left England, if he IS to be had for either love or money ! " retorted Lord Mortayne, shrugging his shoulders. " One nevei- knows what will be the end of a fellow so unlike the rest of the world. People who waste their lives in ringing every shilling that comes into their hands, for fear of getthig a bad one, are often imposed upon by a piece of brass, which they mistake for gold." "But it can't be for Clandon, Liuly Herilbrd is making up to Miss Maitland," interposed the more candid owner of the blue ca- briolet. " There is Heni-y to be provided for, — Henry, Avho is her THE DEBUTANTE. 81 favourite ; and 1 dare say, if he were to make a tolerable match, old Heriford would bring him into parliament, and do something hand- some for him. At Kilsythe's death, yon know, Henry de Capell comes in for the barony and estates." A yawn, perpetrated by Lord Alfred, having evinced that, to one of the parly at least, this resume of the history of the Heriford fa- mily was not particularly entertaining, the owner of the blue cab glanced at the clock, and perceiving that it wanted but a quarter to seven, an hour at which "everybody" would be leaving the Park, (after which thinning out of the wood, those who are above being comprehended in the sweeping clause, become visible and approachable,) proposed to Mortayne to accompany him. " Dine with me you must and shall," said he. " But we don't sit down till half-past eight, and I will drop you at Fen ton's to dress, on my way home from the Park." Weary from his recent journey, and languid from previous in- disposition, Mortayne would have been better pleased with bache- lor's fare and a lounge over the newspapers, till dinner-time. But, in London, the last new-comer is never his own master, '' Better wear off the gloss of my novelty at once I " mused he. " One's popularity does not outlast a couple of days, at this time of year. When they have all stared and ejaculated at me, I shall be left to do as I like." Lord Mortayne was certainly justified in a low estimate of the warmth of human friendship in the set of people to which he be- longed, by the fact that, of the three intimates who had already accosted him, not one evinced the slightest interest in his travels ; or attempted the smallest inquiry concerning an illness he bad undergone in the East, so severe, as to have caused a well-accre- dited account of his death to be circulated in the papers. But none knew better than himself that, among what tradesmen and footmen call " leaders of ton,''' a man is good only for his price current on the fashionable exchange ; that, if clipped by the Jews, he loses so much in value ; and that small change to his full amount is always acceptable in his stead. Endowed with talents which, in an humbler sphere, might have raised him to the highest, or, in his own, if properly applied, have conferred blessings on the country, Lord Mortayne had exhausted in boyhood the enjoyments of a riper age; till, on attaining his majority, nothing but excess sufficed to excite his vitiated palate. But even during the process of squandering his fortune, his health, his respectability, his talents, the consciousness of evil doing had impeded his finding the same blind joy in vice and folly, which they supplied to the blockheads his companions. Even in the hey-day of his roueisn.. when stimulated by royal example and sunned in the favour of beautv, his shallow- minded, shallow- 82 THE DfiBUTANTE. hearted associates often whispered tliat there was " something odd about Mortayne." But though his oddity, i. e. his superiority to the paltry career which he had chosen chiefly for the sake of thwarting the severe and penurious guardian whose authority represented that of his long deceased parents, — occasionally tempted him to extricate himself from the shallow waters, so often degenerating into mud, where he could neither sink nor swim, and attempt a better pro- gress upon dry land, — the mistrust arising from the notoriety of his habits, drove him back to conceal himself among the sedges. The world found it difficult to believe that one who had acted so foolishly, could be other than a fool. While his sallies were cited for their wit, their wisdom passed unnoticed, as the aim of the bullet is overlooked in the vividness of the flash by which, its im- petus is created. At length, circumscribed in fortune, and impaired in health, the loss of that buoyancy of youth which assigns to the air we breathe the consistency of a lighter element, left Mortayne the same listless, discontented mortal, that it leaves so many of his caste. Too poor to hunt, too gouty to drink, too idle to work for the favour of so- ciety, too proud to accept it as a boon, he looked round him at thirty years of age, and discovered, beyond the possibility of mis- take, that all was vanity and vexation of spirit;— vanity on the part of others, vexation on his own. At the moment of making the discovery, he would have been thankful to any indifferent person to walk upon his foot in the lobby of the opera, as a pretext for kilhng or being killed. But Mortayne was a man still too much sworn btj in the great world, to be sworn at in the little. His fractiousness was allowed ample space for its antics. He might, in short, be bored to death ; but it was his only chance of release. At length, while communing in his chamber, or rather chambers, in the Albany, it occurred to him by an effort, which, in any other man, would have been a proof of weakness of mind, but which in his case, proved only the strength of tliose cobweb filaments con- stituting the bondage of fashionable life, that there was a world else- where than the world of clubs and coteries. " Though a poor man in England," mused he, " I should be rich in any other country. Though unable to stand claret and cham- pagne, in other lands a man may live with his like without making himself a beast. Paris, Nai»les, and Vienna, are only London made effervescent. But 1 must go further. A new aspect of nature and human nature will give a fillip to my jaded spirits. And when she finds me gone in earnest, she will seek happiness in other resources."' Passports and patent portmanteaus were easi'ly obtained; and a THE D£BUTANTE. 83 cast to the Mediterranean would have been no hard matter to secure in these yachting times., for so popular a iflan. But he had \visel> determined to avoid the idle remonstrqinces ol his friepds by abstaining from all intimation of his projects. " Clamour they must," said he to himself, " but let it be when they find tl)at 1 am gone. Some will say I am ruined ; — some wilf say I am mad ; — that going abroad has been prescribed by my phy- sician or my man of business, for retrenchment or change of air ;— that I have promised to bury myself in seclusion till my constitution or my estate comes round!— No matter!— Except her, poor girl, not a soul of them would care if I were to throw myself into La Trappe : and how can I blame tbem, seeing how fully the compli- ment is returned !" But, however much they might have objected to his plans the preceding week, when seeing him in his usual place in the Omnibus- Box at the Opera, and his usual place on his bay hack under the elms beside the Serpentine, they had a right to expect to see him throughout the remainder of that and all other seasons, on finding that he was gone,— really gone, — his very chambers and horses disposed of, his popularity rose a hundred per cent in a night!— Had he intended to proceed no further than Paris, White's would have contented itself with finding out that it could better spare a better man; that Morty was an irreparaJDle loss. But when it appeared that he had blown up the bridge behind him,— that he meditated an absence of years,— that he was bound for Egypt and the East^ — they set no bounds to their lamentations. " Morty was the best fejlow in the world! With all his wit, Morty never said an ill-natured thing; with all his fastidiousness, never did an ill-natured one. Morty had never been any man's enemy but his own. It was too bad of him to give his friends the slip, without a word of warning ! If he was out at elbows, which of them was not ready to come forward for him ? If he was out of spirits, which of them would not have been glad to help him get up the steam?" Some said he was only hypped ; some that his constitution was broken up. But the greater number were of opinion that he had " never been the same man since the Christmas party at Heriford Castle." At the close of nine days, however, their vulgar wonder was at an end ; and at the close of nine months, they had ceased to notice his absence. Let who will die, or depart, the space he vacates in London life does not remain many days untenanted; and as Morty refrained from writing to stir up from lime to time the dec<^ying embers of his popularity, he was forgotten in favour of those who were on the spot to invent new martingales, or guard-chains, or hunting waistcoats ; or win a steeple-chase at the risk of their 84 THE DfiBUTANTE. necks, or assign a nick-name at the liazard of a duel. The wrong things he had done were obliterated by wilder doings ; the good things he had said, efllaced by things that were better. The traveller, in the interim, was gathering the lull fruition of his plans. Stripped of the conventional importance attached, in London, to his well-known name, (that coterie renown which, extending little beyond the limits of May Fair, in May Fair appears so mighty!) he found he must work his way to whatever conside- ration he wished to obtain, in those countries, where an English bagman and English peer are alike addressed as " Milnrdo.'" Even when money might have availed to purchase consequence, his retinue was not of sufficient splendour to command attention. But there were days and days, and leagues and leagues, where the wealth of a Rothschild would have done little in his favour, unless accompanied with the philosophy that could resist privation, and the intelligence that could turn scanty resources to account. CiOmpelled to brace up his courage and exercise his faculties for the encounter of difficulty and danger, he accordingly became a wiser and a better man. The littleness of all he had been tempted to overrate in London was soon apparent, when viewed from without that artificial atmosphere, which has the property of magnifying the objects viewed through its medium. Lord Mortayne had almost brought himself to disbelieve, while grovelling amid the pigmy population of St. James's, that there existed a world elsewhere. But a three years' pilgrimage in Europe, Africa, and Asia, sufficed to undeceive him. He was aware, however, that his discoveries would be of small account, unless the better frame of mind they had served to engender should survive his return to his native land, and his release from the fooldom of Fashion. CHAPTER IX. Le coeur de I'homme est plein d'oubli, C'est une eau qui remue et iie garde aucun ph. L'herbe pousse moins vite aux pierres de la tombe Qu'un autre amour dans I'ame ; el la larnic qui tombe N'est pas sechee encor que la bouche sourit, Et qu'aux pages du cceur uu autre nom s'ecril. Gautier. To proceed straight into Westmoreland, in the lake district of which county he possessed a small estate which constituted the most valuable part of his diminished fortunes, had been the purpose of Lord Mortayne on reaching London. Arriving at the end of the season and the most stifling period of the year, he had little in- THE DfiBUTANTE. 85 clination lu re-kiiii the brittk' ties which had formerly united hitii with the glories of the great world of that sultry metropolis. But so strong is the force of habit, that no sooner had he set foot on the pavement which was to him as his mother earth, than he must needs select his caravanserai in his beloved St. James's Street ; and once there, and within sight of While's, to abstain from inquiring who was dead and who alive, who married or who divorced, of his old associates, was a stretch of ingratitude beyond his reach. On issuing from the door of Fenton's, his feet took their instinc- tive way towards his club; and there, he became as naturally the denizen of Lord Bowbridge's cab, and as speedily involved in the vortex of fashionable folly, as though such had been expressly his aim. " Morty ! — Mortayne I — dear Morty come back again," was echoed as eagerly by fifty pair of lips in Hyde Park, as by three, an hour before. Inquiring faces were seen peering anxiously from broughams, britszkas, and chariots, to ascertain whether the sallow, languid-looking man, reclining beside Lord Bowbridge's replete form, were really the once-worshipped individual after whom, and at whom, both man and woman used to dress, only three years before. A few slim lordlings, such as young Newbury, and a few blooming girls, such as Eleanor Maitland, whispered, however, with an air of surprise and disappointment, — " And is that the famous Lord Mortayne?" In the blue eyes of the latter the phrase was in fact so legibly inscribed, when, on catching sight of him near the Serpentine, laughing and talking with a group of noble equestrians. Lady Heri- ford, usually so guarded in her movements, stopped her family coach so as to compel Lord Bowbridge to draw up, that she might be the first to congratulate the return of one whom she had been a principal cause of driving into exile, — that Lord Mortayne himself could hardly refrain from a smile. Too well versed in his La Bruyere to be ignorant that " a middle- aged man, who wants to ascertain the changes that time may have wrought in his person, has only to consult the eyes of the first young girl to whom heispresented,"he whispered within himself, while acknowledging, by a courteous bow, the introduction effect- ed by the marchioness to her young companion, — " Since lam grown so old and ugly, I may cerlaiidy allow myself to accept her lady- ship's invitation. A week or- two spent at Heriford Castle, on ray way to the north, may now be enjoyed without danger to myself or other people." Before he quitted the Park, numberless other invitations were forced upon him ; for, coming at the close of the season when every novelty hail been exhaustetl, Miirlayne was tiuile a god- ^('i THE DfiEUTANTE. send I Everybody was " dying " to hear his account of his travels. Everybody was "dying" to be the first to seize upon him, for breakfast, dinner, or supper; — to do the honours of London to him who had done them so long, and do the honours ofhhyi to London, to which he had long been so dear. Those who were going to Cowes, insisted that his shattered health would be only restored by yachting. Those who were bound for Brighton, pro- tested thai sea-bathing was the one thing needful ; and when he pleaded that his cruise in the Mediterranean had done him more harm thai') good, all who were on the eve of departure for their country-seats, endeavoured to bribe him to become their guest by offers of grouse, partridge, or pheasant shooting, — fishing and hunting, — biUiards or lansquenet. For a moment, the man so used up, or down, aforetime, by the wearandtearoffashionablelife, felt almost flurried by whatsonearly resembled cordiality. He began to think that, during his absence, his loving country-people must have improved ; that they were growing a little warmer, a little less listless and inane. It required a more extended rnnnafssancr. de cmisf to apprize him that the season had been an unusually dull one ; — that there had been very few illustrious strangers, or suffocating /'(°Yr'.s,- — not so much as a turbaned Imaum, or Bengal merchant-prince, to excite the cu- pidity of countesses by their show of cachemires, or afford an excuse for raising the price of opera-boxes. A few days, however, served to satisfy him that the enthusiasm lavished on him would have been bestowed fifty-fold on a Chinese mandarin or captive warrior of Scinde ; and, before the end of a week, he found himself verging so rapidly towards the torpor of misanthropic ennv? which had driven him forth into the wilderness, that, bi'eaking hurriedly through a hundred engagements, he thanked Providence for the merciful institution of railroads; and, within twelve hours, was two hundred miles distant from town. Meanwhile, the impression made by his transit through the world of fashion, as well as the mysterious " poor girls!" and other Sentimental allusions by which we have endeavoured to awaken the interest of the reader, will bo best explained by a conversation ihat occurred on the subject, during tho first week of Charles Bar- nhgton's sojourn at Greensclls. It had not needed many days' domestication under the same roof with Miss Maitland, to enable him to detect, by those trifling indications which are •• To the lover conlirniation strong As proofs of holy writ," that the object of the fair Eleanor in her visit to Buckinghamshire, was not, as he had once fancied, the bold heir-apparent of Easton, THE DfeBUtAlNtE. 87 but the shy heir-apparent of CrecnscUs. By that polestar were her movements, unquestionably, steered ; and though, with all his skill in interpreting the less worthy motives of human action, he was unable exactly to surmise to what part of her plan of conquest he had been made to minister, it was so clear that she had acted without the slightest regard to his feelings, as to convert his pre- possessions in her favour to the bitterness of gall. No human being more contemptible in the eyes of man, than th^ coquette of whom he has been the tool : and when, towards the close of Charles's visit, he found that Lady Heriford's opinion of his consequence was greatly enhanced by an allusion to his near connexion with a man so influential in public life as Lord Coyisfieltl, and his hint that he had been educated at the cost of a nabobs uncle at Madras, who had no son of his own, so that his heirship to theEaston estates was a secondary consideration, — he took the initiative against being openly thrown over by the artful Eleanor, by transferring his attentions to the less fair, but far more dis- tinguished looking Lacy Alicia de Capell, by whom they were most auspiciously accepted ; and thenceforward made it his object to obtain, by the most obsequious homage to the marchioness, an invitation to accompany the family to Heriford Castle. He had two objects in view, /. e. to frustrate those of the woman by whom he had been injured ; and prove to the world that it needed only his own consent to obtain the hand of Lady Alicia. Armed with such a certificate of consequence, he fancied he might venture to show himself once more in those brilliant circles, where, as the congcdie of the Sir Wolseley Maitland's sister, he could never have ventured to appear again. ' From the moment a definite shape was given to his ambitions, Charles Barrington never fluctuated. Love may vacillate, but hate knows its own mind. The Marchioness of Heriford must be con- ciliated in his favour — no matter ivho might take offence. Not all the sneers of Sir Wolseley, — not all the giddy laughs of Lady Mary de Capell, could chill the assiduity with Avhich he followed her with her camp-stool, whenever she chose to stroll through the shrub- beries; or obtained permission to accompany her in her phaeton, after luncheon ; — the place by her side being as carefully eschewed by all the restof the party, as is usually the case where the ladyship to be "aired " with is dunny, and the country dull. Aware that a good luncheon ^nd a couple of glasses of shert-y afford an infallible pass-key to the elderly female heart, Charles Barrington was not sorry to profit by the only hour of the day thdt tended to place him behind the scenes of a theatre, of which he had hitherto witnessed only the full-dress performances. By such means, he learned to appreciate the anxieties of the marchioness concerning the representation of the county of Buckfe. 88 THE DfeBIITANrE. It was essential, he found, that Lord Clandon should be returned, because their snug little family boroush in the North was wanted for Lord Henry. " With four daughters to establish," her ladyship observed, " it was essential that their parliamentary influence should be made the most of." Unaccustomed to study the ways and means of aristocratic life, Charles was for a moment half tempted to inquire, whether il was in Church or State the interest of the Ladies de Capell were to be advanced? — But the recollection that, in the palmy days of Ver- sailles, (which those of triumphant Toryism so closely resemble,) the daughter of a favourite courtier used to receive a regiment for her dowry, or secure a receivership-general to her bridegroom, — he began to see, that if Lady Blanche contrived to net a certain young diplomat belonging to the Greensells party, on whom she was imtirablcin inflicting her proficiencies as a linguist, the family interest wo-dd be taxed, to eke out her ten thousand pounds, by getting him made cha/f/e d'affaires at Washington or Copenhagen; or that a stall or stole might hereafter be obtained for the honour- able and reverend mad-cap, whom, previous to her flirtation with Sir Wolseley, Lady Mary had been forbidden to encourage, because his father, the Earl of Greatithe, could give him only a younger brother's portion, i.e. a living of eight hundred a-year. "In point of fact," added the marchioness, whose apparently slumberous bkn-etre had perhaps its eyes wider open than young Harrington had the wit to perceive, — " in point of fact, the mar- riage-portions of the daughters of a house like ours, constitute the smallest part of their dowry. Their connexion with so many fami- lies brilliantly established, secures them a pleasant and varied exist- ence; and if, following the dictates of their hearts, they choose to marry into a sphere less elevated than their own, it needs only the exercise of Lord Heriford's influence to replace them where they ought to be." With a well-disciplined air of deference, Charles Barrington as- sured his portly conjpanion, that, brought up like the Ladies de Capell, a woman was a dowry in herself. " Asl always said," rejoined the marchioness, having recovered her breath, exhausted by previous longwiiidedness, "at the time Lord Mortayne was paying attention to Sophia, the winter before he quitted England, and every one was surprised at my tolerating a man notoriously half ruined, — Mortayne est du bois doni on fait leskoiames d' Etatl — Mortayne possesses rank and talent. Hitherto he has chosen to be a man of pleasure, and has topped his part. Had he any inducement to become a man of business, he would distinguish himself as much in public, as heretofore in fashionable life." THE DfeBUTAME. 89 Her young auditor was bold enough to stammer a remark, that " surely the two careers required a somewhat different apprentice- ship ! " No. Lady Herilbrd could not agree with him. " A peer of the realm, like LordMortayne, commenced his political education from the moment he had ears to hear. Jn the society in which he lived, politics formed the staple of conversation; and with faculties so brilliant as those of the individual in question, even the idlest day of his life afforded a lesson. She had thought, at the time to which she was alluding, and was still of opinion, that though, had he married Lady Sophia, they could scarcely have made up, between them, two thousand five hundred a-year, (which, with a certain rank to be kept up, might be called beggary,) Lord Mortayne would have instantly obtained a footing in political life; where, when the exigencies of a family compelled him to exert those excellent abi- lities which at present profited him so Uttle, — his fortune must have been made." " It was from insufficiency of means, then, that the match went off?" insinuated Charles ; who, till that moment, had never heard a syllable about the matter. " [ can hardly say that it went off, for officious friends took care that it should never come on !" replied the communicative mar- chioness. " Lord Mortayne was one of the intimates of our set. For years and years, — from the time of his coming of age, in short, and long before even Alicia was out, — he used to come and stay with us during the hunting season. So that it appeared unlikely enough that either of the girls, accustomed to see him from their childhood, should trouble their heads about him ; especially as he was not what is called a ladies' man, — or, more properly, not what can be called a marrying man. But alas I at the moment of my second daughter's introduction into society, he spent his usual Christmas holidays with us; and was found so agreeable by Sophia, that most of our friends looked upon it as a match : some, wondering at our sanction, — some, surprised that a girl with all her prospects before her, should take a fancy to a broken-down roue.'" " I have heard Lord Mortayne described as the most charming man in the world !'' said Charles, seeing that an answer was ex- pected. " Charming is the precise word I — Where he wishes to please, he is irresistible; — high-bred without haateiu\ — and brilliant without pretension." " Lady Sophia then " " Lady Sophia made no show of her partiality. Educated as my (hi Lighters have been, it would have been strange if she had. But, by ill luck, our party broke up suddenly, before the young people 90 TfifE DfiBUTANTt. came to an understanding. One of Lord Heriford's tiresome niedfes, who, by way of parading her domestic virtues, never travels without her nursery, brought the scarlet fever into the house ; but for which, MortayUc would certainly have proposed, — and, pro- bably, been accepted. But on getting back to town, some one put it into his head, either that an attempt had been made to ' catch' him, (a vulgar phrase, which has done more harm in certain circles than people suppose !) or that he was unfit for the regular life of a married man ; for, on our arrival in London, a month afterwards, fully expecting that the affair would be brought to a crisis, — Lord Mortayne was gone." " Gone?" " Actually on his way to Alexandria!" — " Shamefid!" ejaculated Charles, in the tone he fancied was ex- pected of him. " So many people thought, — so a few people said; — though, in fact, he had done only what is done, year after year, by half the young men about town." "Lord Mortayne was not so venj young!" hazarded Charles. " He w'as old enough to know better." " Exactly Clandon's opinion. My son was abroad at the time. But on his return to England, when it was hinted to him that the loss of health and spirits of his favourite sister was attributable to disappointed attachment, 1 never saw a man more indignant." " Lucky, perhaps, that Mortayne had quitted England." " No ! Clandon exhibited his Usual solid sense ; sifted the business to the bottom; made the most minute inquiries; and finding that Lord ]\tortayne had paid no other attentions to his sister than such as are authorized by the existing forms of society, was too wise to draw the attention of the world to her disappointment, by a show of groundless resentment. A duel on such grounds, in our position of life, is almost as injurious as a suit for breach of pro- mise of marriage, in a lower." A little relieved by learning the exact extent to which it was permissible to flirt with one of the Ladies de Capell without being called to account, Charles Barrington observed that he had often noticed on the pari of l^ord Clandon towards Lady Sophia, atten- tions he was lillle in the habit of paying. "Yes, they are belter friends than the rest. They perfectly understand each other. Roth are shy ; both averse to the gay world. But Clandon, though reserved, is a young man of the firmest cha- racter, as well as the highest principles," added her ladyship, (beginning to address one of the free and independent electors of the county of Bucks !) " a young man who is likely to win the con- fidence of the country the moment he lakes part in political life. In another year or two, when he will probalily be established at THE DfiBUTANTE. 91 Greensells, as a married man and the representative of the county, his responsibilities in pubhc and private life will compel him to do himself justice." An air of gratified conviction pervaded the countenance of her auditor. " Did I not understand your ladyship," inquired he, carelessly, and by no means as if angling for a renewal of his invitation, '' that Lord Morlayne was about to join you in the North?" — " Yes. Lord Heriford and myself judged it better to mark the absence of all resentment, by meeting him on his return froili abroad as if nothing had happened ; and as he used to visit us on his way to Morlayne Manor, 1 invited him to come as usual. After a lapse of three or four years, no fear of a relapse on either side,'* added the marchioness with a grim smile; " and he is a man one really cannot afford to lose, when he is come-at-able! Nothing like him in a country-house! — Nothing like him, in fact, any where ! — You know him, of course?" " Not beyond a bowing acquaintance, from having met him at dinner at Sir Alan Harkesley's," replied Charles, with a becoming air of modesty. " When Lord Mortayne quitted England, I had scarcely left Eton." " True, very true! Your contemporary, Henry, was a mere school-boy; or he would, perhaps, have taken matters less tem- perately than his brother. — Henry has more of my nature in him than his father's. — Henry acts first, and thinks afterwards. — Henry is as quick as gunpowder." " The noblest and most generous fellow in the world!" cried her companion, with becoming enthusiasm ; " no one who has the happiness of calling Lord Henry de Capell ' friend,' but would go through tire and water to do him service." " But since you are unacquainted with Lord Mortayne, my dear Mr. Barrington," said Lady Heriford, responding to her own train of reflections, rather than to his observation, — " you really ought to be presented to him. I scarcely know so perfect a model of deportment, to propose to a young man. — Why not join our party at Heriford Castle? — Henry will be back from the moors by that time.— Henry will meet us there.'* Enchanted at this prompt fulfilment of his hopes, Charles Bar- rington was beginning a speech of grateful acquiescence, when a sudden thought brightened the pasty countenance which the gradual evaporation of the effects of the sherry was beginning to leave vacant. " Clandon informed me, just before luncheon," added her ladyship, " that instead of accompanying us, as he intended, he thinks it advisable to remain at Greensells a month or six weeks longer, to follow up his canvass." 92 THE DfiBUTANTK. " Exactly the course which my father took the liberty of sug- gesting to the marquis! " added Charles, with humble (jctorence. " And as he will be a sad loss to his father, to whom his allen- tions are, everybody must admit, most laudable, it would really be an act of charity if you would accept the vacant seal in our carriage. The girls have their barouche. The Maitlands, who are to be with us a short time longer, travel together. It would be a charming surprise to them all, if you accepted Clandon's place.'' No time for demur. — On the morrow the party was to take its departure. — " Perhaps, when she sees that all hope of Lord Clandon is up for her," mused the elated Charles, while arranging his while cravat that day for dinner, after hearing the change of personages in the forthcoming drama formally announced to the family — " perhaps when she sees that a coronet is not so easily within her reach as she fancied, the consummate coquette will think it worth while to recommence her manoeuvres! — No, no! fsxir Eleanor! again and again, no ! — You have been pleased to teach me my first lesson in the worthlessness of woman-kind, e tu me lopaghcrai ! — Many a tear do you owe me for the precious illusions 1 have lost. I could forgive her, had she been disgusted by the meanness of Easton. But that from the first her encouragement should have been a manoeuvre, and that a mere debutante should have been so profoundly artful, proves, indeed, that bon chien chasse de race. Of the daughter of such a mother, what, after all, was to be expected!" — CHAPTER X. This castle hath u pleasant seat ; the air Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself Unto our gentle senses. SllAKSPEARE. She was belov'd, she lov'd ;— she is and doth ; Bnt still sweet lo\e is fond for fortune's tooth. SllAKSPEARE. It has been often said and often written,— /oo often, perhaps, considering how few people gainsay the assertion, that the aristo- cratic life of England, as exhibited in its lordly halls and castles, is the noblest in Europe, and most enjoyable in the world. The palaces of other Capitals exceed those of London ; and few are the metropolitan mansions of our nobility that can vie with the old hotels of the ancien regime, eat re cour etjardin, of the Faubourgs St. Ilonore, or St. Cermain; — the fine suburb residences of Vicuna ;-ur lIic marble palaces of Italy. Oi liisers of the Italian THE DfiKUTANTE. 93 cities, indeed, may be said, as by Madame de Stael ol' Genoa, that Ihey " seem built for a congress of kings." Hut neither Austria, nor Italy, nor France can boast of their Belvoirs and Burghlcys ;— their Chatsworths, Longleats, Ickworths, Ashridges, Taymoulhs, or Eatons. Few foreign magnates, below the rank of royalty, could afford the establishment necessary to keep up these lordly halls with the order and splendour observable not alone in the few cited, but in hundreds and hundreds of noble residences of less pretence. Even were the revenues forthcoming, there were still wanting the pervading elegance, and refinement, and air of general well-being that arises, not only from centuries of civilization, but from the solicitude for the comfort of every individual, almost of every animal, belonging to the household, indispensable to impart an air of decency and completeness to the whole. ^ever had Lord Mortayne been so cognizant of all this, as on arriving atHeriford Castfe. It was the first English country-house he had visited since his return from a tour that comprehended not alone the tenls of Arabia, but those princely abodes of the Hunga- rian and Polish nobility, occasionally cited as approaching nearest to our vie de Chateau ; but which, in truth, resemble it as nearly as the reverse of a Turkey carpet does the fairer side. In former days, he had often joined in the outcry raised by the biases and enninjes of the great world, of—" When you have visit- ed one of these houses, you have seen all of them I Always the same stale-staircase, — grand gallery, — drawing-rooms hung with damask,— morning rooms with chintz,— and dining-hall of carved oak; with the same service of plate, and sideboard of gilt. vases and salvers. Every where, the same questions on arriving, from the Groom of the Chambers,— the same dressing bell,— the same morning hecatomb that makes one fancy one is dining by mistake. Every where the same Keepsake and Monsieur Vieuxbois,— the same work-table, with crotchet-work and netting boxes! Nay, we might almost add, the same siring of fair young ladies in ringlets, and dark young ladies in bandeaux , —the same noisy fools knock- ing about the billiard balls,— and the same quiet couple, fancying themselves invisible while flirting over the chess table m the corner." For in former davs, the whole thing had become, by damnable iteration, stale and'unprofitable. After discovering the hollow- ness of much of this golden hospitality, after learning, by expe- rience, the rashness of those who, like Sir Peter Teazle, leave their character behind them to be torn to pieces, on quilting a spot where people, like the houses of parliament, rule by division, - and above all, having had occasion in more than one noble mansion belonging to some intimate friend to reap the whij-lwind fro.n ^l^ THE DfiBUTANTE. having sowed the wind, and be pricked by thorns othis own indus- trious planting, — ^jealousies created by his libertinism, or revilings produced by his infidelity, — he had quitted England less in conceit with Huge halls, long galleries, spacious chambers, joined By no quite lawful marriage of the arts ; Sad to a connoisseur, but when combined. Forming a whole, irregular in pans. But leaving grand impressions on the mind ;— with a legion of liveries in the hall, — and a world of white night- caps administering to the patent stoves ! But the rubs of life had amended his perceptions. The progress of time rendered him doubly susceptible to the charm of the com- fortable. The dirt he had eaten in foreign parts, and the strange bed-fellows with which travel hade made him acquainted, taught him the value of English cleanliness; and as epicureanism, like fever, is always more pernicious in a relapse, there was some excuse for his deciding within himself that, had he a home like Heriford Castle, the busy haunts of men, and a considerable pro- portion of the men haunting them, might go the devil. " Had I not wasted my substance like an ass as I was," mused he, as his travelling chariot crossed the drawbridge, " 1 would set up a quiet fireside at Mortayne Manor for the remainder of my days, and leave it to younger men to play out the game." This apparent taming down of his philosophy, was however, not a little at variance with the alteration achieved in his outward man, during the six weeks which had elapsed since his return to England. It was not alone that the air and generous diet of his native country had restored the hues of health to his cheek, and elasticity to his step. His dress was now scrupulously arranged •according to the fashion of the day, and his shaggy hair and whis- kers reclaimed to the most becoming form ; the glossy beard which had won the admiration of the Levant, having wholly disappeared. It is true that, on the eve of quitting town, his friends, Sir Alan and Lord Alfred, who, like himself, were equipping for the sport- ing season and taking their farewell dinner at White's assured him, as friends are apt to do, that he had made an alteration for the v/orse ; that, now he was dressed like other people, crowsfeet and gray hairs had become perceptible, which before escaped notice amidst the general disarrey. One of them took occasion to point out that his hands had attained the complexion of a York-tan glove, under the scorching sun of the tropics; while the other inquired how he could be so rash as to leave town without con- sulting Paterson Clarke, — seeing that his teeth were beginning to look as blue as if conscious that, like a run on the Bank, they re- quired stopping. THE DfiBUTANTE. 95 These hints, however, had only the effect of sending the re- lapsed dandy to spend an hour or two in Atkinson's shop, for the purchase of cosmetics and preventives ; and his dressing-box was refurnished, to keep pace with the reformation of his wardrobe. For the atmosphere he had been imbibing since his j-eturn had done worse than the swamps of the Nile. The malaria of fashion had seized upon its victim. He was once more bound to a wheel, unending in its rotation as that of Ixion. Any one to whom Lord Mortayne was intimately known, — had any one in the frivolous sel of men and women in whom he lived been capable of perceiving the lights and shades of his character, —might have seen that, into all these preparations, all this elabo- ration of vanity, there entered a sort of pettishness. He dressed and curled his hair like a man who was angry. Was it the imper- tinence of such fellows as Lord Alfred and Sir Alan by which he was piqued ? Was it the discovery that the Lady Susan to whom, in wilder years, he had sacrificed so much of his time, money, and consideration, was throwing herself at the head of a vulga- rian like Bernardo, that disposed him to demonstrate his personal superiority to the dressy offshoot of Israel? Was it that, on re- suming his post of the olden time in the Omnibus-Box, the premiere danseuse of the day, to whom his face was new, had been mysti- fied by Lord Henry do Capell into believing him the father of Lord Newbury, come to take cognizance of her daring flirtation with the slimmest lordling of the coulisses? — No ! it was nothing of the kind. At the ball so often adverted to,— the fatal farewell ball at Heriford House,— the only London /etc at which Mortayne had been at the trouble of showing him- self since his return, his chief solicitude was, to catch a glimpse of the innocent cause of his long expatriation. So little had his Heriford Castle flirtation with Lady Sophia de Capell come under the notice of the world, and so thoroughly was it now forgotten by the few who had ever suspected his momentary prepossession, that people answered his questions about her with perfect unre- serve. Within a few days of his arrival in town, he had been told that, now her two younger sisters were out, she seldom went into society, — " because she was in bad health, or serious, or some- thing of that sort;" — and with the aptitude of man that is born of woman to make himself the hero of a romance, Mortayne who had so often pondered with pity upon her preference, under the palm trees of the East, instantly decided that she was the victim of a broken heart. Throughout the long years of his absence, she had doubtless been pining for him with a green and yellow melan- choly, more flattering to him than becoming to herself. ■ He did not admit, indeed, that it was the desire to be an eye- witness of the havock he had made, which took him to the ball at 96 THE DfiUUTANTE. Heriford House. But, so it was! While assuring himself that, since the family, who had little cause to be in charity with him, thus cordially opened their arms, it was incumbent on him to rush into them, — his sole motive for accepting the invitation was, to behold the wasted form of her who had abjured for his sake the pleasures of youth. He was not wholly unprepared for some demonstration HI his favour. Lady Sophia de Capell was too well brought up to make a scene; but there would be no great harm if a bottle of Godfrey's salts were in requisition. But the high-bred and amiable girl, who, at seventeen, had mis- taken the assiduities of a man of the world for tokens of affection, had acquired more experience by staying quietly at home, than xVIortayne by all his travels. .S^^ perfectly understood that the being to whom she had attached herself under the name of Lord Mortayne, was one of her own creation; and though, with the weakness natural to her sex and age, she still loved this ideal per- sonage as one who had been and was no more, she had suffered too much (rom the mortifying reproaches of her mother, for having hazarded a " flirtation" (as the marchioness called it), the evil issue of which would most likely prevent her setthng in life, — and, above all, she had felt too deeply the soothing kindness of her brother. Lord Clandon, during the firstyear of Mortayne's absence, not to have been strenuous in endeavouring to surmount her ill- placed -love. The prudence of her self-government had effected much. And though, on learning his dangerous illness in the East, she had suf- fered more than himself, and though, when privately apprized by her thoughtful brother of his return to England, a gush of bitter tears had evinced that all was not as yet at rest within, she con- trived to meet him in the ball-room with a degree of self-posses- sion that did honour to the dignity of her character, while it wounded his vanity to the quick. In personal appearance, so far from presenting the shadowy f'adedness he had anticipated, she was greatly improved. Her lowering figure had acquired gracefulness and ease ; and the sere- nity of her brow and intelligence of her countenance exempted her, in the opinion of others beside the traveller, from the prover- bial plainness of Lady Henford's daughters. As a matron. Lady Sophia would ))i"obably have passed for handsome and charming ; but at present, a total absence of assumption, and the secluded habits of her life, prevented its being known beyond the limits of her own family that she was one of the most agreeable companions, as well as one of the most amiable beings in the world. It was difficult, however, for Mortayne to forgive the con)posure with which, after extending her hand to him, and expressing a banal hope that he was well, she turned to resume her conversation THE DfiBUTANTE. 97 with her uncle, Lord Kilsythe, with whom, at llie moment of his entrance, she was conversing. "No wonder!" thought he, shrugging his shoulders, as he caught a glimpse of himself in the opposite glass. '• I dare say ,slie hardly knew me. 1 am grown so complete a quiz, as lo have lost all trace of my former self; 1 am afraid I must renounce my philo- sophical intentions of wearing out the clothes I left behind mc in England. Unless I get Cooke to make me a new coat, I shall be having people mistake me for the butler, and asking me for a glass of sherry." Nor were these intentions in his own favour diminished by per- ceiving how superciliously he was passed in review by a young couple, who stood surveying him from a distance, of whom he recognised in the lady the \o\e\y protegee of the marchioness; and though the handsome dark young man on whose arm she was leaning was unknown to him, it was to be inferred from the envied post he occupied, that he was a person of consideration. Next to being disregarded by Lady Sophia, the thing most vexa- tious to his renascent self-love was to have been laughed at by the beauty of the night. To the charms of Eleanor Mailland, he was, in fact, more alive than other people. For years, his eye had not rested upon so brilliant a specimen of English beauty : and that vivid complexion — those flaxen ringlets — that rounded symetry of form — those pearly teeth — those parted lips playfully displaying them, — acquired new value from contrast with the dingy colouring, black teeth, and languid movements from which he had been recoiling in the East. To him, there was something supernatural, — something angelic — in the dazzling fairness of Sir Wolseley's sister. The charm Avhich is said to be the devil's beauty, youth, — is also that of the roice; and the eyes which, fifteen years before, had been enthralled by the full-blown charms of Lady Susan Spilsby, and, from that day to the present, worldworn in the blaze of ball- rooms and glare of public promenades, experienced a sens;ition of refreshment when resting upon the rounded contour and unble- mished skin of the debutante, whose bloom was as that of the lose- leaf. " Lovely, is she not?" demanded Lord Henry de Capell, who, a mere schoolboy at the time of his quitting England, had just been presented to him as one of the rising youth of Britain. " And not so bad a match either, as my lady-mother (to whom the Maiilands are related) is never tired of informing me; for, failing lo get oH" her daughters, she seems bent upon marrying her sons. But one can't afford to commit matrimony on so slight a provocation." What struck Lord Mortayne most in this flippant apostrophe was, that Lord Henry could not be aware thenjan he was addiiss- 7 98 THE DfiBUTANTE. ing was supposed to have had some share in the non-marriage of one of his sisters ; and he was rejoiced to find that the report concern- ing himself and Lady Sophiahad either never got wind, or expired with the first whispci'. Thus reheved from all scruple, both by the indifference of the family and her own forgetfulncss of the past, he accepted that very evening the reiterated invitation of the marchioness, which he was now arriving at Heriford Castle to fulfil. " And who have you here, my dear Vassall?" inquired he, on finding that, somewhat desoriente by his sojourn in foreign lands, he had made his appearance an hour before the ringing of the dressing bell, or the return of the scattered parly from their mor- ning excursions; and that the only individual to be met wiih, besides the servants in attendance, was an individual, who, at his own debut in life fifteen years before, had been called *' Old Vas- sall," and was never remembered young by those who were then old. No change had occurred in his appearance sinoe they parted; very little, in fact, in Mortayne's recollection. His was a sort of fossil nature, the relic of another age; and though when, in the strictest confidence and with closed doors he was sometimes tempted to exhibit to the men of the day, certain lockets, and above all certain miniatures connected with the brighter passages of his life, a strong resemblance had more than once been disco- vered between these interesting portraits and the grandmothers of the confidants, — belles who had shone at the Court of Georges III and witheied at that of the Regent. Old Vassall was not the less attired in the last new cravat and Corazza invented by Ludlam, and the latest fancy paletot of Inkson; for the fossil Brummell was a species of block, on which tailors tried their patterns before they were submitted to the boy dandies of Melton or the Guards. To such a man, the fry of fashion was likely to be peculiarly obnoxiovis. " Whom have we here, did you say?" — muttered he, reiterating Lord Mortayne's question,, for his hearing was not of the acutest. And lo! a prolonged shake of the head, not of the Lord Burghley or deliberative kind, but decidedly reprobatory, purported to supply the answer. " You must not expect to find Heriford Castle what it used to be!" continued he, on perceiving that Mortayne's interest was awakened. " Since the de Capcll boys grew up, they have s|)uiled the place. What a house this used to be, eh? ten years ago!— Do you remember Le Marteau's Insque d'ecrcvisses and supreme a la financiere't — The best first-course cook in Europe, though but a fev/ years before a mere Iruussc-poulet at Carlton House I — And then, what whist! — Haifa dozen of the best players in England, winter after winter !" THE DfiBUTANTE. 99 A deep sigh relieved the oppression of his t'cehngs ; and Mortayne, foreseeing that he would work his way in time from the past to the present, wisely forbore to interrupt him. " And now," continued he, drawing nearer to the fireplace, and extending his well-varnished boots upon the polished fender that scarcely rivalled their brightness, — " And now, what a falling offi — Next to Kinmaul's, the dinners here arc. the worst I know -, and, as to whist, one is literally shuffled away from the table by a set of boys, who revoke three times a deal ! — noisy, prating, self-sufficient apes, who think they do enough for society by appearing every evening in a new set of studs and waistcoat-buttons, and have about as much idea of tying a neckcloth as 1 of rigging a ship I" — " And who are these boys?" inquired Mortayne, not a little amused by the queiimonious tones of the old beau. " That son of Lady Heriford's, whom I saw in town, (Henry, I think,) seemed a sharpish sort of lad ?" — " Yes— ^00 sharp by half— like the many-bladed penknives, that cut your fingers while you mend a pen. Then there is Newbury, with no moi'e substance in mind or body than in a sheet of silver paper. And that odious fellow, Mailland " " Any relation of Lauderdale's ?" " No, — a Sir Wolseley Maitland — a distant relation of the mar- chioness, whom she would not be sorry to convert into a near one." " k par It, then?" " Fil'leen thousand a-year, she says, — and ten, I really believe. But a bad style of man, and the last in the world to be taken in as she expects. Though scarcely five-and- twenty, he talks of the world as if his only business in it were to take care of his own comfort. The most undisguised system of egotism you ever beheld I — The sort of fellow that rides over you m hunting, and helps himself to the last truffle in the dish. The worst of it is," continued Old Vassall, lowering his voice to a more confidential pitch, " one is obliged to put up with him ; for Lady Heriford is so enllehee with the idea of settling Lady Mary at Wolseley Hall, that the Maitlands make lapluie et Ic beau temps in the house." "He is brother, then, to that lovely girl, — that girl with something of a ToUemache face, — whom 1 saw in London?" — said Lord Mortayne. "In that case, he has a better advocate in his favour than poor Lady Heriford." " Yes, Miss Mailland is what it is the fashion to call a VVatteau beauty, — pink and white, — with a mouth en cmur, and lace and ribands enough for a Dresden shepherdess? The girl would have been pretty enough, had not her confounded fortune of fifty thousand pounds entitled her to fancy herself beautiful. Thanks to the fuss people make with her, she is growing as afl'ectedas the deuce." 100 THE DfiBUTANTE. " They luld me in London she was to marry a handsome young fellow of (he name of Barringlon, new since my time," " My dear fellow, you aie quite at the bottom of the basket I The handsome young fellow of the name of Barringlon, new since your time, is within live-eighths of an inch of projjosing to Lady Alicia de Capell." "To Alicia? That would be changing the rose for the nettle, with a vengeance I — He is here, then?" "Lady Heriford's right-hand man I Then there is young Wil- braham, the attache, whom ihey sit down Lo chess every night with Lady Blanche ; fancying that her green complexion will pass for the reflection of the shaded lamp." " All those you mention appear to have paired off?" — said Lord Mortayne, beginning to feel a little nervous lest he should have been invited to the Castle with the view of idling the space left vacant by the side of Lady Sophia. " Oh ! there are several, besides you and 1, who remain at a loose end!" — cried the old beau. " In the first place, there's Newbury, — the greatest man here." " That raw boy!"— " I should have said, the greatest match! Then there are the Bernardo s " " That beastly .lew !" — exclaimed the new comer, with an air of disgust. " They have the finest house in Belgrave Square, and give ca- pital dinners, Henry de Ca[)ell refused to come down to the Castle at all, this year, unless the Bernardos were asked , and now Miss Maitland declares that " " Hush ! " whispered Mortayne, laying an admonitory hand upon his arm, as from the reflection in the glass over the chimney ])iecc, he saw the door of the room they sat in thrown open, and a long procession of those they were discussing, about to enter the room. " Here comes the fair debntaate, to explain her own intentions. — How are you, my dear Lady lleriford?" And a general burst of delight and gratulation, from young and old, greeted the arrival of Lord Mortayne. THE DfiBUTANTR. 101 CHAPTER XI. So on the tip of his subduing tongue. All kinds of arguments and question deep, All replication prompt, and reason strong, For his advantage still did wake and sleep ; To make the weeper laugh, the laugher weep. He had the dialect and different skill, Catching all passions in his craft of will ; That he did in the general bosom reign Of young and old ; and sexes both, enchanted. To dwell with him in thoughts, or to remain In personal duty, following where he haunted; Consents bcwitch'd, eie he desired, have granted ; And dialogued for him what he would say. Ask'd their own wills, and m.ide their wills obey. SlIAKSPEARK. On Eleanor Maitland's arrival in London the preceding season, and renewal of acquaintance with Lady Heriford's daughters, with whom, in earlier life, she had been intimate as a visitor with her father and governess at Heriford Castle, Lady Mary de Capell was the one to open her arms the most cordially to the new comer; — partly from a strong inclination to make a conquest of Sir Wolseley, and partly from the mercurial instincts of her nature. " You will get nothing out of Blanche, my dear Eleanor," said she, as they were walking together one morning in May, in the inclosures near Apsley House. " Blanche being a little deficient in red and white, has taken upon her to be blue; and is growing too great a wiseacre to open her eyes to what is passing in the world, — or, at all events, her lips to talk about it." " And Lady Alicia?" " Alicia has enough to do in taking care of number one; because, clever enough to know that her number one is one that requires to be taken care of. A girl as pretty and as well off as you, Nelly, can afford to take her chance ; but Alicia, who has reached si\-and-twenty without an opportunity of becoming any thing but dc Capell, is forced to improve it. — Once married, however, she will become a charming creature. Once married, she will take a place of her own in society; and, unle.ss the fates are bitterly against her, a famous one it will be ! — Alicia, mark my words, is a Talleyrand in petticoats I" " You almost alarm me." *' On what grounds? — Her manoeuvres are all on her own account. She has no leisure to trouble herself about you, me, or any other such insignificant people." •' There certainly seems more sympathy in the character of youi- sister Sftphia."" 102 THE DfiBUTANTE. " Oh, Sophy is kindness itself! — But Sophy was crossed in love, after hnir first season, and has scarcely been out since." '' I remember hearing from my father that she was going to be married to Lord Morlayne ; and afterwards, that he had gone abroad and forgotten her." " No 'going to be married' in the case, my dear? The only true part of the story is, that he went abroad, and has never come back." " And was he so very delightful a person?" — " Why surely, even at Wolseley Hall, you must have heard of Lord Mortayne?" " I have heard him cited as the best-dressed and most agreeable man about town. But you must have known him so much more intimately!" " No, indeed! We were all of us kept strictly in the school- room for the last year or two, previous to coming out; so that I saw but little of poor Sophia's courtship. 1 remember him much better, as a child ; when he used to come every winter to hunt at the Castle, and when the character of the prettiest woman of the party was, I suspect, usually the worse for his visits. He was a dreadful roue, they say ; but as popular with the men as worshipped by the other sex." " Which is not often the case." " The men were afraid of him; the women, unluckily, wo^/" " Afraid of him?" " Never was there any thing half so clever ashis^wof.?. And in those days, he spared nobody. When he gave a nickname, it stuck to a person for life ; or, if he wished to exclude a man from society, it was done by a word \" " Were it not for Sophia's sake, I should say, ' Thank goodness he left England before our time.'" " Your time, if you will; but I have always had the greatest curiosity to know him. There are so few influential people about townnow-adays, — so few who make one look about one before one answers,— so few who give rather than take, — so few whose sayings arc worth remembrance. The young men of the day are either shy, and say nothing, like my brother Clandon, — or talk slang, like Henry, — or trash, like Algernon." " There are certainly not many one should like as companions for life." " I don't know. As a companion for life, I would not choose a man /oo clever.—/ was talking ofLordMortuyne as an acquaintance, — as a man of the world, — as one universally missed in society." — " Wo had belter talk of him no more," rejoined the fair debu- tante, with a smile; " it might put us out of conceit with those more within our reach." THE DfiBUTANTE. 103 When, however, towards the end of the season, the man thus canvassed and thus lauded was,.not only pointed out to her notice, hut presented to her acquaintance, the interest of Miss Maitland having been inexpressibly excited : she was forced to admit herself disap]joinlcd. I^ord Mortayne proved far less good-looking, far less striking in appearance than she expected. In a crowd, she could have passed him without heed; and unannounced, would havelislenedtohim without interest. — Languid and sickly-looking, his clothes hung loosely about him, as usually the case with those returning from the East; and the next time Eleanor Maitland surveyed the grave face of Lady Soi)hia, whose paleness she had hitherto attributed to attachment for the invisible phoenix, she could not help feeling that her belle passion was terribly thrown away. At Greensells, however, she was taught another lesson. By the time Mortayne had been a month in London, vivifying the stagna- tion of his vapid clique by the sallies of his wit, almost all his former influence was regained. His bons mots were beginning to be again cited — his peculiarities again imitated : Jupiter was once more surrounded by his salelliles. Those who arrived by the train, in time for dinner, straight from the spot where the restored altar of the idol was again set up, Avere sure to bring down with them some capital new anecdote of "Morty," — of some fashionable impostor whom he had crushed by a smile, — or a tale of Eastern travel, which graphically i elated by himself, had been perpetuated by the pencil of some caricaturist of ton. " Yes I the duchess's last breakfast of the season was charming; for Mortayne was there, and in high spirits." Or, " Will you believe that Twingem spoke vilely at the last debate before the prorogation of parliament, only because aware that Morty was in the gallery expressly to hear him! Twingem is new since Morty's time. — But I never should have thought so im- pudent a fellow could be so thoroughly looked down." Or, "I trust, dear Lady Heriford, you were not angry with me for not being here yesterday, as I half promised ? The fact is, I was asked to meet Mortayne at dinner, and that is a thing one cannot command everyday." The King of Clubs had again turned up a trump. All the prestige of his former popularity was returning; and Charles Barrington and other mmov protefies of lady Heriford, had hardly patience with the tone of exultation in which she announced to all her friends, that "Lord Mortayne had promised to spend a few days with her at Heriford Castle." ' ' One would think she was talking of the Duke of Wellington ! ' ' — said he. " One would little imagine she was talking of a man who had \0k rnv. DfeRUTANTE. behaved so ill to her daughter ! " whispered another of the mal- contents. But the person who thought most about the matter, was one who saidnothing — i\\Q debutante; who, so far from suspecting the favourable impression she had made on tlie man whose notice con- ferred fashion and whose reprobation anathema, attributed to per- sonal contempt the little empressement evinced by the noble pilgrim after his introduction to cultivate her acquaintance. Accustomed to refer the impulses of others exclusively to herself, it did not occur to her that he kept aloof because she was so fre- quently the companion of Lady Sophia; a sense of justice towards whom, rendered him scrupulous about creating any possible mis- conception of his feelings or intentions. Undervaluing, like most young people, the treasure she possessed in the beauty and spotlessness of youth. Miss Maitland accord- ingly prepared for the conquest she was too ambitious of achieving wholly to despair, with arms far more available to any one of the three hundred and sixty-five superannuated coquettes with whom, in succession, his name had been already coupled, than to herself. Thanks to the command of her fortune conceded her by Sir Wolseley, she was at all times more richly and elaborately dressed than became her years. But on the announcement of Lord Mor- tayne's visit to Heriford Castle, letters were hastily despatched to London to procure a new supply of such finery as the changeful fancy of fashion is ever on the qui vive to create, for the benefit of milliners, jewellers, and vanity shops of all descriptions, and the deterioration ot woman-kind; and had Charles Barrington remained blind to the ambitious nature of her character, he had every pretext for believing her intent upon winning back, by a renovation of attraction, the homage that was now openly transferred to the feet of Lady Alicia de Capell. He knew better, however. He saw that her arrows were aimed at some bright particular star, far above his head ; though in what constellation shining, ( as Lord Mortayne had not yet made his appearance, ) he was unable to surmise. By degrees, every feature of her character became effaced by the endeavour to please. She was no longer unpunctual, no longer capricious, no longer disdainful. When asked to sing, she sang ; when some one was required to play that others might dance, she played. Though assiduous as ever at the backgammon table of the old marquis, she was not the less ready for duets with Lady Mary de Capell, or a game at ecarto with Old Vassall. The once wayward debutante appeared to have changed ]daces with " his dear little good cousin Maria." But when the thought of //er glanced into his mind, the hoUow- nesS of Kleanor's amiabilify became, in a moment, apparent. By THE DEBUTANTE. 105 comparison with Miss Brenton, it was clear she was acting a part. But then came the biting reflection that he, too, was an actor ; and with a hasty start of compunction, he hurried oft' to perform the systematic ko-too to the Marchioness of Heriford, which pur- ported to create a Lady Alicia Barrington, and secure his footing on the slippery ladder of preferment. He was in some degree justitied in implicit reliance on Lady Heriford's influence. Nature seemed to have destined her for command, so imposing was her towering figure,— so authori- tative, .when she chose, her queenly brow; and having united herself, in the full prime and tide of beauty, with a man thirty years older than herself, she had ever since maintained over him and his, a monarchy unlimited. No one had much cause to blame her mode of holding the sceptre. When young, her beauty had been unblighted by scandal ; and at an epoch when so many noble estates were encumbered by extravagance, and royal example rendered prodigality an act of courtiership, Lady Heriford maintained such excellent order in her household, that, at the death of his father, (who was now eighty years of age, ) Lord Clandon was to succeed to a property wholly unembarrassed. Nothing had been done, indeed, to improve it. Had the reins of government been held by an intelligent, enterprising man, there were m.ines and forests which might have been turned to better account ; and facilities for building speculation in the neigh- bourhood of the manufacturing town near which Heriford Castle was situated, which, it was whispered, might have been made to add thousands to the family income. But there was nothing com- mercial or covetous in the nature of the marchioness ; nothing of the vulgar rage for speculation of the present day. By prudence only, she had contrived that the ten thousand pounds apiece, to be raised progressively on the estates for the benefit of every child born of her marriage, should be secured to them without injury to the heir-apparent. The moral administration of her family was akin to the finan- cial. She had brought up her children to man and woman's estate, without affecting to render them wiser or better than their forefathers ; and though it would have been pleasanter to have reared prize-plants, — to find her daughters handsomer, and her sons more agreeable, — she was less disappointed by their deficiencies than more ambitious mothers. Provided they married tolerably well, it was the utmost she felt entitled to expect. The advanced age of the marquis, at whose death the female and junior portion of the family must sink into comparative insignificance, rendered their early settlement in life the chief object. This moderation, so rare in her class of life, was the result of a 106 THE DfeBUTANTE. higher influence. Though fifty years of age, her mother, the dowager Lady Kilsylhe, was still extant; — one of those stern mothers of families of the last century, who, comprehending their mission in its fullest sense, continue to exercise their parental authority with a palsied hand, over heads that are palsied. Though the locks of the Marchioness of Heriford were now " of a sable-silvered," — though at the head of a princely establishm.ent, and disposing of an income of nearly thirty thousand a-year,— the moment the old lady, in her high-heeled shoes and mode bonnet and cloak, hobbled into the house, scrutinizing, questioning, re- proving, she subsided into a mere girl. It was the uncompromising dowager who had ventured to tell her that her daughters were plain, and her eldest son a boor ; and it was to the same infallible authority she confided her perception of young Barringlon's atten- tions to Lady Alicia, and sought her guidance and counsel in ret^urn. Pending the answer, — for, at seventy-one, old Lady Kilsythe was as cautious in emitting a judgment as a lord-chancellor or a committee of taste,— nothing was neglected to render Heriford Castle attractive to its guests. It was a pleasant house to stay in. There were no unnatural efforts at display ; — there was no strain- ing after effect. Unharrassed by pecuniary cares, the host and hostess were equable and easy in their temper and hospitalities. The mansion itself, of vast antiquity, served to second their views. The growth of succeeding centuries, — one quadrangle still presenting the battlemented ferocity characteristic of the strong- hold of one of the great vassals of the crown, while another, containing the stale apartments, was of Elizabethan architecture, — its very irregularity superseded the coldness often produced by the formality of a grander design. The rooms were perfectly com- fortable : neither "Palladian nor Viiruvian, nor a la ne7iaissance, nor a la Louis XIV; but perfectly comfortable. Where a sofa was wanted, there was a sofa ; where a book-table could be avail- able, there was a book-table : though upholsterers and decora- tors would probably have torn their hair with anguish at the incorrectness of their placing. A fine gallery, rich in antiques and pictures, by the first masters, and connecting the two corps de log is, was lighted every night, as the medium of communication between the library and hilliard- room, and the splendid saloon in which the party slaying in the house usually assembled : and this gallery, each of the embayed windows of which was a room in itself, and furnished with seats and bahuts, cabinets and vases, was the favourite resort of the younger members of the lamily. There, they separated into groups, or promenaded in couples ; — there, they gossiped over portlolios of 11. B's. or Count D'Orsay's portraits, or engrav- ings after the Heriford collection. There, when dancing was the THE DfiBUTANTE. 107 order of the night, the piano was opened ; or if charades were pro- posed, a couple of Indian screens sufficed in a moment to impro- visate a ihealre. The pleasantcst room in the castle, — on that point every one was agreed, — was the great gallery ! By daylight, the windows over- looked a balllemented glacis (in the encoiynures of which grew solemn evergreens of great size and age, contrasting their dark masses with the bright green turf,) and commanded an extensive view of the sen. But it was pleasanter still at night; when the brilliant light of four old-fashioned lustres of rock crsstal fell upon the rich variety of objects of art imparling interest to every step of its vast extent. Nothing could be more pleasing than the long perspecliveof the highly-polishcdyjfwgMP^; interrupted only where Persian carpets of large dimensions were extended before each of the two old-fashioned fireplaces, — the dogs of which wore armed knights, three feet in height, cast in solid silver ; — or by the shadows of groups of graceful girls, with their attendant cavaliers, and Lady Sophia's favourite greyhound, or Lord Henry's wolf- dog, sporting playfully by their side. Of these groups, Eleanor Mailland was the leading feature. When dancing was proposed, she was the favourite partner ; when music, she could sing at sight; when tableaux, her personal beauty made her still more in request. Never was she seen to greater advantage than in the old gallery. For, after coffee, her brother, the only person by whom she was held in constraint, was sure to sit down to whist in the saloon, with the marchioness, Ber- nardo, and Old Vassall ; and then came in the sweet of the night for Eleanor. Night after night, she contrived that some diversion should be selected by her young friends ; such as afforded a pretext for sum- moning from the furthest embrasure of the gallery, which was their favourite haunt, the man who had once been her slave, and the woman who had succeeded her in his worship. For she had not greatness of mind to pardon the desertion she had provoked. She could not forgive having been eclipsed by one so devoid of personal charms as Lady Alicia. " No, no I indeed we cannot get on without your oldest sister. I will take no part in the charade unless she does !" she would exclaim to Henry de Capell, after having herself proposed the per- formance. " Lady Alicia de Capell and Mr. Charles Barrington, come into the court. We want you to play benighted travellers, {very benighted travellers!) for the word bois T — was accordingly the summons of the stage-manager ; and those whose courtship it was her delight to interrupt, had of course no plea of exemption from the sports of the party. 108 THE DfiBUTANTE. When Lord Clandon, urged by brotherly affection for Lady So- phia, had found courage to renounce his sojourn at Greensells and hurry to the North that he might be on the spot to support his sister by his presence in case of a renewal of Lord Mortayne's attentions, he was, if not surprised, perhaps a httle amused at finding the cousin Charles, concerning whose passion for Eleanor Maitland the guileless Maria was so anxious, in a state of almost open war- fare with her, and undisguisedly attached to the train of his sister. But though justified in the assurances he had given to missBren- ton that the ambitions of the debutante were of too lofty a nature to admit of her caring to maintain undue influence over the son of a squire, he cared little to what aim or purpose her scheming was now addressed. She had ceased to be an object of interest to him now that she could no longer be an object of jealousy to Maria. That she had some specific end in view, was pretty apparent. Game, invisible to himself, was in sight ; for the hawk was already unhooded . CHAPTER XIL A . Is she not most beautiful ? Most happy, too,— for youth and health and ease Are hers ; and suppliant fortune waits to ask where lies her choice. Can you foresee what earth Has more to yield. B. Mine eyes are dim to-day. The rose grows on her cheek. Has it no thorn ? Proctou. The even tenor of life so long established at Easton Hoo was noi easily resumed after an event so remarkable as the inbreak of the great people from Greensells. The Herifords might lake their departure for the North, and pursue ///e/r customary habits. Bui all was changed with those they left behind. As soon as the newspapers announced the marquis's family to be settled at the Castle till the ensuing spring, so that there was no chance of their return to require conciliation, the wrath of the lesser of their Buckinghamshire neighbours exploded. Such as had been totally overlooked, put no limits to their scandal. Such doings as were reported to have taken place at Greensells,— such ww,-doings ; fathers of families ruined by five-guinea whist, and daughters by moonlight excursions on the lake, in which reputations ran as narrow a chance of going to the bottom as their fair owners. The vulgar spoke coarsely,— the clever, bitterly ; most of them falsely, and all with m^Wca prepcme ; and though people like the Chalkneys of Pountnev Hill, who felt as much wounded by the distant civihty THE DfiBCTANTE. ^09 of the de Capells as others by their utter iicglect, fancied they gained in consequence by defending the great folivs among the small, (" they had not the same reason to pick iioles in the coat of the Marquis of Heriford as Mr. Harman of Hedgington and others belonging to the same class of the community!") they repaid themselves by fierce attacks on the family in presence of the Bar- ringtons. Toadyism is an evil growth of the aristocratic tendency of our national institutions, as the miscltoe of the oak, was pultmg forth a thousand unsightly sprouts. People who had been living in peace by their comfortable firesides for the last half dozen years, had been made wretched by the three weeks' sojourn of a noble family in the country ! — But it was not the snappings and snarlings they had incurred by the notice of Lord and Lady Heriford that engendered as much dis- comfort under the dilapidated roof of Easton Hoo, as under the slated one of Squire Harman, of Hedgington, or the well-welted leads of Pountney Hill. It was not even the wormwood face with which Sir Hildebrand sneered his inquiries, the first time he visited his offending neighbours, concerning the spasmodic attentions of Lord Clandon, '^ who had disappeared from Greensells," he observed, " as suddenly as a shooting star." The abrupt departure of the earl was, nevertheless, a matter of personal regret. Not, perhaps, to Mr. Barrington ; for in spite of the cargoes of venison, game, and pine apples that found their way across the country from Greensells, he could not but connect with his lordship's perpetual visits, That climax of all earthly ills, The inllamraation of his weekly bills ; and though charmed with the consequence assigned among the clodhoppers by being seen in such close alliance with the future representative of the county, — a marquis apparent, — he had cal- culated to a shilling the exact cost of the distinction. But his wife was as much startled as grieved by the disappoint- ment of hopes which she had fancied progressing auspiciously towards fulfilment; nor could she reconcile Lord Clandon's preci- pitate journey with her previous conviction of his consistency and good sense. Maria, however, was the person most disturbed by his loss. Not alone, because, in spite of his ploughboy deportment, his conversation was a great resource. But because he was never weary of answering her questions ; and because his answers afforded her only means of surmising the nature ot her cousin's present occupations and projects. What was she to do, now he was gone?— VVhat was to replace the excitement of expecting the almost daily visit, that brought no THE D£BUTANTE. news of Herilbrd Castle? — >'o likelihood that Charles's recent letter would be repeated for weeks to come I Like most unsympalhising people, he was a had correspondent. He could not conceive why anybody ever wanted lo hear from anybody. She almost wished she had courage to sit down and write to Lord Clandon himself for news of her cousin I Lord Clandon was so thoroughly kind. Lord Clandon never seemed surprised at anything she said or did. Lord Clandon, if she asked it of him, would never, she was sure, betray to living mortal that she had so addressed him. But then came the timely reflcclion that the impropriety of the act was evident, in the necessity of conditioning for secrecy. Poor Maria was becoming almost idle, — almost a saunterer; — partly in consequence of the break-up of her regular habits of life by the constant presence of their noble guest, but still moie from the tendency to reverie occasioned by anxiety for the sake of the absent one we love. Instead of proceeding straight to the village of Easton every day, on her errands of charity, she went the longest way about, — through the shrubberies, where the birds were now piping up their autumnal song, and the barberries, and mountain- ash berries as red as coral. For that old bench, niched into the winding of the walk, where she had sat and talked with Charles the day after Miss Maitland's visit to the Hoo, was a sad, sad temp- tation! — She made, however, some effort to cast aside these listless habits, —set herself a double task of needle-work, — and discovered that the tent-stitch chair-cushions in Charles's room were so faded as to require replacing. She even resolutely abstained from inquiring every morning from the servant, whether the post had brought letters? She knew^ she bad no right to make that well-known handwriting the chief object of her day. It was, consequently, a great surprise one morning, on entering the breakfast room where she was usually the first of the party, to find her uncle and aunt not only beforehand with her, but engaged, on her entrance, in earnest conversation; near the self-same window on which Mr. Barrmgton was drumming, while he surveyed his harvest fields, when first introduced to the reader. Hisvvife, indeed, held an open letter in her hand ; and neither of them being aware that Maria was within hearing, they pursued their remarks on the contents. — Convinced that it was from Heriford Castle, — from Charles, — she saw no reason to warn them of her presence. " The most j^reposterous scheme I ever heard of I" was her uncle's indignant ejaciilalion. " Though long aware of his total inditference towards my comfort and happiness, 1 was not prepared for this ! " THE DfeBUTANTE. HI Poor Maria, even if disposed to apprize them that she was at hand, now wanted breath for the annoimeemcnt. What could her cousin have been about I In the greatness of her emotion, she sank trembling into a chair. " I see plainly," continued her uncle, '' that he feels he has not long to live. Every line of the letter proves him to be near his end." A groan that escajjcd the blanched lips of Miss Brenton, sus- pended these unfeeling communications. " Here she w/"— said he, coolly addressing his wile. " I did not hear her come in. — Not a v/ord on the subject, now I" — "Are you ill, my dear Maria?" said Mrs. Barrington, disre- garding him and hastening to her niece. " You seem faint, my dear. — What is the matter?— Have you been long in the room?" — But Miss Brenton could not utter a word. " Open the window!" cried Mrs. Barrington to her husband, apprehensive that she was about to faint. " It must be the close- ness of the room, — it must be the vapour of the urn." " No, dear aunt I" gasped the poor girl, clinging with both hands to the arm with which Mrs. Barrington was endeavouring to sup- port her. "It is nothing! — I shall be better in a moment. From what you were saying when I entered the room, I — I fancied, — I feared, — that my cousin's life v;as in danger? " In danger?— Poor thing! — She died last April, and her infant with her!" — was Mr. Barrington's unaccountable reply. " But what the deuce can it signify to you, Maria, who never had the smallest communication with her in your life?" — " What does he mean?" — was so plainly depicted in Miss Bren- ton's pale and wondering face, thai Mrs. Barrington hastened to set her mind at ease. " Your uncle, alludes, my dear, to the married daughter of his brother, Humphrey." " The letter, then, is not from Heriford Castle?" " No! — From Madras." And Maria, if before ashamed of her indisposition, felt at once so relieved and overpowered, that it was fortunate her uncle's attention was directed from her by the entrance of the servants and the toast-rack. " How many times must I tell you, sir," said he, addressing the frightened footman, "to toast only three slices! — You seem to take pleasure in wasting the bread. — / never eat dry toast. — Bread is good enough for me; and how are your mistress and Miss Bren- ton, pray, to get through more than three slices? If 1 see you till the toast-rack in that ridiculous way again, I will discharge you on the spot." And while he continued muttering, and citing instances of the 112 THE DfiBUTANTE. wanton waste in his household, as earnestly as though the letter he had received, and which still lay beside his plate, did not regard the most intimate interests of his heart, Maria had time to recover herself. She did not venture to revert to the subject, but busied herself in preparing her uncle's tea. Though Mr. Humphrey Barrington was as nearly related to her as to Charles, and though her mother had been his favourite sister, she never felt entitled to feel interested in a connexion who had never troubled himself on her account- He had, however, been too good a friend to her cousin for her not secretly to lament the loss of his daughter; and to hope, while she dropped the pieces of sugar into the cream-pot, that it had not made him too unhappy. " Itwill, perhaps, make him return to England the sooner!" mur- mured she, thinking aloud, but thinking about Ihematter at all only because aware of Charles's anxieties concerning the impending withdrawal of his allowance. Mr. Barrington glanced at her, and at the letter beside him, as if for a moment in doubt about making her acquainted with the contents. But it was a question that required serious deliberation ; and for once, he decided that it would be the better deliberated upon with the assistance of his wife. After breakfast, therefore, while the footman, half-frightened and half-sullen, was clearing the table, his master invited Mrs. Bar- rington into the little littered dungeon which he called his study; where, so alarmed was he lest the servants should disarrange, or perhaps purloin, his paltry belongings, that the dust was suffered to accumulate till every article it contained became va- lueless. The papers could no longer be read with safety, — the stationery no longer be used ; the collection of miscellaneous rubbish on the chimney-piece and book-shelves, — old nails, rusty screws, broken corkscrews, an old horse-shoe, pen knives without blades, chisels without handles, balls of twine, ends of sealing wax, packets of garden seeds, a Brobdignag poppy-head, a cone of Indian corn, a fox's brush, (the properly of Charles, but somewhat moth eaten), a goose's wing, and a phial of sweet oil, — besides an innumerable number df unsightly objects picked up in the course of his walks, — would have put a miser's treasury to shame. " Sit down a minute, ' said he, with unusual courtesy, dusting with his cotton handkerchiel' the dirty rush-bottomed chair that threatened destruction to her gown ; and turning back the window- shutters (usually kepi half-closed, lest the sun should penetrate into the treasure-vault,) in oi'der to obtain light for the reperusal of the letter. " We must talk over this matter seriously ; foi- the over- land mails are closed on Saturday next, and my brother will doubt- less expect an answer to his extravagant proposal! " THE DfiBUTANTE. 113 " Of course he will!" " And what do you think liad best be done?" " In what way?" — " As regards taking Charles into our councils?" " It would not be fair, I think, to leave him in ignorance of his uncle's proposals," replied Mrs. Barrington gravely; " but I can venture to forestall his answer, that acceptance is out of the question." " You must be pretty deep in his secrets to speak so decidedly ! " — was her husband's angry rejoinder. " The fears vou have always entertained of an attachment between him and Maria," replied Mrs. Barrington, " rendered it necessary to have my eyes about me; anxious that you should not be thwarted on the subject, I have had occasion to perceive that my son is decidedly averse to his cousin." '' That is, you mean, that you have tried to set him against her?" " If 1 had, I should have fancied myself only fulfilling your wishes. — But there was no occasion to interfere. — His own inclina- tions pointed in another direction." " Curse his inclinations!" was Mr. Barrington's coarse and angry reply. " Charles's patrimony is not exactly of the kind that enables a young fellow to indulge in inclinations ! And if I thought this project of Humphrey's for a marriage between him and Maria, foreboded better things than the miserable thousand a-year he pro- poses to allow them to facilitate the match, I should plainly give Mr. Charles Barrington to understand, that he had best put his inclinations into his pockets ! — But I can't quite see through my brother's drift." " Surely he writesveryplainly on the subject? Apprized, doubt- less by yourself, that in consequence of the narrowness of your income, your niece is to reside for the future with her father's re- lations, the Cornburys, Humphrey hastens to say, that bethinks it cruel to remove her from the spot where she was brought up ;— and that if any mutual inclination should subsist between his nephew and niece, he will be happy to secure a home to his sister's orphan, by allowing them conjointly six hundred a-ycar, in addition to the four already enjoyed by Charles ; — an income, he says, on which if a young couple cannot manage to live and be happy, they ' are not worth their salt ! ' " " I certainly mentioned in my last letter to India, that 1 couid not afford to keep her," mused Mr. Barrington " In that case, the plan was very kindly imagined." " I can't understand my brother!" was her husband's peevish rejoinder. " The comfort and welfare of every member of the fa- mily, he seems to consider before mine ! However, I shall prove to him that I am master in my own house," continued ho, trying to 114 THE DEBUTANTE. work himself into a passion, " by informing him that I consider marriage, at Charles's years, on such an income as he proposes, an act of absolute madness." " That, you refuse, in short, his proposal?" — " That I refuse." " Still, as Charles is of age," pleaded his v/ife, " it would be, surely, only fair to give him a choice in the business ? At all events, let him know theextentof his obligations to his uncle." " And Maria too, perhaps?'" — cried Mr, Barrington, with a face inflamed by anger. " And Maria too. Towards her^ your brother's intentions are munificent, as compared with her small fortune." " You probably also think that I ought to exert my eloquence to persuade them into the match ? " ' ' >'o, — for 1 am persuaded it would be unavailing ! " — " Or exercise my paternal authority?" — Mrs. Barrington did not permit herself to add, that compulsion would be equally useless. She simply entreated her husband to enclose the letter for her son's perusal, laying before him his pa- rents' view of the matter ; namely, that the offer of Mr. Humphrey Barrington must be declined, but declined with deference and conciliation. To this, her husband gave a reluctant consent. But on con- sulting the mail-lists, he discovered that, to be in time for the over land mail, his letters to Madras must be made up that very morning. " My brother seems ill and hypped," said he. " He is doubtless overset by the untimely end of his daughter. Humphrey will be altering his will or some damned thing of that kind ; and should his testamentary dispositions be made with reference to a marriage that is not to take place, Charles might lose the benefit of his good intentions. I will write, therefore, in a proper strain of gratitude, and all that sort of thing ; informing him that the young people don't care a hang for each other, and that it would be throwing away his money to promote a match unlikely to conduce to their happiness." Aware that neilhei' persuasion nor argument would induce him to alter his determination, Mrs. Barrington withdrew to allow time for the concoction of his despatch. But, true to the dictates of her conscience, she determined that Maria should be aware of having so kind a friend in her absent uncle. It would suffice to tell her what had been his ])lans in her favour. She was too well aware of the nature of her cousin's predilections, to render it necessary to account for the failure of the project. The whole morning, Mrs. Barrington tried to find occasion for introducing the subject. But it was more difficult than she fancied. THE DEBUTANTE. il5 To allude, cvoii remotely, lo an event so likely to have secured her own happiness as a mother, produced an unspeakable pang in her heart. At length, when, in the afternoon, the master of the house protruded his head into the sitting-room arrayed hi the least shabby of his straw hats, (an unfailing signal that he was about to ride the shooting pony to Tring, to the seedsman's, or ironmonger's, or post-office, or some other equally interesting errand,) his wife, perceiving that he held in his hand the important letter which it had cost him the whole morning to bring into shape, determined, the moment he was gone, to broach the critical subject. Already, they had discussed the untimely decease of the poor young woman who was gone with her infant to the grave, within a year of her marriage ; and already, Maria's compassionate heart had suggested that, luckily her uncle had still a daughter to con- sole him. " He appears to be a very kind-hearted man," said she. " How few instances one hears of parents in India preferring, as he did, that their children should receive a moderately good education, to the separation which was to render them more accomplished !" "It is for the strengthening of their health, rather than the perfecting of their education, European children are sent home from India," observed Mrs. Barrington; " and your cousins, you see, have turned, out delicate in consequence. Humphrey, in, however, a kindly affectioned creature ; and I cannot give you a greater proof of it, my dear Maria, than in the fact that ; had an attachment arisen between yourself and your cousin Charles, he was willing to afford you the means of being happy together." Though Mrs. Barrington had seen her niece that morning so thoroughly overpowered by the mere surmise of her cousin's in- disposition, she was not, strange to say, prepared for the over- whelming emotions that overcame Maria Brenton, when, by degrees, the whole measure of her uncle's intended generosities was disclosed. Pale and motionless as a statue, her work having fallen upon her knees, and with big tears slowly steahng from her eyes, she sat, trying to listen, — trying to understand, — trying to prevent her heart from breaking. — That such a destiny should have been in store for her, — that a beneficent relative, at the instigation of a still more bountiful pro- vidence, should have so provided for her happiness, — was indeed a vision of bliss ; and that she should have proved unworthy of it, — yes, unworthy of it, — for had she been ])rcpossessing as other girls, her cousin could not have been insensible to her attachment, — was a thing, she thought, to humble her to the dust I — When, by degrees, she recovered free use of her faculties, her first impulse was to take her aunt's hand and raise it to her lips. " What friends 1 have had!" faltered she, in a very low voice. 116 THE DfiBUTANTE. " VViia! kind coiitjiderale friends! — Parents could not have been more ilioughirul !--Ha(l 1 been worthy of becoming Charles's wife, how — but do not let us talk of it," said she. " Do not let me be ungrateful for the many blessings still within my reach." " We will touch upon the subject no more then, dearest Maria," rejoined her aunt, with a gush of tears that acknowledged any thing rather than want of merit in the self-accusing girl, — " But you must write to your uncle Humphrey. He has claims upon your acknowledgments. Write directly, dearest ; write now that your heart is full. It is not necessary that Mr. Barrington should be apprized of your letter; but it must go by to-day's post, or miss the mail." From habitual submission, Maria would instantly have obeyed. But on this occasion, she complied at the instigation of her over- charged feelings. She ivanted to thank this kind brother of her mother; (that her mother should have had one brother so kind, and one such as him under whose roof she was abiding!) and, having hastened up to her little attic to relieve her heart by trans- cribing all that it contained, — all her gratitude, — all her love, — all her certainty that her mother who was in Heaven would in- tercede for blessings on the protector of her poor child, — her poor harassed aunt occupied the interim in seeking among the EasLon villagers a trusty messenger who would convey the letter to Tring, in time for the post, without calling forth the animadver- sions of her husband. When found, and the errand bargained for and requited, Mrs. Barrington took the letter from the trembling hand of her niece, to deliver it to the care of the messenger: — how little surmising the influence that almost accidental occurrence was to exercise over ]ier destinies and those of her son ! CHAPTER XHI. *Tis the heart's home, to have a world in Time, of happy thoughts that we liave known ^eforo ; Hearing in common words the holy chime Of those sweet Sabbath-bells,— the dreams of yort-. Bn.WER Lttton Makia Bkl.moiN awoke next morning with the sensations oi a person who has undergone a violent blow; for the heart may be stunned and bruised as well as the outward frame, and hers felt sore, even to anguish. She did not, however, the less exert herself to arise with a patient mind and cheerful face ; and was, as usual, the first in the breakfast- room. On her uncle's appearance, according to family custom, the THE DfeBUTANTE. 117 lea was poured oat. But the surprise expressed by Mr. Barringtoti on finding lliat liis wile was not established at table with her niece, darkened to dire displeasure as breakfast proceeded, and the rack, with the memorable three slices of dry toast, made its appearance, — and no Mrs. Harrington. " I should not be surprised if she were going to treat us with a touch of Lady Heriford, and breakfast in her own room," said he, with a grim smile, purporting to express liis opinion that such an excess of self-assumption was out of the question "I am almost afraid my aunt must be ill," said Maria, rising from table. "I had better go and tell her that breakfast is ready." In a moment, she was at the dressing-room door. Her gentle tap was answered by Mrs. Barrington's as gentle "Come in," — but in a still lower voice than usual. Maria's heart failed her as she entered. For though her aunt was completely dressed, she was seated on a little shabby cane sofa that formed one of the chief articles of furniture in the room, as if inca- pable of motion ; and her niece discovered, on entering, a power- ful smell of ether. ' ' You have been ill, and did not send for me ! " cried she, placing herself at Mrs. Barrington's side, and taking hold of her hand. ''Not ill, dearest." " Unhappy , then! Something has vexed you I — Dear aunt, what is the matter? — What can I do?" — "Nothing, my dear child, nothingi — I am not ill — lam not unhappy. — Only agitated, Maria — only '' The expression of sympathizing fondness that pervaded the countenance of her niece as she looked anxiously into her face, so overcame the feelings of Mrs. Barrington, that, suddenly throwing her arms about Maria's neck, she sobbed aloud. For a moment, the heart to which her own was pressed, throbbed in silence. At length, a half-unconscious murmur escaped the lips of Miss Brenton, of "Surely it cannot be for //le she is fretting? — Surely it is not yesterday's letter that has overcome her thus?" — " No, dear Maria," rejoined Mrs. Barrington, feeling it necessary to take courage. " It is not that ! The letter that has agitated me is from Heriford Caslle. It is on Charles's account I am worried " "What has happened? — Some accident? Some " "No accident — nothing unpleasant," replied her aunt; in reply rather to the grasping hand fixed upon her arm than lo her simple interrogation. "But 1 have a great deal to talk over with your uncle, and want strength for the effort. It will be best to prepare him. I dread the first outbreak of his violence." " Charles has been doing wrong, then? — Something is sorely amiss!" "No, my dear child, no — nothinu is amiss. I cannot talk lo vju 118 THE DEBUTANTE. about it, Maria, just now. But, here is your cousin's letter — take it down to his father. Tell him I hope to see him immediately after breakfast; and that I am going to lie down and compose myself in the interim." Maria silently kissed her forehead ; placed a pillow from the ad- joining bed-room on the hard cane sofa, — drew down the blinds, — then, having accepted, with a trembling hand, the letter held out to her by Mrs. Barrington, disappeared. If, in the course of her transit from the dressing-room to the breakfast-room, that well-known hand-writing, which had never addressed a letter to herself save for some selfish and peremptory commission, was furtively raised to her lips, she recovered her self- possession in time to say with perfect composure to her uncle, " My aunt is not very well, Sir, and is lying down, but hopes to see you after breakfast. I have brought you a letter from my cousin. " Mr. Barrington fixed his eyes scowlingly on her face, as he took it ; hoping, perhaps, to ascertain whether the contents had been communicated to the poor relation, sooner than to himself. But he could make out nothing ; and, in order to mark his sense of supe- riority to both the bearer, writer, and sender of the letter, he placed it on the table-cloth beside him, while he proceeded to despatch his second cup of tea, with the sonorous suction of an ox drinking at a pool. Maria watched him in agonized silence ; hoping to derive some insight, from his mode of reading the letter, into the nature of her aunt's discomfiture. For he was accustomed to regard her presence no more than that of any other piece of furniture in the room ; and when, at length, he took it from the envelope, and ran his eye over the contents, she was, indeed, not long in suspense. " Confound his impudence ! " were the first half-grumbled words that escaped his lips, on reaching the bottom of the first page ; " and the pretence, too, of asking my consent?" — He might almost have felt how searchingly the eyes of Maria were fixed upon his face, — so eager was she not to lose a syllable that followed. " Such, then," said he, having apparently mastered the contents of the letter, — " such was the motive of their coming galloping over here from Greensells, wanting luncheon, giving trouble, and putting every one to rout and confusion ! Are fiou aware, pray, of the contents of this precious epistle?" continued he, suddenly addressing his niece. " Only, Sir, as far as 1 have gathered them from youi- own lips," stammered Maria. *' My cousin is going to be married." " (ioiny to be mai'ried! That, at least, will be as his father chooses" — rejoined the enraged man. — " Wants to bo married, yciU should say; and Want, 1 suspect? will be his maslei'I " THE DfiBUTANTE. 119 " I understood that Miss Maitland had a very large fortune?" said Maria, faintly. " Yes— no ^I know nothing about Miss Maitland ! — What has Miss Maitland to do with the matter?" " I fancied I heard you say that my cousin Charles was go- that is, wanted to marry her ? " " I said nothing of the kind. If I were only to say the sun shone, you would manage to make some blunder or some mischief out ofiti" Maria sighed very heavily, but not because thus accused. She was upon thorns. She knew the difficulty of extracting information from her uncle. " Your cousin, without my consent or sanction, has gone and proposed to Lady Alicia de Capell ! "— said Mr. Barrington, almost fiercely. " To Lady Alicia?— To that proud, cold girl?— And she has refused him?" " Not she I The young lady is willing enough,— ossible but that (the correspondence of Mrs. Bariinglon with her son having apprized him of his daily visits for a month past to Easton Hoo), a man of Charles's age must surmise the nature and direction of his attachment. 126 THE DEBUTANTE. "I, of course, should be the last person to take exceptions to your choice, if my suspicions concerning its object do not mislead me," replied Charles, choosing to exonerate himself, at any cost to his pride, from the imputation of an ill-bred sneer. " My ad- miration, in the same quarter, certainly preceded your own." Still misled as to his suppositions, all this appeared but natural. Living under the same roof with Maria, her cousin could not but have been cognizant of her charms; while his recent admiration of the debutante served equally to reassure Lord Clandon that, whatever might have been his sentiments in earlier years, there remained nothing to alarm him in the way of rivalship. "At least," said he, with the blunt frankness of his nature, " I have nothing to apprehend from your opposition to my suit?" — "Less than 7iothingl" was the emphatic reply. "I have long retreated from the field ; if indeed I can be said ever to have made advances." The conversation would have been pursued, ant perhaps to their mutual enlightenment, had not Lord Mortayne at that moment entered the gallery, and joined the groiq) beside the instrument. Lord Clandon, who had given up star-gazing and reclosed the cur- tains, the moment he found himself importuned by a companion, instantly glided from his retreat, and, as if undesignedly, sauntered towards his sisters; leaving Charles Barrington to complete alone his survey of a cabinet of medals that stood in the window, the velvet trays of which he was pretending to examine. " Was he laughing at me when he made that inquiry?" was the secret cogitation of the fretful egotist, when left alone. " Most likely I and very soon they will laugh at me together ! I am only too familiar with the fair Eleanor's tender mercies. It will make a charming subject for her quizzing, to describe the poor clodpole of Easton writing sonnets to her eyebrow, and so completely mistak- ing his sphere as to fancy himself a match for the sister of Sir Wolseley Maitland! — By Jove! I must be beforehand with her. — The match is not yet declared. — Not a soul here but myself suspects the truth. — Lady Alicia has given me excellent encouragement. — This very night 1 will put her intentions to the test." Her ladyship's intentions were preity nearly what might have been expected of a girl of six-and-twenty, without fortune enough to varnish over her want of personal attractions. Submitted, more than suited her aspiring nature, to lite authority of a mother and grand- mother, and the innovations of three younger sisters, Lady .Micia's sole anxiety was to troner in a house of her own ; even if that house were on a less dignified scale than she had once hoped to appropriate. Having at once referred the suppliant to her mother for an answei- to his proposals, (as became the daughter of a marchioness and pupil of a couple of high-pressure governesses,) she marked her THE DfeRUTANTE. 127 desire that the answer should be favourable, by assuring him that the safest mode of seeking it would be by letter. " Her mother," she told him, " was guided in all the more im- portant acts of her life by ' grandmamma;' and an epistle, such as could be forwarded to Lady Kilsythe, would be the surest exposi- tion of his wishes and prospects." That very night, accordingly, the epistle was indited that set forth his hopes and fears, — his ways and means, — and his ambition of obtaining such distinctions in public life as the united interest of Lord Heriford, and "his mother's cousin and trustee. Lord Coyls- field," might enable him to accomplish. So plausibly, in fact, did he contrive to make the best of himself, showing only the sunny side of the landscape, and causing the mica to glitter like gold, that, by the time he had signed his manifesto, he himself was almost deceived into a conviction, that '• he was not so bad a match after all!" But when, next morning, at breakfast, after the transmission of the letter, he encountered the perpendicular person and stern countenance of Lady Heriford, he began to tremble at his auda- city, in having ventured to think himself a worthy son-in-law for a marchioness, standing five feet ten in her shoes, whose ancestors fought at the Crusades I Now that her ladyship's rigidity was no longer mollified by sherry, nor his own courage strengthened by the envy, hatred, and malice of jealous rivalship, he stood as much in awe of her as though she were frowning upon him from a regal monument in Westminster Abbey. It was a terrible moment. The hot coffee he was endeavouring to swallow seemed to turn to molten lava, and the egg he attempt- ed to eat might have been a crocodile's ! Every face of thai long and brilliant breakfast party seemed turned towards him. He fan- cied he could detect a gleam of wicked triumph in the blue eyes of Eleanor Maitland. He fancied that the smile of Lord Mortayne had a meaning as especial as that of a Lord of the Treasury, while concocting a reply to the opposition member on his legs, who is committing blunder after blunder ! Very sincerely did he wish himself well out of it ! — What mad- ness could ever have tempted him to swim so much out of his depth !— His agonies were relieved shortly after breakfast, however, by a civil note from the marchioness, requesting a week to deliberate upon " proposals so nearly involving the happiness of her daugh- ter." For such an answer he had been prepared by Lady Alicia; who assured him nothing would be decided till the affair had been submitted to the Dowager Lady Kilsythe. But though the mar- chioness's mode of addressing him was far from calculated to dis- courage his hopes , he saw plainly that so remarkable an event in 128 THE DfiBUTANTE. her maternal life as the lirst offer to one of the four daughters so long on matrimonial thoughts intent, was about to be treated as a grand family solemnity. The ladies of the family went about the house in twos and threes, whispering ; and the ladies'-maids were seen shuffling about the corridors , from dressing-room to dressing- room, bearing little confidential notes. There was as much fuss, in short, as over the first gudgeon caught in a fashionable fishing party, when, after prodigious efforts, a hot morning has been spent without a nibble. Lady Mary and Sir Wolseley Maitland exploded into fits of laughter, on catching a glimpse, at the end of the gallery, of the couple of victims marked out for sacrifice. But the rest of the party looked gravely and consequentially upon the matter; except Lord Henry and his gay associates, who affected to retreat in dismay whenever Charles Barrington approached, as though he bore about him fatal symptoms of the plague. " Go out shooting with us?" cried his lordship, on his future brother-in-law's hazarding the proposal : " not for worlds! — The ominous red cross of the pestltere, my dear fellow, is inscribed on your breast." "We should be having you mistake one of us for a hen- pheasant," added Sir Wolseley; " and I, for one, have no taste for receiving the charge of your gun in my calves !" Had not Charles Barrington been too much accustomed, while paying his court to the fair Eleanor, to put up with her brother's impertinence, to become suddenly resentful, a bitter retort about calf-shooting was on the tip of his tongue. It was provoking enough that, while Lady Heriford insisted, on his part, on the strictest secrecy concerning his pretensions, she seemed to have placed the whole house in her confidence ! — Now, everybody knows, who knows the ways of the frivolous, that though, on the announcement of a marriage as a settled thing, 6o//i halves of the happy couple are immediately converted into angels, — the young lady, into the "lovely and accomplished daugh- ter of " and the intended, into " a very good fellow," a "young man of considerable promise," or " a man of the highest respect- ability," — the moment such an afi'air is what is called "upon the tapis,' everybody docs his worst, and says his worst, for the frustration of the project. Each of the parties might do better, — or, neither of the parties could do worse ; and their friends are strenuously entreated to interfere, and save them from lasting misery, before it be too late. Never, in short, are the propensities of the busybody, and the energies of the mischief-maker, more acti- vely developed, than in attempts to break off a match. It would have been difficult for a woman who had begun to despair of having such an article as a son-in-law ever placed at THE DfiBUTANTE. i29 her disposal, lo refrain from talking over the business with the married ladies staying in the house ; who usually met in conclave in her dressing-room after breakfast, for the arrangement of the |)lansfor ilie day : and still more difficult for such persons as Lady Barbara Bernardo, who knew her own alliance with the Old Jewry to have been so unsparingly dissected by the great world ; and the prudent Countess of Essendon, who, having five flaxen-headed angels in backboards and flounced trowsers, training up for the slave-market, considered it her duty as a mother to keep up the price of ladyships, — to abstain from trying to put down an as- piring nobody, who had a mind to secure his worldly promotion through the talisman of a wedding ring. Lady Heriford was "entreated to be cautious;" to ascertain die exact whereabout of Mr. Harrington's paternal acres, — the precise nature of his '' eventualities ; " and, though Lord Clandon, albeit uncontided in by his mother, replied, on being indi- rectly questioned, that" the Barringtons of Easton were an an- cient Buckinghamshire family, whose present representative was a well-educated gentleman, and a man of independent fortune," every other individual in the house, to whom the subject was submitted," begged to let it be distinctly understood, that they knew nothing whatever about Mr. Harrington. They had seen him in London that season, for the first time, paying somewhat marked attentions to Miss Mailland ; but with what justihcation, they could not presume to say. " All this was disparaging enough. At the close of two or three days, the future bridegroom skulked about the Castle in lonesome ostracism, looking very much as if he had been detected in an attempt to purloin the family plate, and had a capital indictment impending over him, on a probation of good behaviour; and, had he known how to accomplish such a feat with the same sangfroid, he would probably have ordered post-horses after the Mortayne fashion, and started for the Pyramids. What, therefore, was his surprise when, on joining, on the fifth day, the party awaiting in the saloon the sounding of the dinner gong, he was welcomed by Lady Essendon, who for two days past had scarcely addressed him, with the most eager inquiries con- cerning his morning's sport. Everybody seemed as glad to see him as if they had not seen him for an age; which was partly the case, as they had, one and all, appeared to forget he was in the house. Meschech Bernardo inquired whether he had seen the morning papers, and what was the state of the railway market; while Lady Barbara observed, in an audible whisper to Lord Henry de Capell, that Mr. Barrington's waistcoat buttons were " the greatest ducks she had overseen in her life." " 1 hope you will lide with us to-morrow, Mr. Harrington," said 9 130 THE DfiBUTANTE. Lady Alary de Capell. " We had capital fun this morning, getting across the hills. Sir Wolseley's horse was twice nearly down, and my sister Blanche's marc came home dead lame." "1 have inquired about the seventh number of the Heriford Gallery, my dear Barriiigton," added Lord Henry, "and the pu- blishers say it was sent to your hotel in town." It was only the old marquis, whose manner towards him had never varied from the condescending pomposity of one whose con- sequence is based on a square of fifty thousand acres, (simply because he was not yet acquainted with his matrimonial preten- sions,) who retained his usual superannuated Sir Charles Grandi- sonism. Involuntarily the young man glanced towards the place on the sofa near the fire, usually occupied by Lady Heriford, to ascertain whether the mother of Lady Alicia had, like the rest, abated a cubit of her stature. But the post of honour was vacant. Her ladyship's favourite pug-dog sat curling its tail and nose at the company, on a satin footstool before the empty scat; but no signs of its mistress. " Something extraordinary must have occurred I" mused Charles; for Lady Heriford, if she exhibited a few of the narrownesses and tiresomenesses of the whole school, was a model of its many virtues, such as filial duty and punctuality. Invariably beforehand with her guests, she was never known to keep even a iradespcrson waiting. While he directed his eyes towards the place and pug, those of the rest of the party were turned with one accord towaids the door. In another moment, an unusual noise in that direction caused him to follow their example, and lol he beheld Lady Alicia enter the room with a little old woman leaning upon her arm, ar- rayed from top to toe in while, with black lace pinners and a black lace cloak over her shoulders, to prevent her looking as Hvoueeau blanc; the Marchioness of Heriford and Lady Sophia gravely bring- ing up the rear. " Grandmam.ma for a thousand I" thought he, with a rising glow, as, at the tapping of her high-heeled shoes upon the carpet, every- body rose to greet the Dowager Lady Kilsythe, as they would have done the presence of some royal personage. And from the fact that, of all her grandchildren, Lady Alicia had been selected for the honour of b'jcoming the old lady's walking-stick, he deduced a favourable omen. Slinking behind the double petticoat o[ gros grain of Lady Bar- bara Bernardo, as the silvery-haired dowager proceeded past him on her way to the place of honour ceded to her by her daughter, he could not but be imuressed bv the reverential manner in which THE DfiBUTANTE. 131 she was saluted by all present, — even the marquis, who was ten years older than herself. " I was driving out when your ladyship so unexpectedly arrived this afternoon," said he, as soon as Lady Kilsythe was seated, "or 1 should not have deferred till now my inquiries after your health." " Never better, — or you would not see me here!" was her cheerful reply. " Crazzy vessels should not venture out of port. — God be thanked, I am stout enough for any sea." The early intimacy of Charles Barrington with Lord Henry de Capell had long rendered him cognizant of grandmamma's extra- ordinary influence in the family synod,- and the government exer- cised by an old woman always carries with it, in the vague, an ignominious impression. But if he had formerly wondered at the submission of people so great as the marquis and marchioness, to one of such small account as a Viscountess Dowager of small estate, he was much more inclined to wonder now the little eccentric- looking bundle was before him. He had still to learn the impor- tance which a positive and consistent will may assign to any person possessed of strength and courage to maintain it. Lady Kilsythe had been left at a very early age a widow, with two children and a moderate fortune. In the course of half a cen- tury, the moderate fortune had become a large one, because she lived considerably within its limits : while over the two children, now an old man and old woman, — Lord Kilsythe and the Mar- chioness of Hertford, — she retained unlimited authority, from having early instructed them to look upon liUal piety as the first of christian duties. " I don't much think my mother would have contrived to im- press ns with the same blind deference towards grandmamma," was Lord Henry de Capell's account of the matter to his friend ; " had not the old lady laid by some fifty or sixty thousand pounds, which she may leave to any one of us she pleases ; or, if none of us please her, to a stranger : facts on which my mother never fails to lay stress, when exhorting us to a dutiful deportment towards the dowager. ' / never take a scat in her presence,' quolh she, ' till invited. Such was the custom when 1 was young. But even duties seem altered now.'" The weight ascribed by Lord Henry to the fifty thousand pounds at grandmamma's disposal, was not altogether supposititious. But the real cause of her grasp on the minds of all belonging to her, was that she was a shrewd, outspoken, straightforward woman. Lady Kilsythe was not to be imposed uj)on. An epithet had no power over her ear. A fact was stripped slark naked, like a child upon her knee, before she admitted it to be a fine one. " You wrote me word, my dear Susan,"' said she, on accosting 132 THE MBUTAiNTE. the marchioness that morning, •■ that a young gentleman, with a modest income and tolerable compelence in prospect, of good character and abilities, was desirous of marrying Lady Alicia ; and that my opinion on the subject would decide you whether to accept or refuse him." " Since then," replied Lady Heriford with an embarrassed air, " I have re-considered the matter : and, considering Alicia's birth and connexions, I really think she has a right to require some- thing beyond the son of a small Buckinghamshire squire. I did not intend giving you further trouble on the subject, my dear mother, than an answer to my letter." " That is, you neither dreamed nor meant that I should come and judge with my own eyes and ears, before 1 pronounced judgment! — And now tell me, pray, what other means of settling in life have Alicia's birth and connexions obtained her?" The marchioness, on terms of unlimited confidence with her mother, was forced to admit, by an expressive gesture of her hands and shoulders, that this was her daughter's first offer. " And she is seven-and-twenty, or thereabouts?" — '' Six-and-twenty, in March." " Where did she pick up this Mr. Harrington?" — " He is a college friend of her brother Henry," said the mar- chioness, implicitly obeying the dowager's catechization, like a patient ordered by a physician to put out his tongue, or extend his wrist. " By which," resumed the dowager, " I find he has had a liberal education. Abihties good?" " He takes a respectable part in general conversation ; and, above all, is desirous of working his way in public life." " 1 do not ask about his temper or deportment," resumed grand- mamma, " for it is hard but a man trying to recommend himself as a suitor, can control one and humanize the other. But, knowing what I do of my grandson Henry, who is banality itself, I am pretty sure he Vvould not have chosen for a friend a man otherwise than popular among his companions." " Mr. Barrington is, I admit, extremely popular," replied Lady Heriford; " though, within the last few days, every one here has taken to abusing him." " H'ave they? — A good sign ! — All 1 hear of him is satisfactory. But besides /lis merits, the demerits of my grand-daughter must be allowed their weight. As I have often observed to you, my dear Susan, in deliberating upon ^ther affaii's of life, you must take the matter between your two hands, and examine it by turning and re- iiirning it with as little compunction as would be felt by a stranger. Alicia is, I will not say ' gone otV,' for she was never 07i ; but plainer even than she used to be. A great match slu; has no claim to maker THE DfiBUTANTK. 133 and being generally considered, in the world, a sharp, disagreeable girl, not even a small one has sought her acceptance. You must not be displeased, my dear — I tell you wholesome truths, as in childhood I administered, when sick, a nauseous medicine. In- stead, therefore, of being foolishly fastidious, be thankful for the opportunity of settling one of your girls. After their father's death, which in the course of nature cannot be far off, they will fall fifty per cent in consequence. Let me see this young man. If 1 find him a rational being (as the powers of calculation shown in his choice announce him to be,) / will allow the young people five hundred a-year, till the marquis gets him provided for ; on con- dition that hi!> family can produce eight. With the interest of the ten thousand pounds she is entitled to under your settlement, this will secure them a competence. If, being young, they want more, they are great fools ; if, being old, they have not achieved more, they are still greater," All this, or as much as was necessary of it, having been com- municated to Lady Alicia, and hailed as earnest of future favours hereafter, was gratefully accepted. The match was announced in the house, as " under the especial patronage of the Right Hon. Dowager Lady Kilsythe ;" and, from that moment, every hand was extended to Charles Barrington, and the letter already adverted to despatched to Easton Hoo, demanding the consent and assistance of his parents. CHAPTER XV. But what was bad, she did not blush in turn, Nor seem embarrass'd,— quite the contrary ; Her aspect was as usual, — still, not stern ; And she withdrew, but cast not down, her eye. Yet grew a little pale, — with what,— concern? — I know not, but her colour ne'er was high, Though sometimes faintly flush'd; and always clear As deep seas in a sunny atmosphere. Byron. When Lord Clandon reached Heriford Castle, it was his inten- tion to make his electioneering interests a pretext for returning to Greensells the moment the departure of Lord Mortayne satisfied him that the tranquillity of his sister Sophia was in safety, it was in vain that the amiable girl, — to whom, in return for all the confidence she had reposed in him, he did not scruple to confide that he flattered himself he had found a woman with whom his brilliant prospects in life would not weigh an atom in the scale, if she consented to accept his hand, — entreated him to hasten back to the object of his love. It was in vain she assured hint that 13Zl THE DEBUTANTE. , her feelings were now at rest; and that, so far from his nourishing resentment against Lord Mortayne on her account, he ought to be thankful to one who had found courage to break oft' the intimacy, on discovering that he did not love her with the warmth of aifec- tion indispensable to married life ; rather than, with ill-calculated deference to the opinion of her family and society, make her a morose and repining husband. Say what she would, however, Lord Clandon would not hear of quitting the house, so long as there remaiucd in it a man who might possibly become the object of maternal manoeuvres, to the disparagement of a sisler whom he justly regarded as one of the most high-minded, as well as true-hearted, of her sex. No symptoms appeared, however, of breaking up the party. In a mansion so remote as Hcriford Caslle, visits are not calculated on the same petty scale as in the neighbourhood of town. To be asked for a day to Grecnsclls, was the same as being invited for a fortnight to Heriford. Peoplecould not be expected to comesofar, unless on terms of intimacy to juslify a prolonged visilalion. Poor Clan had, consequently, some pretext for v.'isliing that the domains of his ancestors were nearer London. The grouse and black cock to be found on his lather's moors afforded small com- pensation, (especially at that season of the year when pheasant shooting had commenced,) for absenting himself from contem- plation of the sweet face, in whose light he had sunned himself till all the gruffness of his nature was melted away. For even old Lady Kilsythe, who had long assigned to her grandson the name of Orson, now greeted him with the more gracious one of Va- lentine. The old lady appeared to be in especial good-humour. Having had some cause to apprehend that she should leave the world without seeing the foundations laid for a new generation of her family, — her son,' Lord Kilsythe, being childless, so as to vest its future representation solely with the deCapclls, — shewaschr^rmed at the unexpected start taken by Lady Alicia. "By pretending to do too well, people do nothing," said she to her grand-daughter. " We should drink of the spring that rises nearest to us, and be thankful. Yon had no right, my dear, to the thirty thousand pounds prize. A pretty face and pretty for- tune like Miss Maillands, CMi afford to wait for another bile. Bui you have acted like a wise girl, Alicia, in not throwing back into the stream the lish on your hook, as not worth taking. " But though the influence of grandmamma in the do CapcU fa- mily was such as to insure towards young Barrington the good offices of its members, there were others of the party to whom his luck was wormwood. Sir Wolselcy Maitland, cheap as he held him, especially after a survey of his stables at Eastou, had always THE DEBUTANTE. , 135 regarded Charles as the man destined to relieve him from a charge that rendered his Cub Castle a penitentiary. Though ambitious that his sister should form a better match, be would far rather have seen her Mrs. Barringlon than Miss Maitland. Me wanted lo be his own master. He wanted lo be at liberty to come and go. It would be too hard to have Eleanor hamj>cring his hands another winter: instead of being able to fill Wolselcy Hall, according to his taste, with the elite of the bad company of London, — women having been so much talked about, that the less said of them the better; and men who, by slaking their necks on limber-jump, and their fortunes on a card or race, showed that they estimated them at their just value. He had suffered himself to be decoyed to Greensclls to undergo the corvee of saying civil things to Lady Mary do Capcll, solely with Ihc view of ascertaining young Harrington's eligibility: and though, for the weakness of having been persnaded to follow the family to Heriford Castle, there was the excuse to his egotism of capital shooting, he could hardly forgive hin^jself, and by no means forgive Eleanor, for having been taken in. His self-love pre- vented him, however, from admitting, oven to her, that he had miscalculated. " I suppose you don't want to stay at this confounded place much longer?" said he to his sister, with whom he had sought an interview in her dressing-room. " I submitted to the visit, because, for some reason or other, you seemed to wish it. But now that we have shot over the best preserves, and that the hateful little old woman with her awl-like eyes, is come to complete the detestabililies of the place, I have made up my mind to be off." "With all my heart I" replied Eleanor, coolly, though the announcement was a death-blow to her projects. "But will not abrupt departure, immediately after the announcement of Lady Alicia's marriage, look odd ?" "The only w^rd listening to 1 have heard from the lips of Lady Kilsythe, since she entered the castle, was what she said yesterday at breakfast " " That servants bribed to discretion, keep the money, but not the secret?" — " What has that lo do with our leaving Heriford Castle? No, — that half the pleasures and profits within our reach are lost from the dread of doing or saying what may be thought " odd." "Surely Lord Mortayne's philosophy is better : that we should triumph over public opinion, 'if only lo treat it en po/jsconqiiis, — trample on it, and load it with chains." " Mortayne seems to have been inoculated with despotism in his Eastern travels." " I rather ihink, on the contrary, that he grows his principles in 136 „ THK, DfiliUTANTi:. St. James's Street," replied the fair Eleancir, with a smile. "At least, they savour of the soil." " Say rather, of the bad old times !" retorted her brother, who had more than once rebuked her growing intimacy with one so little likely to improve her matrimonial prospects. " It is not bad fun to hear him and Yassall dragging their old-fashioned roaeisin out of the lumber-room, and trying to put it off upon fellows like myself and Henry de Capell, as the right thing I The world has been spinning round faster than he fancies, T can tell him ; and the folks in it became wider awake, while he was coddling himself into a mummy. Mortayne has ceased to be a young man ; and had better submit to be an old woman." ' ' The distaff is sometimes as sharp an implement as a cravache,'' retorted Eleanor, almost angrily. " But, to come to the point concerning which you wished to confer with me, I am quite at your orders about returning to Wolseley Hall. I am going to drive, after luncheon, whith Lady Heriford and the dowager; and will acquaint her with the day you fix for our departure." So said, so done, and precisely as she had anticipated. Lady Heriford would not hear of her going. Lady Kilsythe had confirmed her daughter's projects against Sir Wolseley, by admitting that he was the very husband for Lady Mary : — '' two empty heads, and a sufficiently large estate to prevent their knocking too bard against each other," was the opinion expressed by the old lady. It was consequently declared to be impossible that Miss Maitland should quit her friend Alicia previous to the wedding ; which, that grandmamma might be present at the ceremony, was to take place in a fortnight, at the cost of some nights' rest to the London milliners and lawyers' clerks. " If Sir Wolseley were so impatient to get home, he must go, on condition of returning to fetch her after the wedding." Nothing could better suit her p/fm de eampagne; and as Sir Wolseley, in order to secure a fortnight's liberty, consented both to go and comeback, the whole family was content. Lord Henry, who had discovered the unavowed enmity subsisting between the Oehuixmie and his future brother-in-law, found sufficient amusement in the intervals of sporting, in watching the enormous circles described twenty times a-day by both to evade the chance of a Uto-a-We. Two charlatans, afraid of each other's discernment in tricks, could not have been more carefully distant ! — Thefufnr of Lady Alicia was, however, the only member of the party to whom the society of the fair Eleanor was otherwise than acceptable. Youth, beauty, and good spirits, are strong recom- mendations to (hose for whom surface is all in all; and the desire to please imparted a suavity to her manner which, in more trium- phant days, iiad been wanting. After she had submitted lo listen. THE DfiBUTANTE. • H? without winkint? an eyelash, to Old VassalPs longest stories about Carlton House, and to look convinced, whenever he affected confusion about a certain brooch he chose to wear (the hair con- cealed beneath the concealed spring of which was a decided case of brown silk ;) — after she had rejoiced the heart of old Lady Kilsythe by singing "Where the Bee sucks," and other melodies of Arne, in which Lady lleriford had excelled in her youth, but which her daughters declared to be incompatible with their bravuras ; — after shehad submitted to have her beautiful new dress a mille raies s^oWed by the muddy paws of Lord Henry's favourite retriever, and her flounces torn by the spur of that much ruder animal, Meschcch Bernardo ; — after she had lost a sufficient number of games at backgammon to the old Marquis; — allowed Lady Blanche to pass off upon her as her own, bitter criticisms from Fraser or Blackwood, diluted with fashionable orgeat and Avater, — and all her French fripperies to be soiled by the pattern- taking of Lady Blanche's maid ; — she was voted an angel by the whole house : an angel, to whose charms and virtues most of them wished, though few of them expected, the heir of the house of Heriford sooner or later to devote his homage. " You have taken compassion on us then, and acceded to Lady Heriford's intreaties ?■ ' whispered Lord Mortayne to her, on the evening of Sir Wolseley's departure ; and when she accused him, in atone of common-place coquetry, of indifference to her comings and goings , far more sincere than he suspected were his declarations that, had she quitted the Castle, he should not have tarried long behind. Like other persons gradually indulging in the use of ardent spirits, he knew not how essential was becoming to him the sti- mulus of her lively sallies, her buoyant mind, her speaking face. Though aware that there were moments when, however eagerly questioned concerning his Eastern adventures, he had not a syl- lable to say, it did not occur to him that they invariably occurred during the absence from the room of the fair creature who, on most occasions when he was relating his " hairbreadth 'scapes" and wanderings in the wild, hung entranced upon his words, and by a single glance caused a flood of eloquence to gush from the rock. He did not even surmise that his growing disgust at the muddy complexions, shapeless forms, and shrill intonation of the Ladiesde Capell, was produced by contrast with the waxen cheeks, slender waist, and feminine tones of Eleanor. Forming, as they did, part of the same circle, it was easy for Lord Mortayne to enjoy, w-ithout committing himself, the warmth iif her sunny smiles, and the excitement of her amusing conver- sation. Day after day, evening after evening, he listened and looked, fancying that he was looking and listening only like Lord 138 THE DfiBUTANTE. Henry, or Old Vassall, or any olhcr member of the party; and had any one suggested that, on the day when that brilliant being was no longer at hand to afford recreation to his ears and cjes, he would discover a grievous blank in his existence, he would have scouted the idea. " Take care what you are about," Old Vassall had one day whispered to him, after finding him engaged with the fair Eleanor in the library, looking over the works of Malherbe for some stanzas which Mortayne had suggested to her as peculiarly adapted to be set to music; — " I only say, take care what you are about! " " It does not need, my dear fellow," was his indignant rejoinder; "the hemp is not yet grown that would make a net strong enough for me!'' " I was not thinking of that,''' retorted the fossile roue; " 1 was thinking of /ter, poor girl ! Do not break her heart, as you did poor Lady Sophia's. Remember how I warned you then.''' " I was three years and four fevers younger at that time I" said Lord Mortayne, a little embarrassed. " Breaking hearts is no longer in my department." " As if you did not know that the pretty debutante was over head and ears in love with you!" cried Vassall, poking him facetiously in the side; for, as Lord Mortayne's teeth and hair were his own (a proprietorship to which, for five-and-twenty years past, he had not pretended), he looked upon him as a dissipated boy. " No one who saw her watching you froih the windows of the saloon, the day yon attempted to drive that confounded ])air of greys round the court-yard, which were doing their best to kick Clandon's phaeton to pieces, could doubt the nature of her feelings." " Perhaps she was anxious for the fate of Clandon's phaeton It is amazing the interest taken by young ladies in the property of a marcpjis expectant! " " And Sultan, I suppose, is the property ofa marquis expectant, — whom every day I sec her take in to luncheon, and cram with chicken, while you are out shooting?" " That may arise from the instinctive contrariety of her sex!" replied Mortayne, listening with secret delight to the assertions he pretended to parry; " for she has heard me say, a hundred limes, how much I dislike my dog to be fed with anything but bread and water." " Very well — very well I — I dare to say //o?< know best I " rejoined Old Vassal, iVacliousiy. " I only beg to observe that poor dear Lady Caroline, whom the poor dear Regent used always to charge with having done such outrageous things, and said such outrageous things to catch mo, some years ago — in the pavilion days — or, rather, before the pavilion days, ut Mrs. Fitzherbert's, (but for THE Dl-BUTANTE. 139 Heaven's sake do not mention it, it might do mc a serious injury!) never said or did a ihousandlh part ol' what 1 have seen, said and done on your account by Sir Wolselcy MaiLland's sister; the prettiest debutante of the season, and a fortune of Hfiy thousand pounds!" " My dear Vassall, you are dreaming !" " I wish I could dream in the same way on my own account!" persisted the old beau. " I promise you she would not be Miss Maitland long." " She would make a charming Mrs. Vassall, certainly !" cried Lord Mortayne, with an indignant sneer. " However, if you have other engagements, you are certainly quite right to give her no encouragement," added his companion. " I have always had on my conscience a thoughtless flirtation, with which I hampered myself some years ago with the present Duchess of Alva, when she was pretty Louisa Hervey." " The mother of the present duke?" *' 1 meant nothing, of course," continued Vassall, not choosing to hear ; " at the age I then was— just quitting co\\ca;(\—ivho means anything?— However, 5/<(? thought otherwise, poor thing; and her family were so much alarmed by the results, that, when they saw my intentions were not serious and her illness ivas, they carried her off to Nice." " Which appears to have been tolerably efficacious, for she is now a jolly old dame ! " " Yes ! on her return, the Duke of Alva, after hearing the story, proposed to her— purely from compassion ; — so that I have always considered myself the author of her brilliant match. But, for Heaven's sake, never mention it— it might be a serious injury to her. Above all things, my dear Mortayne, never compromise a woman. I " " I shall certainly take care not to compromise Miss Maitland," was his lordship's rejoinder; though in a less assured voice. " But you must also take care not to wound her feelings by a too sudden withdrawal. 1 recollect, some years since, at Devonshire House, in the late duchess's time " " But have you ever heard Miss Maitland's name coupled with mine, my dear' Vassall, by any one besides yourself?" interrupted Mortayne. " There was a very charming girl," gravely persisted the old beau, " a daughter of old General Rupee— and, as it was supposed, heiress to his immense fortune " " Or, have you ever had reason to fancy that " '' Her preference for me was, I cannot deny, sufficiently ma- nifest. Bull, you know, my dear Mortayne, am not a marrying man! One day, in order to open her eyes " ^liO THK DfcBUTANTF. " Yes — you have often told me the story. But I should be reatly glad of your opinion concerning the mode in which '" " 1 frankly said as much before her face to the old General. The girl fainted; and I verily believe her father would have called me out on the spot, had not the Dowager Lady Caumicauley (a fast friend of mine) stepped forward to assure him that it was only the heat of the room. But pray never mention the circumstance. One ought, above all things, to avoid compromising a woman ; and^Miss Rupee being now the happy wife of old Admiral Rousham " " One of her grandsons might, perhaps, call you to account!" — was the bitter retort of the impatient Lord Mortayne. But, though fully sensible of the absurdity of Vassall's vauntmgs on his own account, he could not immediately efface from his mind all that had been said in reference to Eleanor Maitland. Having shaken off the superannuated beau by retreating to his own room, he threw himself into a chair, (and none but personages in novels, or people in love, ever " throw themselves into a chair," seeing that it is more natural to take a seat in a quiet way I ) he threw himself into a chair, — and began to ruminate on past, pre- sent, and to conie, with a confusion of ideas and palpitation of heart he had never experienced since he fell into a similar fit of musing four years before, in that very house, on per- ceiving himself to be an object of attachment to Lady Sophia de Capell. In that instance, his reverie had ended in an order for post- horses. But Lady Sophia was plain, — and Lady Sophia was poor. The vanity of the musing man was not then tickled as now, when the woman courting his acceptance was a fortune and a beauty. Lady Heriford made no secret of her desire that Sir Wolseley's sister should become her daughter-in-law. Yet she was supposed to prefer hhn, — a man notoriously embarrassed, — to a good-h ok- ing fellow of Clandon's age, with a marquisate and thirty thousand a-yearin immediate expectation ! — There was really some excuse for his rising and looking in the glass, to ascertain the amount of personal recommendations left him by late hours, lansquenet and hot climates, as an excuse for her weakness. But alas I what he beheld there was far from re-as- suring. In Charles Barringtou's well-turned figure and manly lace, there was some pretext for the prepossession of Lady Alicia. But in his own sallow complexion, inefl'aceable crowsfeet, and scanty hair, a thousand arguments were apparent against the possibility that the fancy he had inspired should become permanent. "Till she knew me,'' reflected poor Mortayne, "she was ac- quainted only with boys, — the ill-bred boys of the day, — whose conversation consists of slang and boasting, it is but natural she should prefer the society of a man who has seen the world, and TTIK DEBUTANTE. IM understands the deference due to her sex. Al'toi- all, she is a mere girl,_a debutante, of the recent season,— and still a slave to first impressions." But then came the startling reflection that first impressions are usually the most permanent •, and that if she really preferred him as much as Vassall assured him was the case, it must be at her own unintluenced suggestion. There was no officious mother,— no meddling chaperon to say, — " Lord Mortayne would be a good match lor you. Though a spendthrift and half-ruined, he has conquered a place in the grand nionde, which any woman might be proud to share." For the only female connexion she appeared to possess, the only chaperon, who could be supposed to actuate her sentiments, was Lady Heriford, who avowedly wanted her for her son. It was, therefore, the spontaneous voice of nature that had spoken in his favour ; and considering the hints he had received from Sir Alan Harkesley and Lord Alfred, and even from his more cordial friend, the owner of the blue cab, that his day was done, and that he had better seek comfort for his dechning years in a night-gown and slippers,— it was somewhat edifying that the prettiest debutante of the year should have singled him from a host of admirers. "If I were mad enough to give her the option of rendering herself miserable for life by marrying such a wretch as myself," pursued the perplexed Mortayne, " we should only be able to make up four thousand a-year between us; and no hope for the future, —not the chance of a windfall of any kind to brighten her exist- ence, when she finds me growing old by her side I 1 will not think, however, of such cursed folly !— It is like the weakness of feeling the edge of a poniard, or examining the locks of one's pistols." He did think of it, however, and whether he would or no. The whole thoughts of Heriford Castle were in fact running, just then, upon love and matrimony. Nothing Avas talked about but settle- ments, wedding dresses, and orange flowers. Charles Barrington, triumphant beyond his utmost hopes,— triumphant with the joy of having distanced the fair coquette who had sported with his feel- ings, and still moic with the dawn of prospects so cheering to his ambition, that in the brightness of his new destinies he actually forgot the cause which had originally prompted him to make Lady Alicia his object,— made a lover far from despicable. His personal appearance qualified him admirably for a Romeo; and under the influence of her new-found happiness, the ugly girl had become almost well-looking. The flush of consciousness coloured her hitherto pale cheek, a;.d a gleam ofjoy brightened her haughty eyes. " If (thought that hue would work such miracles of regenera- 162 THE DtBUTANTE. tion for me as for Lady Alicia," murmured the languid Mortayne, " it would be worth while to make the trial." Meanwhile, with the tact for manoeuvring which a cunning na- ture imbibes in the atmosphere of fashionable life as readily as a piece of cotton, patterned with mordent, the tinge of the dying vat, Miss Maitland appeared artlessly unconscious of having excited either interest or anxiety on the part of Lord Mortayne. Seizing every occasion to throw herself in his way, many a time was he startled, in what he intended should be a solitary ramble with Sul- tan, in the half-wild shrubberies fringing the hill-side from the lofiy site of the Castle to the plain below, by the fluttering of white draperies in some transverse alley, which proved to be the fair Eleanor, cither on the arm of Lady Blanche, (who, fancying herself wonderfully clever, was easily made a dupe, and had been dragged out as a blind,) or quite alone, with her portfolio under her arm, looking for peeps of the old turrets through the trees, to afford a subject for a sketch. On Lord Mortayne's assurance that, at so advanced a season of the year, her project could only be accomplished at ihe risk of a severe cold, nothing was easier than to resign the portfolio to his hands, and submit to be accompanied back to the glacis. Tho ascent was so steep, and the way, in consequence, so winding, that their deliberate return afforded ample opportunity for familiar talk ; and people in love will hazard twice as much in the way of avowal in the open air, as in a close chamber, v/here every word they utter seems to be registered. After listening, from the sweet lips of his graceful companion, to declarations, apparently unstudied as the waving of the fern that skirted their path, that she disliked a London life, — that her utmost desire was to pass the remainder of her days in the whole- some quiet of the country, secure fiom the tumults and heart- burnings of the gay world, — it would have been very, very difficult not to whisper in return that she was an angel I — CHAPTER XVL There is in human nature, generally, more of tb* fool than wise; and therefore those faculties by which tlie foolisii part of men's minds is taken, are most potent. — Baco.n. Fortune is said to favour the bold : and the blind goddess cer- tainly exerted herself to some purpose to prosper the audacity of Charles Barrington in presuming on the impression he had made on Lady Alicia do Cauell, to ask for her hand. For before the letter THE DfiBUTANTE. U3 reached him, in which his mother communicated the churlish views of his less malleable parent, the death of Mrs. General Tarleton placed at Mrs. Barrington's disposal the four hundred a-ycar join- ture, which, at her prosperous marriage, had been settled exclu- sively on herself. Satisfied that neither bitterness nor sternness would avail to prevent her making it over to her son, Mr. Barrington wisely re- frained from interference; and the same day which brought from Heriford Castle the future bridegroom's ready assent to the shabby terms proposed by his father, witnessed the despatch of new conditions. Mr. and Mrs. Barrington were conjointly to add five hundred a-year to the sum allowed by his uncle; and the young couple would consequently begin life with a clear income of two thousand. This arrangement, and :he liberal gift of a thousand pounds in ready money from Lady Kilsythe, which superseded all necessity for a donation on the part of Mr. Barrington, removed his few re- maining objections to the match; and he had now no dil^culty in discovering that, for an empty-headed fellow, scarcely knowing a pea from a bean, Charles had done a capital thing for himself. He had traded on the good looks and prepossessing manners which were all he had to boast of, and the venture was bringing him two hundred per cent. The surly proprietor of Easton was, in fact, nearer being in good humour and good spirits than he had been since the bankruptcy of the firm in whose speculations his pro- perly was invested. "Attend the wedding?— Yes, of course, he would attend the wedding!— It was a respect due to the family who were acting with such unparalleled liberality towards his son." Of personal feelings towards that son, he was candid enough to say nothing. It is not so easy to improvisate affection towards one who, for three and twenty years, has been an object of vituperation, as to order home a wedding garment, and resolve to wear it with a smiling face. " The devil of it is," said he, on the evening when these arran- gements were decided on by the first fire allowed at the Hoo for the season,— though the nights had been so long frosty as to require the housing of Maria's geraniums;—" the devil of it is, that post- ing it, as on such an occasion we must do, — and consequently absorbing four days for the journey there and back, besides the week which the marchioness exacts of us that we may become ac- quainted with, that is, be made acquainted with the old dowager who seems to have adopted my son as her own,— we cannot be away from Easton less than ten"days ; and I just give you to guess, Mrs. Barrington, what goings on there will be here, during our absence 1 Every thing g'ivcn up to idleness and waste! 1 doubt iUll THE DfiBUTANTE, whether we should lind a faggot to burn or a vegetable to eat, when we came back. During the four-and-twenty hours I was away at Greensells, I had five pounds' worth of damage done on the pre- mises, by Watts and the other vagabonds in my service!" " But surely, uncle, you can trust wt^^" interposed Maria, who was sitting in the shade, at some distance from the fire-place. " I will take care that your orders are punctually obeyed while you are away." ''You?" retorted Mr. Barrington. "A fine bailiff you would make, truly, even if it were possible for you to be on the spot. But you know very well that you are included in the marchioness's invitation. Considering the kindness shown you by the family, at Greensells, you could hardly doubt it." "I am awaie that Lady Heriford has had the kindness to ask me," she replied, with some embarrassment. " But I am so out of place in large parties, that 1 begged my aunt to be kind enough to excuse me." " I can't say you seemed to think yourself out of place at Green- sells?" observed Mr. Barrington, coarsely. " I never saw a young lady of your age more completely at her ease." " From childishness — from ignorance," replied Miss Brenton, in self-defence. " Such a family as Lord Heriford's appeared so remote in condition from my own, that 1 approached them without restraint. But now that — now — " " Now that you perceive the possibility of a nearer connexion with them," said her aunt, coming kindly to her relief, " you fee! more embarrassed. Natural enough, perhaps. But still, my dear Maria, as I told you from the first, I think it will be noticed unkindly if you absent yourself from your cousin's wedding." " Who notices any thing about a person so insignificant as myself?" murmured the poor girl, in a strangely altered voice. "Our neighbours; who do not appear disposed, just now, to view any of our proceedings in a favourable light. Nothing can excuse the spitefulness of Lady Chalkneys and her husband; !il r the Opposition in Parliament, always bitterest after Governmeni has obtained a victory." '• I do not think her ill nature very much signifies," said Maria, despondingly. " But, after all, what can she say? — That I am ncU invited — which we know to be untrue." " Not exactly that, my dear I" Miss Brenton seemed afraid of inquiring further, for she said not a word. " 1 fancy Lord Clandon's frequent visits tt* Kastou excited some surmise in the neighbourhood," added Mrs. Barrington, perceiving that she avoided the question; " and they will piobably think that you resent his abrupt departure for the North.'" THE DEBLTANTE. U5 " OhI if that be the worst inference they have to make," cried Maria, resuming her cheerfuhiess, " let them say it, and welcome I I care little I'or any remarks in which they may indulge, relative to Lord Clandon. But the fact is, dear aunt, no one will discover, till your return, that I did not accompany you ; and then, they will be too full of curiosity about the wedding and Heriford Castle, even to think of me." " As you please!" said Mr. Barrington, cutting short the argu- ment. " I suppose you are like other misses, and vi^ant to be im- plored and besought to do what you have never dreamed of leaving undone. However, 1 shall disappoint you. Come or go, it is all one to me. Only, if you stay, I shall request you not to put me to unnecessary expense for house-keeping, when it would be more convenient to leave the family on board wages." Maria felt the swelling in her throat, which had of late become habitual, a little more painful than usual; and some minutes after- wards, as Mrs. Barrington crossed the room in search of her carpet- work, she paused, unobserved, beside the poor girl's chair, and gently pressed her niece's hand within her own. On the morrow, however, all necessity for altercation between the uncle and niece was superseded. A letter— a letter, in Charles's own handwriting—addressed to his cousin, and for the first time containing no commission to be executed atEaston, expressed his earnest desire that Maria would accompany his parents on their expedition to the North. On discerning the emotion with which the invitation was per- used by her niece, Mrs. Barrington almost repented having written to entreat that Charles would not, on occasion of his prosperous marriage, wholly overlook the amiable companion of his boyhood. When she saw how thoroughly Maria was deceived into the belief that her feelings on the occasion were appreciated by her cousin, she felt ashamed of having lent her aid towards the imposition. Hut it was, in fact, the good aunt herself who was imposed upon, in the notion that anything she could plead would have influenced Charles, at such a moment, to take the smallest trouble for what did not exactly concern his personal comfort. The truth was, that the closer intimacy into which he was now brought with Lord Clandon, had certified him not alone of his in- difference towards his mother s pro^eV, the debutante, but of his heartfelt admiration of Maria ; and though it had required some days to induce Charles Barrington's behef ofthe possibility of such a selection on the part of a man having all England to choose from, yet, when incredulity became no longer possible, he was not slow to perceive that a marriage between Maria and the earl was scarcely less reconcilable with probability than the match he was himself making. Satisfied, from all he heard in the family, ofthe 10 U6 THE DfiBUTANTE. ardent desire of Lord and Lady Heriford that their son should settle in life, he could not but perceive that it was for his advantage to have so near a connexion of his own established as the future marchioness. Hence the letter, which, without breathing a syllable on the subject in the de Capell family, he despatched to Maria. Hence, the tearful joy — a joy, however, in which abided a deeper pang than tears could express, — with which she commenced her pre- parations for accompanying her uncle and aunt, Maria and Miss Maitland, with the three sisters of the bride, and the young daughter of one of their Cumbrian neighbours, were to officiate as the six bridesmaids of Lady Alicia BarringLon. When first Ihat name reached the ear of Maria, a cold shudder passed through her frame. — To her it appeared the precursor of so many evils! — Notwithstanding the triumphant attitude of her uncle, notwithstanding even the conviction of the better affec- tioned Mrs. Barrington, that Charles was accomplishing a most auspicious union, Maria dared not believe that he would be happy. She had better hope for him, indeed, with Lady Alicia, than with the debutante. For Eleanor was vain as well as proud ; and Charles might have found other rivals in her aftection than the love of worldly distinction, which she feared would, at some future time, put his wife out of conceit with the lot she had chosen. But still, she could not but fancy him wanting a tenderer, a more conside- rate, a more deferential partner in life, than he was likely to find in Lady Heriford's daughter. Who knew better than she did the exigence of Charles ; — the wailing upon that he required, — the passive obedience he exacted? When, at the end of their second day's journey, the Easton party drew near the Castle, and Maria began to tremble at the little pro- bability there was of her cousin being satisfied with the figure cut by his homely family among such a host of great people, — a still deeper degree of emotion arose from her dread of seeing him in company with one who was about to swear at the altar to be his, but who would, perhaps, swear it with repugnance I To what might be awaiting herself at the Castle she gave not a thought. She had nothing more in this world to hope or fear. On visiting GrcenscUs, a feeling of jealousy of the Eleanor so much vaunted by her cousin, and the dread of being converted by her into an object of raillery, had created some uneasiness in her mind. But she experienced no jealous feeling of the woman with whom he was about to form an interested marriage. Towards Lady Alicia, she felt rather a sentiment of pity. It was only Mrs. Barrington who looked forward anxiously to the meeting between her niece and Lord Clandon. Having no clue to the cause of his abrupt departure from Grecnsells, and attributing THE DfiBUTANTE. 167 it to a somewhat tardy fear of being committed further than was warranted by prudence in his attentions to Maria, she was afraid the poor girl might feel mortified by the alteration she washkcly to find in his deportment towards her. It was dusk when they reached the Castle. Charles had so issued his instructions for their journey, as to secure the quizzical old family chariot from being exposed to the ridicule of more than the servants' hall. Aware of the moment of their coming, he took care to be in waiting in the room where Lady Heriford received her guests before dinner ; that he might himself conduct them to their own, and inaugurate them into the ways of the house. But on stepping forward, on the announcement of their names, to lead his mother to the marchioness, he found he had been forestalled. Lord Clandon, who had been loitering on the road, to catch the first glimpse of their carriage, had galloped back to the Castle in time to hand them from it, and give his arm to Mrs. Barrington across the hall. Lady Alicia, who, at grandmamma's suggestion, was awaiting alone with the marchioness the arrival of her future mother-in-law, by whom she was greeted wiih an aflcctionate kiss of congratu- lation, felt grateful to her brother for an attention, doubtless in- tended to enhance in the eyes of the household the consequence of ihc family with which she was about to ally herself, and whose homeliness she excused by saying, " No matter! Charles has nothing in common with them; and, after the marriage, as they luckily live in the country, I need scarcely ever see them again." But she could not interpret into a compliment to herself the splendid bouquet of hot-house flowers she found lying on Miss Brenton's dressing-table, on accompanying her to her room. " Doubtless, a little gallantry of your cousin's!" said she, with a slight flush of surprise, on hearing Maria's admiring exclama- tions. But Miss Brentou involuntarily shook her head. " Lord Clan- don," said she, " told me he had sent some flowers to my room." But, if a little piqued by her first suspicion, Lady Alicia was now far more surprised. — Clandon send flowers to a young lady I — Her grave, shy, listless brother aware that there so much as existed a conservatory at the Castle, or that bouquets were an acceptable gift ! — She could not have felt more startled, had one of the marble statues in the hall walked off its pedestal, and up the grand stair- case, with a similar oflering in its hand. A feeling of satisfaction soon succeeded to that of amazement. If her brother really admired this pretty, humble, gentle cousin of her future husband, — if his remaining at Creensclls alter the departure of the family, which had been so great a puzzle to them all, had arisen from attachment to Maria, — what a mortification 168 THE DfeHUTANTE. for Eleanor Maitlaucl I And towards Eleanor, ever since her en- gagements with Charles Barrington, she had experienced the sort of animosity which people of the world are apt to cherish against those they have injured. No open demonstrations of ill-will had occurred between them. On the contrary, they were more civil to each other than ever. Lady Alicia had personally requested Miss Maitland to be her bridesmaid ; and Miss Maitland had expressed a hope that Lady Alicia and her bridegroom would pay them an early visit at Wolseley Hall. But no opportunity was neglected by either of saying things which they knew would be vexatious. When the trousseau of the bride arrived from town, and was exhibited to the admiration of the party in the house, the remarks, ostensibly laudatory, of the lovely debutante, were such as to place so strongly in relief the want of attraction of her for Avhom those elegant and becoming dresses were intended, that a tingling blush of indignation suffused her sallow cheek, " Do you remember accusing me, one day in Kinsington Gardens, just before we left town for the season," whispered Eleanor to her whom she called her friend, " of encouraging Mr. Barrington, as apis-aller, only lest I should go through the year without a chance of orange blossoms and a point veil? — Am I not very generous not to return the compliment noiv V And though Lady Alicia, whose genius for a cutting retort was sufficiently remarkable to afford a somewhat alarming prospect to her future husband, prudently abstained from rejoinder, it was only from apprehension lest some of the sarcasms she had formerly launched at the handsome young hobereau and his family, should be brought forward in retaliation. But to render Maria her instrument of vengeance, was a tempt- ing opportunity. Lady Ahcia had not forgotten the sensation pro- duced at Greensells by the unsullied and modest graces of one who seemed only ashamed of the attention she attracted ; and the party now assembled at the Castle was so familiar with the charms of the fair Eleanor, that a new face, even if less lovely, would be more acceptable. When Maria, therefore, simply but freshly dressed, and with the youthfulness of air and complexion peculiar to those who have never been exposed to the glare and withering atmosphere of over-heated rooms, entered the saloon, leaning upon her arm and holding Lord Clandon's cadcau in her hand, the effect produced more than equalled her expectations. Lord Mortayne instantly inquired of Miss Maitland, beside whom, as usual, he was seated, the name of that charming Hamadryad ; and on learning that she was " only a country cousin of Mr. Barrington," assigned her that of Flenr des Champs; while Old Vassall, after fixing upon her face the eye-glass which affected THE DfiBUTANTE. U9 to assign to near-sightedness the natural bUndness of his years, declared her to be the image ol' poor dear Lady Andalusia Murdoch. " To whom you were paying attention, I remember," added Lady Kilsythe, to whom he addressed himself, " at Paris, after the Peace of Amiens." And when he entreated grandmamma to be careful of compro- mising the reputation of a woman for whom he still entertained the highest regard,—" Who would imagine," cried the unrelenting dowager, "that you were talking of one who, twenty years ago, died without a tooth in her head?" Luckily for Maria, whose emotion at meeting her cousin under circumstances so exciting was increased by the fatigues of her journey, the party assembled was too large to admit of her feeling the object of general attention. The festivities preparatory to the wedding had already commenced. Several of the leading families of the county were staying in the house ; and many others, from the immediate neighbourhood, were added to the dinner party. After coffee, the band of Lord Heriford's yeomanry, which was stationed in the gallery, struck up an animated strain; and a good band, in a splendid chamber, naturally suggested the idea of dancing. The daughters of the country neighbours, to many of whom, in so remote a county, the London season was a mere name and a ball a vision of bliss never to be gratified, began to agitate themselves with the hope of an unexpected pleasure. But the divinities of the temple were not propitious. The gentle- men of the party were not of an order to martyrise themselves for the delight of country neighbours. Lord Henry de Capell would have condescended, but from the dread of being quizzed by Sir Wolseley; who according to his engagements, had returned that afternoon. But Charles Barrington was devoting himself to his lady-love, and Lord Mortayne sitting aloof with the fair Eleanor, The world forgetting, by the world forgot. Even when Lady Mary and Lady Blanche, with two slim Honour- ables who could venture to call their soles their own, dashed into a valse, no one followed. The Cumbrian damsels were unable to keep pace with the fashionable valseurs, whose rate of speed might distance a high-mettled racer ; and they consequently stood round, looking confused and out of place, while the gay strains of the Fusees Yolantes enlivened the gallery. " Hay-day ! I thought there was dancing here?" cried old Lady Kilsythe, who, on hearing the music, gladly deserted the saloon and its whist-tables, (where the marquis, the elder Barringlons, and a variety of other grave personages were assembled,) in hopes of seeing the young people of the party happy and merry. But when Charles Barrinstton, on whose arm she was leaning while 150 THE DfiBUTANTE. her daughter and eldest grand-daughters followed in procession, pointed out the panting forms of Lady Mary and her sister, and their partners. " Pho, phol" cried the old lady with indignation, " you don't call that dancing, 1 hope? — Give me a good hearty old English country-dance, of as many couples as the party is made of; where all have their turn, without showing off for the amusement of the rest." A proposition made by " grandmamma," nobody in that house ventured to gainsay; and the merry tunc of " I'll gang nae mairto yon town," soon set every one in motion. Old and young appeared to admit that a wedding party was a plea for any amount of extra- vagance or derogation. "My dear mother, you have wrought a miracle!" said Lady Heriford, ensconcing the dowager in a comfortable bergere at the head of the gallery, along which a set was forming, to the head of which Lord Clandon,— yes, actually Lord Clandon,— was leading "Fleur des Champs," awkwardly drawing on his gloves as he drew her along. " This is the first time I ever saw Clandon dance, except at our tenants' balls." " And a charming partner he has chosen!" rejoined the old lady, with an approving nod. "No nonsense about her, — no fallals, — nothing but what nature gave her ; worth a thousand, in my opi- nion, of the Frenchified doll sitting out yonder with Lord Mortayne ; — as if an old-young man like that, whose Cupid ought to be clad in fleecy hosiery, can have anything to say to a young girl that ought to put her out of coriceit with the pastimes suitable to hei' teens!" CHAPTER XVn. Before thee stands this fair Hesperides, With gulden fruit, but dangerous to be louch'd,- For death-lilie dragons here" affright thee hard. SUAKSFEARE. The venerable dowager might discern no grounds for sympathy between the languid Eastern pilgrim and the girlish Eleanor ; but her views were evidently not shared by the parlies themselves. On every syllable uttered by Lord Mortayne, the attention of the debutante was riveted, even to infatuation. When Lord Henry de Capcll, one of her favourite London partners, approached to ask her hand for the iHilse which, by way of compensation to them- selves, his sisters proposed after the annoyance of the Englisli country-dance, she raised her blue eyes towards him with a look of as well dissembled wonder at the proposition, as though she had never danced in her life ; and, after a scarcely civil dismissal, THE DfeRUTANTE. 151 calmly resumed the whispered conversation, apparently so much more to her taste. Mostot" the party present were too fully occupied with their own pleasures or interests to take heed of the happy couple which had paired off into one of the recesses. Two persons there were however, whose attention was not blinded to their proceedings. Old Vassall, who, in the course of the last fifteen years, had wit- nessed the whisperings of Lord Mortayne, in divers recesses, in scores of different country-houses or London opera-boxes, could not help marvelling how he found patience to play out his part of excellent dissembling ; — like Charles Kemhle, the edge of whose stage tenderness must have been so blunted by having, in the course of his ex])erience, to rescue some hundreds of successive Juliets out of the tomb of all the Capulets. Aware that even his own patent ventilating peruke and mineral teeth required frequent renewing, the venerable beau pondered in his mind whether Morty read up lor his character of a universal lover, and whether, at the commencement of a season, he laid in a fresh store of the last new phrases from the French novels in fashion. It was clear, at all events, that no eloquence was wanting for the pleading of his passion. With such earnest fluency did he address her, and so fascinated was the attention of Eleanor by his expressions, that the other individual who from afar was gravely regarding them, could not resist a mournful wave of the head, as she sat, unnoticed, behind the capacious im/e/'c of grandmamma. For, with those whispers, those looks, thosedeceptious words. Lady Sophia was familiar I She, too, had hungentrancedupon the accents of one who was more dangerous than a wanton deceiver. Himself the dupe of the sentiments of the moment, she ktiow that, on recovering from his illusions, there was no pity in his heart for those by whom they had been created,- — those by whom they had been shared, — those who had suffered them to expire. Unable to estimate the power of such youthful beauty as Elea- nor's, upon what are called the '' feelings " of an egotist of the day, she regarded her rival only as another victim to be added to the list of those who had been loved by Mortayne, and by Mortayne been abandoned. " Site will not iecl it so much," mused the now grave young woman; " for, alter all, he is only making her the victim of one of the same unmeaning flirtations in which she indulged with Mr. Barrington, to a degree that misled us all, if it did not mislead hiin. Still, 1 wish this house had not been chosen for the renewal of follies, for which I trusted he had survived the inclination." That she might not dwell with bitterness upon the subject, Lady Sophia tried to divert her attention to the far pleasanter spectacle of her brother, Lord Clandon, exhibiting, with uncouth good-will. 452 THE DfiRUTANTE. to Miss Brenton, the lions of Heriford Castle; pointing out the choicest pictures, the most graceful statues, the most curious antiques ; and relating the various historical legends which render- ed the site of the old donjon classic ground. She could imagine, by his animated features, all that he was saying. In his address, there was no pretence at mystery, no whispered insinuations, no significant glances, no drawing aside from the rest of the party. All was honest, true, and decided. He had no objection that those present should hear, see and under- stand what he was about. He would not have cared, even had he suspected how many of them were commenting upon his altered deportment, and citing it as one of the greatest miracles of Cupid, while admitting, with one accord, that he was no longer the same man. More than one of the party could hardly refrain from going up to the lovely, modest-looking girl upon his arm, and congratulating her on the wonders she had wrought, and the happy prospects awaiting her as Countess of Clandon ; for it was as naturally set down that she would accept the offers made her, as that the offers were in process of being made. But if the rough address of Lord Clandon had disappeared, the good sense and good feeling which had so long lain concealed beneath, were wholly unchanged. The utmost extent of his present views was to render the sojourn of his father's house agreeable to her who had welcomed him so kindly to fare less costly; and to avert her attention from the cousin, in w'hom he sorrowingly be- lieved her feelings to be bound up. His kindly heart having once suggested that painful emotions must be struggling in her bosom, he was simply trying to aid her in overcoming them, with the thoughtful attention of a friend. Not but that he looked forward to a time when friendship would probably ripen into warmer feelings. She could not 2)ersist in Avast- ing her sensibilities on a being like Charles Barrington ; she would not so belie the purity of her nature as to doat upon the husband of another. His turn would come. When she recalled hereafter to mind by whom her vexations had been comforted, and by whom her position thoroughly understood, she would turn towards him with gratitude certain to progress into an affection as heartfelt as he believed indispensable to the happiness of married life. But to secure the accomplishment of these hopes, he said not a word calculated to alarm or put her on her guard. He adverted not, even remotely, to his passionate attachment. He was too wise to injure the perfection of the flower he was cultivating, by prematurely pulling open the bud. " 1 say, old boy!" cried Lord Newbury, dragging away Lord Heni'y de Capell from the side of Lady JBarbara Bernardo, with THE DfeBUTANTE. 153 whom he was pretending to laugh over the burlesque drolleries of Monsieur Cryptogame, in order that Meschech might not perceive he was laughed at — " By Jove, it's all up with your chance of strawberry-leaves I — There's Clan going it towards a proposal, at the rate of nine knots an hour!— Better secure the llaxen-headed heiress, and her golden booty, before your downfall is blown." " I wish I could secure your not making an ass of yourself for any ten minutes of the day ! " was the peevish rejoinder of his par- ticular friend, — endeavouring to stave him off. "Old Vassall, who is watching us, and too deaf to hear what you say, will fancy you are picking a quarrel with me by treading on my toes." "Never mind Old Vassall. Nobody has listened to a word uttered by the old beau since the close of the eighteenth century.— Much better attend to Clan's courtship!" — "Not 1,-1 can afford, thank Heaven, to indulge in the luxury of a married elder brother," retorted Lord Henry. "And what should I lose by his marriage? — His life is twice as good as mine." " Why, to be sure, Clan has not been driving nails into his coffin ever since he was out of his cradle! " rejoined Newbury. "I don't suppose, Henry, the insurance-offices would fall in love with you at first sight. — You wouldn't raise any thing of a very long figure, even on the Kilsythe reversion." " 1 don't know," rejoined the future peer, " my uncle is not only three times my age, but runs the risk of being Molly Maguired every year, by a visit to his Irish estates !" " More arguments for securing the flaxen-headed heiress ! " per- sisted Newbury. " Marry Eleanor Maitland? By Jove, 1 would as soon give my hand to Herodias's daughter!" cried Lord Henry, after following the direction of his companion's glance towards the recess, where Eleanor sat with eyes upturned towards the face of Mortayne, apparently resigning her whole mind to his influence. — " There would have been some excuse for her throwing over Barrington for Clan ; because, though Charley's a deuced good-looking fellow, Clan is sterling gold. But yonder rag of a roue, — yonder withered Lovelace, — yonder oldmemorandum-book of other women's follies, — is a villanous exchange. Mortayne reminds me of the scenes of a theatre, — wretched things, that can't stand being looked at by daylight, but which turn into fairy palaces and Italian land- scapes, when lighted up with gas and red flame." Nevertheless, the light which at that moment brightened the fine features, at too great a distance from Lord Henry to be distinctly seen, was decidedly the fete sacre ! It M'as love, real love, — such as neither Henry de Capell, nor Newbury, nor any other of theshallow boys of the day, were susceptible of entertaining : — love, — such as lends the enchantment of its bewildering dreams to every scene 454 THE DEBUTANTE. it looks on, and projects round the form of the beloved object an atmosphere of glory. Never, in his brighter youth, had Mortayne bebcld a face so bewitching to his fancy, as the one on which he was now gazing. Never had he listened to words so soothing, as those which, when he described the philosophical retirement into which he was desirous, henceforward, to retreat from the noisier follies of life, replied, that " happy were those by whom his retire- ment would be shared ! " Though Lord Newbury, with his usual genius for the mal-d-propos, broke in upon their tefe-a-tete with entreaties that Miss Maitland would not deprive herself of the delicious spectacle of " Lubin Log's proposals to Charley Harrington's country cousin," — no sooner had they got rid of him, than she renewed, with as much steadiness as before, her declaration that a single season in London had convinced her of the task-work wearisomeness of a life of fashion. Whether the affirmation prospered or no, maybe surmised from the fact that, the following morning, after breakfast, Sir Wolseley was invited to his sister's dressing-room, — (as if in return for the similar compliment he had paid her a fortnight before;) and, as it happened that the following day was to witness the first meet of the hounds for the season, and he was engaged with Lord Clandon, and his friend Henry and Newbury, at the kennel, the amiable brother entered the room with even something less than his usual kindness and courtesy. "What do you want with me, Nell?"— cried he, abruptly. " Why send boring me with a message, when you knew I had an appointment at the stables ?— Make haste, however,— for they promised to stay till I came back. " " In that case, I will defer what I have to say till another time," was his sister's cold reply. And her voice and manner were so altered, and, on looking steadily into her face, her brother saw there such decided traces of a sleepless night, that, instead of again addressing her, he walked to the dressing-room door, and, calling to a page whom he had noticed catching flies in a window of the corridor as he come along, bad him hasten to the gentle- men at the kennel, and tell them they were not to wait for him. " And now, what have you to tell me?" said he, more huma- nely,— having re-entered the room, and taken a place on the chaise lom/ue beside his sister's writing table. You seem out of spirits, Nell. Is any thing the matter?" " Nothing but what you will be very glad to hear!" she replied, mastering a slight emotion, caused by his unusual tone of kindness. " 1 am going to be married.'' " Married"?— You?— Nonsense!— You are hoaxing me! Who on earth is there here for you to marry? — Barrington's booked. THE DfeRUTANTE. 155 Clandon, all but; and Newbury and Honry think loo much as 1 do about matrimony, for any chance of iJteir braving the noose I"— " I have accepted the hand of Lord Mortayne. '' "Morty?— Pho, pho !— Why not say Old Vassall, at once 1— One is quite as likely as t'other I " — "And Avhat is thereto make you so incredulous?" inquired Eleanor, piqued by his tone of levity, when she had expected only congratulations. " In the first place, that Morty, who knows the world so well, would never be mad enough to ask you ; in the next, that if he did, you would never be mad enough to say, — ' Yes I'" " I have, however, been what you term ' mad enough' to accept him," rejoined Miss Mailland, " and was desirous, my dear Wolseley, that you should be the first person apprized of my choice." " You are really in earnest, then, Nell?" rejoined her brother, in the tone of a person suddenly sobered by immersion in cold water. " At nineteen — young, pretty, rich, and your own mistress, — you are going to throw yourself away on an infirm, hypped, half-ruined, old rake." " When you attain Lord Mortayne's age, you will be, probably, somewhat surprised at hearing it called decrepitude !" rejoined his sister, with some indignation. " But / have not led, and am not going to lead, the life by which he has broken his health and fortunes!— Opera dancers and dice will never send me to the dogs!" A deep flush rose on the cheeks of Eleanor— perhaps for her brother's coarseness, perhaps for her lover's vices. But conviction having gained upon the mind of Sir Wolseley, his irritation was too great to admit of niceness in his choice of epithets. Abruptly pushing back the sofa-table, he rose from his seat and began to pace the room ; absorbed in reflections apparently so unsatisfactory, that his sister judged it advisable to soothe him, by conciliation, to a more auspicious mood. " You will admit, my dear Wolseley," said she, '' that my for- tune is sufficiently large to enable me, more than most girls, to dispense with an interested match. Placing Lord Mortayne's affairs at their worst, we shall have more than four thousand a- year." " Which is wealth to many men, but to him beggary !"— inter- rupted her brother, already a little pacified. '• To his rank in life you can make no objections. It is higher than I had aright to expect." " I don't know why! For the last three hundred years our fa- mily has been matching with the nobility; and though my mother 156 THE DfiBUTANTE. took care to affix a blot to our escutcheon, it is not the greatest people who have a right to cavil at it." " As regards his manners and appearance — " Eleanor was be- ginning, in order to silence all further allusion to her mother. " Don't talk to me about his manners and appearance — talk to me about his co7idiwt /" — interrupted her brother. " As regards h\&conduct, then," resumed Eleanor, undismayed, "it cannot have been very objectionable, or he would scarcely hold the distinguished place assigned him in the world ; and I defy you to prove that Lord Mortayne was ever charged with a dis- honourable action," " Dishonourable! — For being dishonourable, a man is cut I — For being dishonourable, a man is shot I — so that few who value their lives or pleasures, are caught tripping. But do you suppose that a pair of clean hands, in money matters, will suffice for the happiness of married life ? In other respects Mortayne's proceedings have been uniformly unprincipled. As a member of society — as a man of the world — it is nothing to me. He is at liberty to make love to any man's wife, or any man's daughter, lor aught I care. But the moment he pretends to be my brother-in-law, I have a right to say that, for the last fifteen years, Mortayne has always had some love-affair or other on hand, to sneak out of as best he might." "Which does not tend to prove that, married to a woman to whom he is seriously attached, he may not make a good hus- band." " My dear Nelly, to all these women, in their turn, he has been ' seriously attached.' Nay, I should not be surprised if he had often tried with all his might and main to be faithful. But 'tisn't mhim. He is naturally inconstant — a whirligig— a weathercock! You re- fused Fred. Ashly, without a second thought, because there was madness in the family. — I am not sure but fickleness is the worse disease of the two!" " Just now, you spoke of Lord Mortayne as in the decline of life ; and now you want to persuade me that he is a wild seducer!" — pettishly rejoined Miss Mailland. " You should adhere to one line of accusation. But, as I assure you, I never had the pretension of marrying a pair of lawn sleeves " "Lawn sleeves, indeed! You don't know what you are talking about," cried Sir Wolseley, with rekindled ire. " A girl of your age and habits of life cannot comprehend what she marries in an old roue— a roue, too, like Mortayne, who in addition to his London experience, has run through all the orgies of tlie Continent, and all the licentiousness of the East. It is loathsome to think of, Nell,— when one looks in a young face like yours, on which the open sun has yet hardly shone." THE D£r5UTANTE. 157 '' I never knew you so considerate about me, before," — rejoined his sister, but not as if his consideration were acceptable. " Because, till now, I never saw you in danger. Marriage is a serious thing, sister. Our family has especial reason to feel that — but I will say nothing on that grievous head, just now," said he, interrupting himself. " I don't deny that I want to see you settled — I don't deny that I may have told you so, more plainly than, per- haps, you thought pleasant. But it was because my own observa- tions, in the season, had disgusted me with the ways of London girls; who would rather go flirting on, year after year, with the expectation of making a better match, than accept some prudent settlement." " You told me, in the most decided terms, before I went to town last spring," said Eleanor, in a positive tone, " that I must marry before the year was out " " Or content yourself with a country life. Remember that! — And was there anything very dreadful in the alternative? — I abhor London. — The life led by men like Mortayne is not to my taste; and I made up my mind, at my father's death, that 1 was not bound to drag you about, season after season, growing ugly, sick, and peevish, to the sacrifice of the whole comfort of my life. — However, Nell, even that determination I regret and repent. — I am sorry I ever said a word that was likely to hurry you in your choice ; and beg you will dismiss it from your mind. Sooner than you should marry a man with whom I'm sure you won't be happy, I will buy a house in town — if that be what you want." '' I assure you I am quite as ill-inclined towards London as yourself," replied Eleanor, — a little moved. " At Wolseley, then, — if there is anything in the ways of the place disagreeable to you, change them, and I'll never interfere I — Vou are not particularly fond of Esher or Alan Hurkesley. You are, perhaps, annoyed at the prospect of the visit they are to pay me " " No, indeed, I knew nothing about the matter." " I was going to say, that I would write and put them ofl" this very morning, if the thought of their coming annoyed you. But don't, 1 beg and entreat, allow yourself to make a missish match ! — Don't be persuaded into doing, in haste, what you'll be sure to repent at leisure!" There was a degree of warm sincerity in all this, so dilierent from anything she had been prepared to expect from her selfish, savage brother, that the debutante, under her armour oi' worldli- ness, experienced something almost amounting to a thrill. She answered him, however, with a degree of aplomb that would have done honour to Lady Alicia de Capell. For, in the interval, her eyes had fallen upon a small ruby nng that sparkled upon her 158 THE DfeBUTANTE. finger, a first pledge of love from Lord Mortayne, which brought back all the pride of conquest into her heart. The fond attachment of one whom so many had vainly sought to enslave — the fond attachment of one whose enslavement would produce such a sensation in the fashionable world — was a suffi- cient weight, when thrown into the opposite scale, to invalidate all her brother had been saying. " My dear Wolseley, believe me, I feel as I ought the kindness which so completely misleads you," said she. "But be assured you may give me to Lord Mortayne without the smallest scruple of conscience. On my side, as on his, it is a marriage of inclination. I am acquainted, as you know, with all that is best of London so- ciety. The young men of the day have most of them passed me in review, without making the smallest impression. To Mortayne, on the contrary, I look up wnth affection. His society is agreeable to me. I am never tired of hearing Jdni talk, as so often of your young friends." "In short, you have made up your mind to be the Right Ho- nourable Lady Mortayne !" " I have!" — replied Eleanor, firmly, as though to write y?/?«5 to the chapter. " In that case, I have not another word to say," rejoined her brother. " Woman's will is a thing I trust I am too wise to con- tend against I And when, pray, is the match to take place?" — "As soon as you can make it convenient to complete arrange- ments with Mortayne's lawyer." " It is quite convenient. All that part of the business, Eleanor, will be easily accomplished." " And no other obstacles can or will arise," added Miss Maitland, ia a tone that conveyed to him, as she intended, the strength of her resolution. " Mortayne has been staying here, like ourselves, I fancy, for this accursed wedding of Lady Alicia's," rejoined her brother, " and on Monday next, the party breaks up. Is it your wish that he should accompany us back to Wolseley Hall?" — " By no means. He has arrangements to make in his own house, — a house to which he had almost given up the idea of ever assigning a mistress. However, it v/ould be but flattering that you made the invitation." " I don't want to flatter him, Nell. I must give him my sister, because she chooses it. But I give you notice I shall do it with an ill grace." " You do not mean that you purpose any ungraciousness to- wards one whom all the world — " " Set your mind at ease!" — interrupted her brother with some THE DEBUTANTE. 159 hauteur. " I am not a peer of the realm. But, for my own sake, I shall behave like a gentleman." Another moment, and his hand was on the handle of the door, though, soolh to say, he had lost all interest about the hunting- stables. " I suppose," said he, turning to address his sister as he was quitting the room, " this match of yours is, for the present, to be kept a secret?" — " By no means,"' — replied Eleanor, with a wholly unembar- rassed countenance. "Such things are a nine days' wonder; and the sooner the first day of the nine is over, the better." A slight shrug of the shoulders escaped him as he left the room. " All alike!" muttered he. "The only delicacy they possess, lies in their complexions, — the only warmth, in their temper I" Even Lord Mortayne, overjoyed as he was at his prospects, had almost appeared to suggest that, for a time, it would be better to enjoy them unenvied. Perhaps he experienced a sort of compunc- tion at the idea of having his marriage declared under that roof. But the moment Eleanor expressed her desire to have it known that she had pledged herself to be his for ever, the tumult of his heart overpowered every feeling of reluctance. The announcement did not, however, produce all the sensation anticipated by the debutante. For two days past, the match had been looked upon, by every one but her brother, as a settled thing : the unfriendly, deciding thats/^e was templed by a coronet, and he by fitly thousand pounds; the friendly, that, dividing between them so many worldly and natural advantages, they had every prospect of being happy. But the majority of the lookers-on, who were indift'erent to both parties, found far more to talk about in the beauty of the oriental pearls and India muslins ( gifts to herself from Madras) which Mrs. Barringlon had presented to her daughter- in-law ; and experienced twice the curiosity concerning the crisis of Lord Clandon's wooing. More than one guest in the house had noticed a whispered com- munication, addressed to Miss Brenton by his lordship when they met in the luncheon-room to which, though pale and dispirited, Maria had been heard to reply by an exclamation of unqualified amazement. — What could all this mean ? Alas! it foreboded nothing likely to forward the projects of Lord Heriford for the perpetuation of his noble dynasty! Clan had simply acquainted his young friend, that the young lady Avho had formerly inspired her with such undue interest, was about to be- come a wedded wife. " The wife of your brother?" — said she, — having often heard among the de Capell girls laughing allusions to her being intended for Henry. IbO THE D6BUTAINTE. " No, — of the gentleman with whom you saw her talking last night in the gallery." " That old man ! Surely he cannot be much younger than my uncle?" " He is fifteen years older than she is. But in his case, years are nothing : — it is the famous Lord Mortayne," " Morlayne? — I do not think I ever heard the name before," said Maria, as if ashamed, and trying to remember. And the smile of satisfaction that overspread the countenance of Lord Clandon while listening to her naives observations, probably arose from the comfortable conviction that to her, in whom he trusted he beheld the partner of his future life, even the names of such people as " Morty" were a mystery. CHAPTER XVIH. Oh ! 'tis too much : I never dreamt of this. I idly thought The true devotion of so many years Gave me a right undoubted on your heart. In its own strength my love was confident, And feared no rival. William Harness. VVhateveu the results of the division on Lord Mortayne's matri- monial motion, the purpose of the seconder was accomplished. Lady Alicia, on the eve of her marriage, was thoroughly discom- posed. After so bitter a tug of war, the debutante had triumphed . If Eleanor had been unable to witness the defection of the man whom she had been jeered by her rival into believing her inferior in biilh and fortune, without the pang that ever attends the infi- delity of the first admirer whose professions of love have been listened to with less than indifference, — if she had watched, with anguish of spirit, the gradual enchainment of her former slave to ihe feet of one by whom his homage was prospered by unvarying graciousness, — she liad now her ample revenge. The bridegroom's cheek was blanched, either by jealousy or rage ; and the future Lady Alicia Harrington forced to strike her tlag to the future Lady Mortayne, None knew better than Lady Hcriford's daughter the spell comprehended in the magic of a name. The wife of " Morty" must have been popular, even if plain as herself, or as vulgar as Miss Vicary Arable. But, when young, fair, and wealthy as Eleanor, the throne of London fashion would be her own I But this was not the worst. The announcement of Lord Mor- tayne's engagement having brought about certain explanations THE DEBUTANTE. 161 with grandmamma, hitherto carefully withheld, the old lady, enlightened by her grandson Clandon as to the heroism, and, still more, the womanly grace, with which his sister Sophia had sub- mitted to one of the worst trials that befall the female heart, actually begged her of her mother. •' From what I have seen lately of the sayings and doings of this house, my dear Susan," said she, " I am inclined to think the habits of mine better suited to Sophy. I am growing old, my dear. My hours, though never dull, are sometimes lonesome; and, if I have abstained, heretofore, from begging the company of one of my grandchildren, it was from a conviction, strong in my mind, that nature intended only people of succeeding generations to abide together. Twenty or thirty years' difference of age and tastes, is quite as much as can be made compatible. But Sophy has been care-worn into premature womanhood ; and will, may be, be happier in my sleepy dovecote at Warleigh, with her books and flowers, than amid the racket of balls and pother of flirtations kept up by her younger brothers and sisters," Lady Heriford, who often regarded poor Sophia's grave face as a reproach , allowed herself to be easily convinced. The plan suited her ; lor her venerable mother was growing too old to be left alone with servants. Nor was Sophia less pleased. It would be a relief to lose sight of the gay world at the moment it was ringing with acclamations on the auspicious marriage of Lord Mortayne, accla- mations amid which her own harmless name would probably be repeated in a tone of disparagement by the lips of many. Lady Alicia alone was dissentient. For grandmamma to desire her sister for an inmate, seemed almost to amount to a selection as her heir; and Ahcia, (who, as the eldest born, was her god- daughter,) had long looked forward to monopolizing Warleigh and the fifty thousand pounds. Lady Kilsythe's recent generosity, indeed, seemed to confirm her expectations; and it was truly annoying, after having exhorted her future husband to be " scru- pulously attentive to grandmamma, whose property she was likely to inherit," that the same unexpected stroke which converted the debutante into a peeress, and deprived her sister of the object of her youthful love, should prove equally fatal to her covetous expectations. When, therefore, the Morning Post, in describing the " Hyme- NEALS AT Heriford Castle," in its largest type, and with a degree of efflorescence well calculated to Yield its muse just half-a-crown per line, adverted, in due precedence after the point-lacc veil and orange flowers,— the six lovely bridesmaids, all arrayed in the same elegant costume of white muslin over pink silk,— and the school- 162 THE DfiBUTANTE. children of the village strewing flowers before " the happy pair," to the " slight cloud over-shadowing, during the ceremony, the forehead of the noble bride ; doubtless in anticipation of her approaching separation from her beloved family and the home of her childhood," — it showed itself clearer-sighted than in the usual manifestoes of its great letters. A cloud did indeed overshadow her brow. Even while giving her hand to one who, albeit his per- sonal attractions were such as to induce a suspicion that he might be a Cupidon dechaine, was qualified by coolness, both of heart and head, to ascend, hand in hand with her, the slippery ways of preferment in which intriguing nature discerned the happiness of life, — even when receiving the congratulations of that brilliant assemblage, and listening to the somewhat lengthy adieus of the old marquis, previous to entering the handsome chariot, her bridal gift from her brother Clandon,— even then she felt herself outwitted ! — The great event, however, was over and ended ; and, in the course of the following day or two, poor old Lord Heriford became too experienced in parting compliments, not to learn the valuable art of abbreviation. The party broke up as rapidly as the crowd after an execution ; and the paragraph of the Morning Post, like the last dying speech and confession cried in the streets, was all that remained to the public of the recent excitement. Had grandmamma but paused in her kindly intentions towards Lady Sophia, she might perhaps have judged it an act of charity to extend her invitation to that " poor giddy thing, Lady Mary." For it was hinted in the Castle, that Sir Wolseley Maitland, on the eve of his departure, so far from confirming her flighty hopes of an offer of his hand, had said before them all to Lord Henry, " You and Newbury, old fellow, must come and finish the shooting season with me at Wolseley, as soon as Nell's match has come ofl'. Esher will be with me, and several other capital fellows, who were not quite the thing so long as there was a young lady in the house. But it is going to be Bachelor's Hall now ! — No fear of my making an ass of myself ! No fear of petticoat government at Wolseley Hall !" Not daring to provoke the justice-dealing strictures of her mother, by admitting how much of her kindness towards " her charming young relative Miss Maitland" had been produced by the hope of converting this uncompromising woman-hater into a son-in-law. Lady Heriford affected to treat the affair, when re- ported to her, as an excellent joke. Even Lady Mary was too much addicted to giggling, and hail heard loo many family ro])roaches vented upon Sophia's sorrowful face, not to be disposed to take the affront offered her, as if Cub Castle and its master had never been her object ; nor, at nineteen, could so merry a nature perceive THE DEBUTANTE. 163 the smallest necessity for taking the veil, because a bridal one was not forthcoming. Of those, meanwhile, to whose departing equipages the grey- haired porter touched his hat, as they issued from the Castle gates on the day succeeding the wedding, the one whose heartache was deepest seated, was Maria. The pique of the clebutan/r,—lhc vexation of Lady Alicia,— the sorrow of Sophia at leaving the home where she had once been happy, — were sensations, rather than sentiments. But the trouble of the poor orphan who had lost the pole-star by whose remote light her dreary days were cheered, was almost too heavy for endurance. The bitter uncle, whose grumblings during that two days' journey afforded a sad foretaste of what he would be on returning home to find his wood-stack diminished, and his very small-beer drunk out, would perhaps be unpropitious to Mrs. Barrington's entreaty that his niece's removal to Cornbury Hall might be deferred for a time. Even if he consented to harbour her, what would there be 7101V to reconcile her to his constant reproofs? — What would even Easton appear, when there was no longer the chance of a break, in its ever-clouded atmosphere, — no half-yearly vacation to bring back her cousin Charles, — nobody to work for, — nobody to slave for, — for the chance of having it said, " Isit you, Maria, who have had my room so neatly got up?" — or, " By Jove, coz, there are nearly as many flowers in your garden as at the Horticultural." For Charles had confided to her, soon after her arrival at Heri- ford, in the glow of intimacy produced by the expectation of soon hailing her as a Countess, that, with his own consent, he would never set foot in Easton again. " Between my father's shabby ways, the wretchedness of the house, and the cursed vulgarity of the country neighbours," said he, " Lady Alicia would be driven to distraction. We often laugh, together, over that frightful luncheon scene ! — But it would not do to repeat the joke." — Luckily, no necessity existed for the immediate intimation of his unfilial intentions. The happy couple were going abroad. Like most English girls reared in the monotonous seesaw of four months of the year at papa's town house, and eight months at his country seat, Lady Alicia had formed romantic notions of the pleasures of the Continent. Her husband's previous project of spending the winter in Paris, was, consequently, not abandoned; and the number of the Morning Post, succeeding that which announced her to be a wedded wife, superadded the fact of her embarkation for France. Sad, sad was the afternoon at Easton that followed the receipt of the farewell letter, bearing the Dover post-mai-k I The exultation produced by the pomp and circumstance of the wedding at an end, Mr. Barrington had fallen back at once into the meanness and lOZi THE DfiBUTANTE. peevishness of his usual habits. Little as he had been called upon to produce on occasion of the brilliant match effected by his son, it was enough to unhinge the sordid economy of his system of life. For the outlay of presents, travelling, and dress, his strong box had of necessity been unlocked; and, so far from his customary accumulation at the end of the year, a considerable deficit was imminent! There was every pretext, therefore, for announcing himself twenty times a day to be a ruined man ; — for shaving still closer the scanty rations of his establishment ; — and for complaining of the heartless profligacy with which Charles had endeavoured to saddle upon his shoulders every possible expense there was any decent pretext for transferring from his own ! " There would have been some equivalent for a few hundred pounds thrown away," he observed, " had Charles persevered in his original fancy, and netted the pink-and- white Miss, with the fifty thousand pounds, who was going to throw herself away, in revenge for his desertion, upon a weazened-faced lord, old enough to be her father. Money was money. In her case, the advantage was real. But what was the naked truth of Lady Alicia's fortune ? Ten thousand pounds ! — a paltry ten thousand pounds I As to the appointment promised him, — places under Government (even if he had the least chance of getting one) were all moonshine ; and w'ith regard to the five hundred per annum, to be paid by the old cat of a grandmother, what security had he for the realization of the engagement, supposing she were to die in the interim?— No, no I It was no use deceiving themselves, Charles had his five hundred a- year, and his wife hers ; and all the rest was leather and prunella." "And I should like to see," added the malicious man, speaking as earnestly as though he really coveted the sight, " two people of fheir preposterous pretensions starving upon an income, which I, who am neither the worst of managers nor the most luxurious of men, can hardly contrive to make cover the wants of life I — Fine work, forsooth, when my lady gets put to the push I — Fine work, when Mr. Varnished-boots gets dunned for the amount of a brewer's bill I Of all things in this world , commend me to a shabby- genteel establishment, with a Ladyship in tatters at its head!" — All this virulence was produced by a private request made to him at Heriford Castle by his son, that, on quitting their house, he would fee the groom of the chambers with a five-pound note. '■^ A fivc-ponnd nolc'! — Did Mr. Charles Barriugton happen to know, pray, the number oi shillings contained in a five-pound note? — A labourer's wages for a couple of months l'-- " I assure you, Sir," persisted his son, " that, considering the occasion of your visit here, you cannot give less. Whittingham will probably look for ten. But five is the smallest sum you could offer." THE DtBUTANTE. 165 It was in vain his father protested, that if, in former days, any gentleman visiting Hexholm had given a five-pound note to his butler, he would have discharged the one and insulted the other on the spot. " Hexholm was not Heriford Castle !" — was his son's unlucky reply. " Oh! if you must needs quote lords for precedents," retorted the enraged Mr, Harrington, " not a year passed, in those days, but I was twice or thrice staying at Lord Coylsfield's; and I will wager my head his servants would have thought me mad had 1 offered such a fee." "You had not just married your son to Lord Coylsfield's daughter !" rejoined Charles, inwardly thanking heaven that this tyranny would soon be overpast ; and, finding his father implacable, — as jealous over his pocket's blood as though every drop of it flowed from his heart, — he arranged the matter secretly with his mother and redeemed his family honour in the establishment of his father-in-law. The wound intlicted upon his father's covetousness had, however, never healed; and Mr. Harrington's country neighbours, who, expecting to see him come back from Heriford Castle with his heart turned wrong side before by the extraordinary promotion of his son, were amazed at perceiving that he not only resumed, on the morrow of his return, his old straw hat, rusty pea jacket, and unblacked highlows, but that he was far from elated by th** match. It was unaccountable! The Harmers of Hedginglon, and Forsyths at the Vicarage, who were beginning to tattle in whispers of the Barrington family, (as if there were something " uncanny," or Aladdinish, in the destinies of a young man who had only to show his face to have the Sultan's daughter offer him her hand,) began to thaw again, and hold out theirs, as usual, to people who, though connected with a marquis, dispensed with having acoronet branded or ruddled on their shoulders. The Chalkneys, on the other hand, were too curious to learn the details of the wedding, not to compromise with the spite which inclined them to stand aloof; more especially as they flattered themselves they could point out a flaw in the jewel so much the object of their envy. "So, you did not manage to bring Lord Clandon back with you, my dear Miss Brenton?" observed Sir Hildebrand, (after hearing Mrs. Barrington repeat, in answer to his congratulations, the answer which, in every case, she tried to make with untearful eyes and an unfaltering voice, " that jher son had indeed made a fortunate choice, and enjoyed every prospect of happiness.") " we 166 THE DfiBUTANTE. Buckinghamshire bumpkins were rather in hopes you would have persuaded him to return, and spend the winter at Greensells." " Greensells is not thought a very healthy winter residence," was Maria's unembarrassed reply. " If Sir Rupert should fulfil his intentions of retiring from the county before Parliament meets, Lord Clandon must be on the spot. Otherwise, I hardly think he will be here again this winter." Mrs. Barrington, — who had been too much taken up at Heriford Castle by an event so important in her life as the wedding of her only son, to take much heed of aught beside, and knew only that the earl had been attentive to Miss Brenton, but, as the fact had proved, without the smallest intention of offering her his hand, — was afraid the poor girl might feel annoyed by what was evidently intended as an attack. She did not surmise the perfect self-security of her niece. She did not guess with what vigilant care Lord Clandon had watched over every step taken by Maria in his father's house ; how unceasingly he had endeavoured to divert her mind from its girlish troubles ; how fondly he had removed the thorns from her path ; how near her he had stood during the marriage ceremony, that he might hurry her away in case the anguish of her soul should break forth ; and above all, how tenderly he had pressed her hand at parting, when assisting her into the carriage, in the dim light of a drizzly November morning. " Should you be very angry if you were to receive a letter from me on your return home?" he had ventured to whisper, while lending her his arm across the great hall, in the face of an assem- bled file of livery servants, with the superciUous Mr. Whiltingliam at their head. " Angr;/? — Oh, no ! — It would be so kind of you to write !" was her ingenuous reply; "particularly ifyou hear news of the travellers. You know how negligently Charles corresponds with Easton." And if, in the course of the day, it occured to her to ask herself, a thousand times, what good deed Lady Alicia could have done in the sight of Providence to entitle her to such a reward as the hand of her cousin Charles, she more than once added to the inquiry, "and such a brother as Lord Clandon." For, as a brother, she conceived him to be invaluable. No matter, she thought, whether a brother's figure be uncouth, or his complexion muddy, — he is always a brother — the closest, dearest, and truest of friends; and, from the friendship he bestowed upon her, who had no claims upon his kindness, save having given him a crust of bread one day when he took her for the housekecpei', and seen that his pointers were fed whenever they accompanied her uncle home from shooting, she could readily conceive what must b(! the warmth of his attachment to the sisters of his llesh and blood. She did, certainly, when allowing herself to desire what THE DEBUTANTE. 167 was impossible, sometimes wish she had such a brother as Lord Clandon. The inquiries of Sir Hildebrand Chalkneys therefore, afforded her more pleasure than pain. She liked to hear the sound of Lord Clandon's name. She liked to hear his sojourn at Greensells talked of as possible. It would be so very pleasant to have him there again ; so delightful to hear, throwjh him, what was written to Heriford Castle by Lady Alicia ! Some days after the visit of the family from Pountney Hill, she was struck, while planting some hyacinth-roots, and thinking within herself with what different feelings she had been accus- tomed annually to execute the same task, when there was a chance of getting them into bloom before Charles's winter vacation was at an end,— by the pertinacity with which her uncle kept hover- ing about her during her operations. So earnestly did he hx his eyes upon her, that, in her nervous fright, she took a sidelong view of her simple woollen gown, to be sure that she had not soiled it by her gardening, so as to run the risk of a reprimand. But not so much as a speck of mould was to be seen ! And she soon disco- vered that he was not in one of his acrid humours ; for he not only inquired whether the pots were the size she wanted, but offered to send the helper to remove them for her to the greenhouse, when she had done. On proceeding into the parlour,— no longer interdicted since Charles's marriage,— to finish her gloomy afternoon with needle- work, he still followed her,— still kept fidgetting up and down the room. At last, Mrs. Barrington, as if out of patience, observed, in answer to a whisper her husband had bent over her work-basket to inflict,— "Why not ask her at oiice?— Maria has no secrets from us." While turning with wondering eyes from one to the other for a further explanation, Miss Brenton discovered her uncle to be thoroughly confused by this frank appeal. But Mrs. Barrington continued to speak out. " There was a letter in the post-bag for you this morning, my dear," — said she, "bearing the Whitehaven post-mark; and your uncle is anxious to know the news from Heriford Castle. — Your uncle fancies it was addressed in Lord Clandon's handwriting." — She could not add — " And, suspecting he has made you an offer, is wild to learn the truth." But Maria was far from reluctant to satisfy Mr. Barrington's curiosity. "The letter was, indeed, from Lord Clandon, uncle," she re- plied , " but I was so disappointed at the contents, — I made so sure, when I opened it, that he would not have written unless he had news to send us of my cousin, and was so vexed when T foinid 168 THE DfiBUTANTE. that it contained nothing but gossip about people I do not care for, — the Maitlands, — Lord Morlayne, that Jewish gentleman we all disliked so, — all sorts of uninteresting persons, — that I put it aside after reading it; and, coming down too late for breakfast, was so afraid you might be angry that the whole thing went out of my head." Mr. Barrington looked as though he did not believe a word she was uttering; and though his wife nodded to him, aside, as much as to say, " You see ! — I told you the letter was of no manner of consequence," — even she did not imagine that Maria had told them the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. But my uncle, being disappointed, chose to be displeased. " Very extraordinary," said he, " that a man of Lord Clandon's age should take upon himself to open a correspondence with a girl of Maria's upon indifferent subjects." And his niece became instantly so alarmed lest he should inter- dict what afforded her sole chance of intelligence concerning the bi'ide and bridegroom, that she offered to fetch the letter. " Perhaps her aunt would like to see what he said of the family atHerifordCaslle?" Mrs. Barrington longed to reply, — " No, my dear child! — Keep your letters to yourself ; no harm can possibly enter into any corre- spondence of yours." But an admonitory gesture from her husband forbad her affectionate apostrophe; and the letter was fetched, — and read ! " Exactly what Maria informed us!" said Mrs. Barrington, in reply to the keenly inquiring looks fixed upon her by her husband during the perusal ; but folding it up at the close, and delivering it back in too marked a manner to her niece, to admit of his saying, — " I should like to read it myself." Baffled in his purpose, ho would probably have burst out into a new condemnation of the correspondence, but that, at that mo- ment, a tax-gatherer's paper was brought into the room; and he contented himself by venting his savageness on the footman, — pointing out to him, by traces on the meagre Scotch carpet, that he had been out of doors, and forgotten to wipe his shoes. A moment afterwards, he followed the man out of the room, to ascertain whether the extortioner who brought the paper, had left the premises. And Mrs. Barrington's heart was glad. For, had he chosen to insist on reading the letter, he would instantly have seen through the vein of tenderness so wholly unperccived by Maria; instantly discovered that there needed but the smallest hint ol reci- procity of feeling, to induce Lord Clandon to propose; and the advice which he might have felt called upon to offer to his inexpe- rienced niece, would have been the very thing to determine her to break off the acquaintance. THE DfiBUTANTE. 169 Meanwhile, if the letter from Heriford were thus satisfactory, those, or rather that from the travellers was not. Very short, — very cold,— it intimated only that they had determined to spend the winter at Paris. To the English Ambassadress, Lady Alicia Harrington was nearly related ; and the number of noble emigres harboured at Heriford Castle during the revolution, afforded her a strong connexion with the Faubourg St. Germain. They conse- quently anticipated a gay and pleasant season, and were to com- plete their bridal year by a summer tour of the German baths. It was well that Charles refrained from adding—" after which we proceed to Italy to accomplish a second : " such being, at present, the project of Lady Alicia, in order to estrange her husband entirely from family connexions with which she felt she could have nothing in common. For, as itwas, poor Maria regarded the decree with despair. " It is the same," she observed to Mrs. Barrington, " as being told that we are never to see him again. For you heard what Lady Chalkneys was saying the other day, about a long residence abroad effecting a total transformation of the character. Charles will come back to us another man." " He may, perhaps," replied her aunt; " but I never allow myself, dearest Maria, to be much alarmed by Lady Chalkneys' showings. Her object is less to say what is true, than what will make others uneasy." It was difficult, however, on so hazy a November day, with all the plants remaining in the flower-beds killed down by the frost, — the very small fire allowed by Mr. Barrington's parsimony smouldering into yellow smoke in the grate, — nothing to be done in the garden,— and in the house, only the hemming of anew set of table-linen purchased for the chance of the noble bride having condescended to visit them before she left England,— or the perusal, for the twentieth time, of the Guardian, Adventurer, and Hawkesworth's Telemachus, relics of her school classics, (a sub- scription to the Tring Book Club being rigorously interdicted by her uncle,) it was difficult, under the pressure of social enjoyments such as these, not to be a little desponding. A deep-seated sense of religion rendered her patient; affection for the kind aunt who was her fellow-victim, prompted her to endeavour to be even cheerful. But there were moments when it was impossible for poor Griselda not to feel that the whole re- mainder of her life was November ;— and that November was a dreary time ! — 170 THE DEBUTANTE. CHAPTER XIX. mio tesoro, Ancor non son sicuro, ancor i' tremo. A dirti il vero, e mi par d'ora in ora Che '1 souno mi si I'ompa, E die lu mi I' involi, anima mia. GUARIM. That November might be made to wear a very different aspect, Maria Brenton would have speedily admitted, could she have taken a bird's-eye view, just then, of Wolseley Hall. All that money, — all that taste,— all that imagination could procure, was there displayed. To welcome Lord Mortayne to her father's house, in a style calculated to inspire him with high notions of her pretensions, Eleanor had spared neither cost nor pains ; and, now that she was about to restore him to liberty, Sir Wolseley seconded her wishes by allowing her nnlimited sway. Even before the announcement of her marriage, his goodwill towards her had considerably increased, on finding the burthen of chaperonage less heavy than he expected. No longer aggravated by the perpetual diatribes of his father, he had begun to see that a young sister was no such terrible thing. The admiration she had excited in London, the decree of Lord Esher, and others of his stable-haunting clique, "that there might be handsomer women in London, but, by Jove, no one showed blood like Mailland ! " — had administered almost as largely to his pride, as though it were said of a filly bred in the Wolseley stables. There was, in fact, something in the character of his sister's style of beauty peculiarly agreeable to him ; something of the race-horse, — something cha- racteristic of a winner of the Oaks. And now that she was about to leave him, how could he do less than welcome his new brother-in-law in the way most agreeable to her? He did not fancy Lord Mortayne. He thought him a flimsy fine gentleman, as well as a rove in grain. He even thought him " a bit of a spoon ;" and often wondered what sort of a figure he would cut on Bay Slapdash, in the blind country round Heriford Ci 5tle !— But as Nell had decidedly made up her mind to marry him, and he Avas about to become a guest at Wolseley Hall, there was too much of the gentleman at the bottom of Sir VVolseley's selfishness, not to render him a hospitable host. When Mortayne arrived there, conseijuently, after issuing such orders as would place his own residence in a condition to receive his lovely bride, he was startled to perceive the disparity between the villa-like slightness of the only home his early follies had left THE DfinUTANTE. 171 him to offer to Miss Maitland, and the handsome old squire-archi- cal residence which constituted her notions of country life. But that from the moment he caught sight of her fair face, he thought only of her, he would have felt humiliated by the solidity of the square old family mansion, with its groinings of cedar and oak, — its line old plate, — sterhng old pictures, — sound old wine, — famous old breed of deer and horses, and dogs and cattle, — its ancient avenue of elms, and certain oaks which were certified as ancient trees at the time of the Hanoverian succession. For it was a handsome family mansion ; — the father, grand- father, and greatgrandfather ofSirWolseley, if sottersof theirown home-brewed, had lived upon their estate, and improved it; or their fair descendant had not now, perchance, been on the eve of becoming a peeress of the realm. The thing, however, that struck him most in the house, was the good taste with which Eleanor, without encroaching on the arrange- ments of the somewhat low-browed and high chimney-pieced suite of drawing-rooms, with their rich old damask furniture, and glo- rious old paintings in heavy old frames, had limited her inter- ference to a single chamber ; a chamber fronting the morning sun, and overlooking a fine terrace, which she had caused to be hung with flutings of Indian chintz, and fitted up with antique furniture of carved or twisted ebony, rescued by her zeal from the old family lumber-room to which it was consigned on the refurnishing of the mansion, early in the last century. Neither pictures nor glasses, nor any costly ornament, had been introduced to mar the chaste simplicity of the spot. Only her musical instruments,— only her books, — only a few simple vases failed with the choicest flowers. It was exclusively a young girl's room. "Thank Heaven !" was the secret ejaculation of Lord Mortayne, on visiting her sanctuary. " Whatever Sir Wolseley may dehght in, her own tastes, at least, are pure and simple. She will not despise her future home." It did not occur to the enamoured man, that what the girl had accepted, because unable to compass more, might not suffice the ambitions of the matron. But, had he surmised that it was because the little terrace-room and the house in wliich she could not legis- late to her liking were hateful to her, that she married him at all, the high-minded Sophia do Capell would indeed have been a^dply avenged. Meanwhile Sir Wolseley welcomed him cordially to the Hall, and placed horses, dogs, and rnasler at his disposal ; and his satis- faction was completed by the smiles that irradiated the face of his Eleanor when he placed before her the rich dressing and jewel cases adorned with her future coronet, which were his wedding present. Lord Mortayne had no near relations ; so that the shower 172 THE DfiBUTANTE. ofcadeanx, which sometimes accompany the bridal of people of more extended connexions, was unluckily wanting. And when he showed her, with a pleased air, a variety of gifts of no great value exceptas tributes of regard, which had been despatched to "Morty" by such attached friends as Lord Bowbridge and a few of his co- mates, it was no small joy to be able to exhibit in return, a noble casket of family diamonds which had been presented to her by her brother, with the flattering observation that " If he should ever be guilty of the folly of taking a wife, he would sooner see her hanged than wearing jewels worn by his mother." "We must get them reset before the season," said Eleanor, carelessly, while showing them to Lord Mortayne. " In their pre- sent state, they are as heavy and tasteless as an old epergne. But the brilliants themselves are of great beauty." Slight as was the observation, it sufficed to suspend the bride- groom's breath. — "The Season!" — That hateful word, which he would fain have had obliterated from the land's language I — That hateful word, which he had hoped was, at least, elfaced from the mind of her he loved. It had vexed him beyond measure, when, in the correspondence produced by their temporary separation at Heriford Castle, he found Eleanor strongly advocating the solemnization of their mar- riage in London. As her brother had no house in town, she pro- posed being married from an hotel. " It would be so convenient," she said, " for the completion of her trousseau, as well as so plea- sant an escape from the publicity and formality they had recently seen attending the wedding at Heriford Castle." Not that Lord Mortayne by any means suspected his Eleanor of having formed in her noviciate as a debutante a fixed idea of a fashionable wedding at St. George's, with the proper allotment of ladyships for bridesmaids, duchesses for spectators, and a bishop to solemnize the rite, disliked the notion of " taking the ring" without a due proportion of metropolitan display. But he wanted her to appreciate, as lie did, the delight of breathing their mutual vows in the secluded village church of her birthplace, — thinking only of him, and eager only to escape to a still more domestic so- litude. She had ceded to his wishes, without apprizing him that the seeming concession was produced by her brother's absolute veto to the London scheme, and open declaration of his determination not to sacrifice more than a day's hunting to her nuptials. But, however enchanted by her ready relinquishment of her plans, the devoted lover could not but tremble at the indications revealed by this accidental allusion to the coming spring. He seemed to behold an apparition of Old Vassall's face, grinning in malicious delight over her shoulder, at the realization of his prophecies! — THE DfeBUTANTE. 173 So averse was he, however, to produce even a ripple upon the glassy surface of his present happiness, that he said not a word. There would come a time, hereafter, to wean her from any projects she might have formed at the instigation of the giddy younger daughters of Lady Heriford. Once installed with him in the paradise he would create for her at Mortayne, by the shores of his own beautiful Windermere, in the midst of the loveliest scenery of the British Islands, it would be his own fault if she had leisure to languish after the dusty desart of Hyde Park. People in love are all but Chinese in the limitation of their per- ceptions. For them the world seems comprised in —the ittle space Two loving arms confine. And while the fascinated Morty sat spell-bound in one of the old ebony chairs, his eyes fixed upon the loveliest of faces , with the slender snow white hand of her on whom his soul doated extended towards him from the opposite sofa and folded within his own, an earthquake might have shook the house, and he had scarcely felt the shock. Never was there, in short, a more submissive victim to the potent spell of Moments, when we gather from a glance More joy than from all future pride or praise, Which kindle manhood, but can ne'er entrance The heart in an existence of its own. Of which another's bosom is the zone. " When I reflect," murmured he, as soon as the departure of Sir Wolseley, with his dogs and keepers, secured him the happiness of a tete-a-tete with her who was so soon to become his for ever, — " when I reflect, dearest, upon the almost miraculous nature of my happiness, — that / who, to my shame be it spoken, have lived almost exclusively with what is vile and Avoi'thless, and wasted among ttiem the sunshine of my life, — should have obtained the affections of a creature so bright, — so unsullied, — so new to all the impulses of life, and so pure from all its corruptions, it scarcely seems just that Providence should ordain me such a treasure. Who knows better than I, Eleanor, the brilliant fortunes you might have commanded? — Who knows better than I the admiration lavished upon you in London wherever you appeared? — And all this, darling, have you renounced for iny sake ! " — Not a word in reply ! How could she answer such an adjuration ? — But it was not an answer he needed. All the ardent lover desired was that she should smile upon him for ever, as she was then smil- ing, — and gently return, as at that moment, the fervent pressure of his hand. — 174 THE D£BUTANTE. The friends, the numerous friends, to whom "Morty" was so dear, could hardly have wished him happier, had they been eye- witnesses of his infatuation; and when Lord and Lady Heriford arrived with the two younger girls, who, as a medium between Lord Morlayne's dislike of a public wedding and the established usages of society, were to officiate as bridesmaids to the young kinswoman whom they would fain have hailed as a sister, — Lady Mary's first letter from Wolseley Hall to her friend, Lady Barbara Bernardo, announced, in addition to the great fact, that, " after all, Wolseley was a horrid, dull, old heavy place, good only for a fox- hunting squire; that she knew not which was stupidest, the house or the master; and that if she had married Sir Wolseley, she should have been the most moped and miserable creature in the world," —the intelligence, far more likely to interest her correspondent, that " never was man so over head and ears as Lord Mortayne I — Much as she had heard of the violent nature of first love, she saw the last was far more to be dreaded." The Marchioness of Heriford, meanwhile, who had accepted as a last chance of attack upon Sir Wolseley the invitation so earnestly made by Eleanor only that an account of her happy imptials might be transmitted to the travellers at Paris, — (her own point lace and diamonds quadrupling in value those of Lady Alicia Barrington.) ■ — could not forbear observing to her host, that "had she been aware of the impossibihty of tearing their dear Eleanor, even for a moment, from the side of Lord Mortayne, she should hardly have undertaken so long a journey for the pleasure of her com- pany." And though Sir Wolseley, hospitable, if not polished, fulfilled the intentions of the complainant by making full amends for Eleanor's remissness, Lady Heriford did not the less whisper, on the morning of the wedding, to her friend Lady Essendon, who, with one or two other country neighbours of note, came over in their carriages, and four to do honour to the ceremony, attracted by the unfailing bait of bride-cake and favours, that, " in spite of their seeming recipro- city of feeling, she should have been better pleased to see her young friend united with a man more of her own age and character, than Lord JMortayne, — a man for whom the illusions of life were beginning, rather than at their close." " 1 was at her mother's wedding!" added her Ladyship, in a Mrs. Candour-like tone. " One of the prettiest creatures in the world, was my poor cousin Matilda I But she ivoiUd marry a country-gentleman, when all she cared for was London ; and poor Lady Maitland's ending is, unhappily, no secret!" — " Lady Heriford has given up ail hopes of Sir Wolseley, or she would not come out with that ugly story just now !'" mused, in her turn, the Countess of I'^ssendon. " ' Save me from mv friends!' THE DfiRUTANTE. 175 might be parodied in this instance by 'Beware of the reminiscences of a cousin !' " " I can tell you that it made the poor marchioness yellow with spite," said Sir Wolseley, on the other hand, to Lord Esher, when, the week following, the first bachelor -party at Cub Castle was inaugurated, " to have to carry off her two ugly angels in one di- rection, while Nelly was whirled off, in another, for Mortayne's family place! The coronet on the bridal chariot formed too dis- agreeable a contrast to that of Lady Alicia Barrington!" Every one, however, did not view the two marriages in the same relative light. On perusing in the papers the formal announcement which proved that the once hated name of Eleanor Maitland had ceased to exist, Maria Brenton observed, Avith a heavy sigh, to Mrs. Barrington, " Poor thing !— what a sad change for her to be married to that cross-looking ugly man, after flattering herself she had secured the affections of my cousin!" — The self-same paper, conveying the account of the wedding, contained, however, another announcement, which instantly ab- sorbed the whole attention of Easton Hoo. Extracts from the Indian papers, brought by the Overland Mail, recorded, among other deaths at Madras, of cholera, that of "Maria, only surviving daughter of Humphrey Barrington, Esq." Yet, not a line from the afflicted father !— On occasion of his former family affliction, his first impulse had been to write to them : but now, not a word ! — ■ " Who knows," suggested the affectionate brother, " but Humphrey may be dead too?— The cholera in an infectious dis- order.— He may have died after the printing of the papers!" " More likely, poor fellow, he was too much overcome to write!" observed Mrs. Barrington, wiping her eyes. "Humphrey was a most affectionate father ; and a second blow of that nature is more severe than the first. He has nothing left on earth to care for now!''' — But her husband did not seem to consider this contingency by any means a thing to cry about. " We have become," said he, " his only heirs; and, were not Humphrey the most eccentric man breathing, I should have every right to consider myself secure of his splendid fortune." " Or, at least, Charles,— to whom he has been so generous," observed Mrs. Barrington, almost in a whisper. " And in that case," added Maria, on whom nothing that included the name of Charles was lost, " in that case, how grievously would my poor cousin repent his interested marriage." " I do not see why the claims of my son are lo be put forward in opposition to mine!" exclaimed Mr. Barrington, with growing indignation. " I may have been an imprudent man ; but I have done 176 THE DEBUTANTE. nothing to deserve being cut off by my brother. Now that his daughters are dead, I am, in fact, his heir-at-law, — his next of kin. — A hint was given me, about a twelvemonth ago, that my brother had been inquiring about the Hexholm estate, and was anxious to buy back the family property; which shows that the name of Barrington is not indifferent to him. Its male representative must, consequently, have some importance in his eyes." " Who knows, then," said Maria, with more rashness than was her wont, " but that, now my uncle is left alone in the world, he may choose to marry again? He is not much more than fifty. He might live to have sons of his own." The hurricane, which had uprooted so many trees in Greensells Chase, and sent the Earl of Clandon to sleep in Charles Barrington's bed, some months before, was a storm not worth mentioning compared with that into which the covetous man broke forth at this untimely suggestion. That all the joy he had experienced on learning his brother's deprivation of his last surviving comfort, should be nipped in the bud by an impertinent conjecture, without rhyme or reason, made, evidently, for the express purpose of annoying him ! — Maria never omitted an occasion of saying or doing what she knew would be most disagreeable to him I — Maria was the most ungrateful, as well as the most mischievous girl in the world ; she would, doubtless, be going about, and gossiping over the probability of her uncle's marriage, with those idiotic old Forsyths, or that impudent cox- comb of a fellow at Pountney Hill. "But I tell you this frankly. Miss Brenton," added he, " that matters are not going to remain in this house upon the fooling they have been. Charles's confounded marriage has been such a pull upon my narrow means, that I can no longer afford to keep idle hangers-on in my house. Your aunt ami myself have come to a time of life when the charge of a young person who has little or no claim upon us, is too heavy a charge — more especially one devoid of all gratitude or affection. And 1 therefore take this opportunity of repeating, in plain English, Maria, that though, inconsequence of Charles's marriage, 1 consented to Mrs. Barrington's wish of keeping you with her over Christmas, the earlier in January you remove to Cornbury Hall, the more convenient to me.'" This abrupt and brutal apostrophe was, in truth, the mere result of exasperation. So far from wishing to drive his niece from his roof, the preference with which she was regarded by Lady Alicia Barrington's brother, even if insufficient to determine Lord Clandon to offer her his hand, was enough to render her i)resence support- able, as an attraction to the new member for the county. But in the heat of his rage he had improvisated a threat, just as in the heat of conversation people improvisate convictions on subjects THE DfenUTANTE, 177 upon which they have never reflected. Convinced that Miss Bren- ton, so attached to that cheerless home, would implore leave to stay, and her aunt intercede with him to relent in hei' I'avour, he would have threatened her with Sierra Leone or Botany Bay, instead of Cornbury Hall, had the alternative been at his disposal, in re- quital of such a crime as imagining her uncle Humphrey's marriage. But on the present occasion, neither that evening, nor the next, nor the next, was the smallest concession sought at his hands. — Mrs. Barrington, convinced in her own mind that it needed only for the course of Lord Clandon's true love to run a little rough to make it overleap all bounds, considered that, if Maria were domes- ticated for a time in a family to which he had no access, he would unquestionably be driven to the extremity of a proposal; and she consequently spoke in such terms on the subject, when left alone with Maria after the despot's departure, that, believing her aunt to be entirely acquiescent in the cruel view of her uncle, the poor girl, with breaking heart, indited the letter to Mr. and Mrs. Corn- bury which was to fix a day for her entrance into their family. — She was always to have gone to them at Christmas, — It was only a fortnight's delay that she had gained. When a kind answer arrived, accepting with joy the fulfilment of an engagement which they had begun to fear, they said, she might be tempted by older friends to overlook, Mr. Barrington was almost as much vexed by the sequel, as he had been by her imprudent prediction. From the moment of his son's marriage, he had never intended her to go. He was loo well aware of her value as a mender and maker, to turn his sister's child out of doors. If the poor or- phan had no value in his eyes, the sempstress was deserving con- sideration. It was now, however, too late. He had thrown her off, and she was accepted by others ; and Easton Hoo might do as it could for its flower-beds and linen-press. The poor of the village would lose their benefactress — the sick and the aged their friend. — The angel was destined to leave them, and be no more seen. Another letter soon afterwards arrived, with the Whitehaven post-mark, and sealed with the Heriford arms. But no allusion was made to the contents. Even Mr. Barrington appeared to understand that he had broken the iron reins of his authority over his niece. Even Mr. Barrington asked no questions. His wife, on the other hand, though aware that an answer had been despatched by Maria to tl)e post-office, from motives of deli- cacy forbore. Not but that she secretly desired to know what was passing, in the fervent hope that something had occurred, or might still occur, to prevent Maria from being driven out into the world, to the mercy of distant kinsfolk ; and it was only when she saw the poor girl hang as dejectedly as ever over her work on the 12 178 THE DfiBUTANTE. evening of despatching her letter, that she gave up her hopes of a happier denoument. No prudish fears distracted her mind con- cerning her niece's correspondence with a young man. She knew Maria— she knew Lord Clandon. — She was satisfied of the excel- lence and uprightness of both ; and, with the trust of a virtuous and holy nature, in which faith is an inherent quality, left them to themselves. But, with all her knowledge of Maria's simplicity of character, little did Mrs. Barrington surmise that the letter so calmly indited, so silently sent, contained a refusal of the hand of the future Marquis of Heriford, with his rent-roll of thirty thousand a-year ! Not because she thought him now, as at their Hrst acquaintance, a surly, unlettered boor ; but because unable to regard him with the exclusive affection she considered indispensable to the happiness of married life. In spite of all his good resolutions, Lord Clandon had been rash — precipitate — injudicious. Unable longer to restrain his feelings, or resist his eagerness to take that gentle woman to his heart, and create for her the happy destinies to which she was so thoroughly entitled, he had forestalled the right moment ; and the consequence was, the defeat of his hopes. " I write to you in all openness of heart," was the tenor of Maria's answer, " as to a friend, whom 1 dearly prize. I will conceal nothing from you. I will enter fully into all your arguments. " You tell me that, at our first acquaintance, you were deterred from asking me to become your wife, only from perceiving how strongly I was attached to my cousin. But that now he is married, the objection ceases — that my ill-placed affection must be at an end. *' Dear Lord Clandon, I love him still — as well as I ever loved jiijn and better than I should ever love yourself. You forget that he is endeared to me by ties of blood, as well as by the choice which is independent of our will. Charles is still my cousin — still my childhood's companion — still my nearest and dearest. — I may never see him again : but I shall always, always love him as at first. " Were 1, for the sake of your kind society, and to secure myself a quiet home, to accede to your generous proposals, think how it would be with my conscience, when I knew, every hour of my life, that his interests were dearer to me than your own ! — " Do not be angry with me, therefore, for my inability to meet your intentions as you desire ; or withdraw your friendship from one who has so few friends in this world, that she regards you, perhaps, more dearly than those akin to you by nature. "For kindness' sake, therefore, try and forget that you ever thought of me in any other light than, as your most obliged and sincere friend, " Mvku. THE DfenUTANTE. 179 CHAPTER XX. With calm eyes Looking through tears, yet lifted to she skies ; Wistful, but patient,— sorrowful, but mild, As asking Goo when He would claim his chikt. A face too young for slich a tranquil grief.— The New Timon. Very dreary were the winter days that ensued. There was no merry Christmas, that year, at Easton Hoo. While Charles and Lady Alicia Barrington were launching, at Paris, into every sort of pastime and diversion, — Lady Alicia taking a studious lesson in the arts and mysteries which assign such unaccountable influence in society to even the least lovely Frenchwoman, ambitious of rule, and clever enough to spin around her the cobwebs of intrigue, — and her husband taking, for the first time, an independent stand on the golden ladder of fashion ; — and while Lord and Lady Mor- tayne w^ere enjoying their opium dream of passion whose Cupids were curled and winged by a fashionable coiffeur^ and its Temple of Hymen interwoven with spun-sugar, as by confectionary art, — Maria, poor Maria, was arming her strength for a separation from persons and objects to which most people would have been easily reconciled to bid farewell ! — Every day of her remaining sojourn was counted, as by a prisoner under sentence of death; and every day that removed a notch, seemed to sink her deeper to the earth. A solemn presenti- ment forewarned her, that, when she quitted the Hoo, it would be never to cross its threshold again. She should behold no more the scenes which had witnessed her little all of earthly happiness; and, despite the unpropitious state of the season, she performed pilgrimages of adieu to every spot connected with the few bright reminiscences of her youth ; among them, to her " Valley of Palms," — a ravine buried in the midst of the woodlands, where, on a Midsummer expedition with her aunt and cousin, four years before, having severely sprained her ankle, in endeavouring to leap a gravelly grip without troubling Charles for the assistance of his hand, he had been forced to carry her in his arms for nearly a mile, to a hovel, where she lay in agony till the market cart was procured that conveyed her home. Every evening, beside the lofty chimney in which the wind was howling as if in sympathy with her sadness, Maria Brenton sat indulging in the morbid fancy that no other fireside on earth could cast so cheerful a reflection as the one beside whose mantel-piece hung a wretched daub of Charles Barrington, in his cap and gown; which, in an outbreak of academic pride, he had brought home from Oxford to his mother, at his first vacation. 180 THE DfeBUTANTE. B( t-wet-n the pauses of her stitching, she sometimes snatched a glance at it,— as a devotee, in the intervals of her prayers, raises her eyes to the altar-piece ; and every night, when she retired to rest, and passed, at the head of the staircase, the chamber-door where, in better days, she had been accustomed to breathe as she passed a secret prayer of " God bless him !" her heart seemed to collapse at the thought that she was about to abide in a spot his foot had never trod, — among those to v/hom his features were unknown, and to whom his fortunes were indifferent. All her griefs, however, vere not connected with him. Though of parting with her dear aunt she could not permit herself to think, lest she should be tempted into the abject and probably unavailing meanness, of throwing herself at her uncle's feet, and entreating him to permit her to remain, — even if as an hireling, under his roof, — there were minor griefs in which her tenderness found vent. There was an old ragged-looking terrier, named Bur, which, by dint of kicks and cuffs, had been rendered submissive to Mr. Harrington, till it followed him about the farm like a familiar spirit ; but which, being a beast of proper sentiments, had attached itself fondly to Maria, in gratitude for the caresses with which, when her uncle's back was turned, she repaid the Ufe of coercion to which, like herself, it was condemned. Any one who witnessed the grotesque caperings, or heard the uncouth yells by which the poor beast demonstrated, every morn- ing, its joy at seeing its protectress again, if they happened to meet when the despot was away, was fully justified in looking round for a cup of water, as a test of the poor dog's sanity. But, if the same anybody had spoken gruffly to Maria, or hazarded a menacing gesture towards her, the terrier's teeth would have instantly met in his flesh ; and, whenever Mr. Barrington went visiting to Pountney Hill, or Hedgington, so as to leave his trem- bling subjects at liberty for a time, till his unwelcome return the place of Bur was at Maria's feet; looking up with piteous love into her face, and wagging his shabby tail with the velocity of a fly- wheel, in token of allegiance. That the poor beast would be cuffed and kicked for the rest of its days, without a consolatory word in return, and go whining to the door of her empty room without the hope of a charitable hand to throw a crust to its hunger, was sad to think of. She would have given worlds to carry Bur with her to Cornbury. But she would as soon have thought of asking her uncle for his gold re- peater. Not that he cared a rush for the faithful animal ; but "Bur was such a good one after the rats I" A far greater grief, however, regarded her poor ; — consisting of a village/jro/cf/^'or two, upon whom her hours of recreation had been patiently expended; — mothers of many children, whose cares I HE DEBUTANTE. 181 had been lightened by her assistance; and above all, a paralytic woman, to whom she used to go and read, — because lame Pegg) was so cross and thankless, that no one else would be troubled on her account. — What would they do when she was gone ! Her uncle was too well known among them, for them ever to look for aid to Easton ; and Dr. and Mrs. Forsyth were old people, indifferent, through the sloth of decrepitude, to the wants of the poor. She did what she could in preparation for the remainder of the winter; — divested herself of all she could spare from her scanty wardrobe, and left herself as nearly penniless as prudence would admit. It was in vain she applied to her uncle for a slight advance from the sum ol three thousand pounds, vested in his hands as her guardian, over which, on coming of age in the month of March ensuing, she was to obtain full disposal ; assuring him that the habits of Cornbury Hall were such as rendered it indispensable to present herself in suitable attire. All the answer she obtained was, that " she should not have thrown away her last quarter's allowance on a marriage gift to her cousins's wife!" Mr. Barrington would not hear of advancing a shilling. Though the Cornburys, who were wealthy as well as worthy people, and who, on two occasions, when Maria paid them a visit, had receveid her with all the cordiality of kinsfolk, evinced the utmost indignation at her uncle's suggestion, that "she could pay for her keep," there were travelling, and other unusual expenses to be provided for, on which he largely insisted. " Nor did he choose her to be wasting her money on a set of idle scamps, who were always pulling at his hedges, and pilfering in his tields." Not a shilling, in short, was to be had ; and all she could do was to sit up a few nights, to knit a lambswool jacket for lame Peggy, as a parting token of Christian benevolence. She did it, however, with fear and trembling. For if, through the cracks of the ill-fitting window-shutters, Mr. Barrington had happened to perceive the light, he would haveaccused her of wasting his substance, or perhaps of incendiary intentions against the old tenement of the Hoo. Not a syllable had she breathed in the village of her approach- ing departure : unwilling, amid her many cares, to expose herself to the lamentations of those who loved her both for their own sake and hers. She could do so little for them, in con- solation, that she did not want to see their tears. When she wished lame Peggy good-bye, it was only as if about to absent herself for a time, as on occasion of their visit to [leriford Castle; and though many might have perceived, in the faltering tone in which she bad her keep, for her sake, the Testament in which she was wont to read to her and which Avas one of her own school-^irl possessions, indications that thev were to meet no more, — the 182 THE nfeBUTANTE. lame -wonrnti thought only of her present, — and contented herself with the ' (iod bless you, Miss,' of hor daily thanks. It was only to Dr. and Mrs. Forsyth, that, on the day preceding her departure, she admitted that she was quitting Easton tor ever. From them, who had been as kind to her as their age and circum- stances would permit, she did not conceal her tears; — for it was to them she had entrust the care of her aunt. When she was gone, Mrs. Barrington would be left so much alone ! And of late she had been ailing. A cold, caught at Heriford Castle, threatened her with a sickly winter. With clasped hands and streaming eyes, there- fore, she implored die good people to '• visit her often,— to visit her whether she would or no, — to " She could not define the exact measure of the good offices she asked of them, — for tears choked her utterance the moment she began to talk of her aunt. She was not however, the less under- stood; and, on turning towards them to take leave of that gloomy little vicarage parlour, in which she would have lingered for ever. Dr. Forsyth, instead of simply pressing the extended hand of the girl, to whom, for so many years past, he had administered in peace and holiness the great mysteries of their faith, placed his hands, tremulous from age, upon her head, and bad God bless her, and prosper the holy aims of her life. All this was grievous preparation for the stress upon her nerves to arise from the morrow's parting. When, however, on her return home, she noticed the pale cheeks and haggard looks of Mrg. Barrington, she subdued her feelings at once, by an ellbrt of which none but herself could understand the pain. She owed it to her aunt, that nothing should occur to harass her suffering heart. She was to depart at midday. Her uncle, who had business with his lawyer concerning Charles's settlements, was to convey her by the evening train to the Blue Boar in Holborn, — where Mr. Corn- bury, who was in to'vn for a few days, to receive dividends and look at cattle-shows, would receive and escort her by the mail train to her future home. The great difficulty of the journey con- sisted, of course, in convincing Mr. Barrington that his ill-fed horses, (which, whenever not wanted for the farm, were voted loo old for work,) could convey them to Tring. But this difficulty had been overcome, by reminding him of the cost of a fly, and all was now arranged ; — so well arranged, indeed, that poor Mrs. Har- rington foresaw no chance of a reprieve. Though they were not to start till twelve o'clock, Mr. Barrington insisted that his niece's baggage should he brought down to the backdoor by daybreak, that the task might not interfere with his footman's work for the day. And there they lay, corded and di- rected, — those shabby trunks and boxes and bundles; — how diffe- rent from the trimly array of varnished leather, and patent impe- THE D^BUTAINTI', 183 rials, with which Kady Alicia had set, forth on her continental tour! It did not occur, however, to Maria Brenton, to feel ashamed of them, though alive to their unsightliness. They contained all her earthly treasures : — two faded miniatures of her father and mother ; a lock of Mrs. Barrington's white hair ; a sprig of withered ivy, taken from the Christmas decoration of their pew in Easton church ; and the showy work-box presented to her by her cousin on his marriage, which she had never since found courage to take out of its case. The time would come, when even the old portman- teau, which there had been so much difficulty in closing, on account of the raggedness of the leathern strap, would become an object of interest to her, as having lain in a corner of the lumber-room at *' home." After seeing the packages carried out one by one, Maria was seating herself in the desolate room, which looked as even better chambers are apt to look, after the personal belongings of the inhabitants have been removed ; when the sound of her own name, vociferated by her uncle in his least mellifluous accents, caused her to start up and hurry down the creaking stairs. On the second flight, however, she paused ; for she found he was talking of her, — not talking to her. Mr. Barrington was address- ing his caltish footman , or some other member of the establishment ; and Maria's blood curdled in her veins when she heard him shout," You are an impudent fellow! — T don't believe. Sir, Miss Brenton ever gave any orders of the kind ! " — Even at the eleventh hour she was fated to be exposed to a domestic storm ! While slowly proceeding down to the offices where the scene was takingplace, in which she fancied her testimony might be necessary to extricate the servants from some scrape into which she had been the means of betraying them, she still continued to hear the angry voice of her uncle. " Four-and-sixpence, for a pack of damned newspapers!" — said he. " Newspapers sent me, without my orders! — Mrs. Var- den must have been mad to think I would receive them!— They must be sent back. — I won't open them. — As to Miss Brenton's letter " He paused : for by this time Maria had reached his side. Oh, you're here?" — said he, interrupting himself, while Dr. Forsyth's boy, who was standing by, with the letter-bag over his shoulder, respectfully ducked his head to the young lady so much respected in the village. "Pray, did you desire Mrs. Varden would forward on your letters to Cornbury Hall?— This ass of a fellow has gone and paid four-and-sixpence on my account for a bundle of old newspapers ; and pretends that there is a letter lying for you at the post-office, which she wouldn't give him as usual 184 THE DfeBUTANXn. because, forsooth, you wrote to her yesterday, saying your letters were to be forwarded on ;— a letter, — or rather packet, — of which the postage amounts to seventeen-and-sixpencel" — " There must be some mistake," said Maria, mildly. " My only correspondents are Mrs. Cornbury and Lord Clandon ; and both of them use stamps." " Any more orders, Sir?" said the boy, vv-ho was probably wait- ing for his four-and -sixpence. " Yes— no — 1 shall see Mrs. Var- den myself presently, and let her know what 1 think about this business. The Tring post-office is the worst conducted in the shire," said Mr. Barrington, (as people usually say of the posf-office nearest their residence,) while slowly extricating from his chamois- leather purse two shillings and a halfcrown, which he placed in the palm of the unlucky lad, as though wishing they were redhot for his sake. But having been forced, during the process of payment, to place the roll of newspapers in Miss Brenlon's hand, her quick eye was caught by the post-mark of the Overland Mail. " These are Madras papers, Sir," said she. " The letter or packet, said to be waiting for me at Tring, is probably from my uncle Humphrey." " Sluflf and nonsense! — Have you ever been in the habit of corresponding with him?" " I wrote to him once. There has been time, " added she. after pausing to compute the number of months — " ample time for me to receive an answer." ButMr. Barrington luckily did not hear. On finding that the packet he held in his hand consisted of Indian papers, he proceeded into the parlour to open il. It would not do, for the sake of four- and-sixpence, to risk offending his brother, by whom they must have been forwarded. Maria longed to follow him but had not courage. Something whispered to her that important intelligence must be contained in that costly packet. She hastened, therefore, to Mrs. Barringlon's room, to announce the arrival of a packet of papers from uncle Humphrey to his brother, and a heavy letter for herself. But the sorrowing aunt, who, already indisposed, had not closed her eyes all night, could not be persuaded to interest herself in anything not relating to Maria's departure. At that moment, what signified her uncle Humphrey! — " Sit down, dearest child" said she; " nearer to my bed, Maria, for 1 am so weak that I can hardly raise my voice. .\re all your things ready? — Did Mary take you up the shawl and lace to put in your trunk ! — No, don't thank mo, my poor child ! I shall never wear Ihem again. — I only wish 1 had hundreds such to give you, or anything else that could " THE DtBUTANTE. 185 " Most important news, my dear!" cried Mr. Barrington, throw- ing open the door, and kicking out of his way a footstool that lay between him and the bed : — " Here's my brother Humphrey dead ! Three years younger than myself, — in the prime of life, one may say, — and gone already! The account's quite authentic," — said he, in a tone of much elation. " Here ! you may read it yourself." — Perceiving that Mrs. Barrington had turned deadly faint at the shock, Maria hastened to raise her head, and oifer di vinaigrette, which, for her journey's sake, she had in her pocket. " Was my poor uncle long ill, Sir? — Did ho suffer much?"— said she, addressing Mr. Barrington, as soon as the poor woman was a little restored. But the amiable husband, systematically opposed to anything like indisposition or emotion in his family, as a sad waste of time and money, had retreated to the window to reperuse, with all the gusto of deliberation, the account of his brother's decease. " The person who was attentive enough to send me these papers," said he, " (probably my poor brother's man of business or physician,) would have done much better to add a few lines, stating exactly how mailers were.— Here is a longparagraph, giving the account of how poor Humphrey was followed to the grave by all the high officials and leading merchants of Madras, and how a subscription was instantly opened to afford him a public monu- ment; but not a syllable about the disposal of his property. No- thing beyond — We understand that the lamented deceased leaves an only brother, Giles Barrington, Esq., of Hexholm Hall, in the county of Durham, who is his heir-at-law." " But is there no account of the cause of his death?" — inquired Mrs. Barrington, much affected by this startling disclosure of the death of her son's benefactor. " Not much. The paper says, he never held up his head after the loss of his last surviving daughter; with whom he had been on the point of returning to Europe for the enjoyment of his princely fortune, and probably to take a leading part in the legislation of Indian affairs." " Poor man ! — poor Humphrey! — what a hard destiny ! " said his wife, — not to him, but Maria, who was standing beside her pillow, as if satished of the hopelessness of obtaining sympathy from the heir-at-law. " Is it not just possible," whispered Maria, in reply, " that the letter 1 mentioned as wailing for me at Tring, may relate to my uncle's decease?" — " By Jupiter, I should not be surprised !" cried Mr. Barrington, readily catching a whisper that regarded his personal interests. ■ Yet why on earth should they write to you 'f With me, he did not 186 THE DfeBUTANTK. correspond ; but those about him must know that he frequently wrote to my wife." Though divided between displeasure that Maria should consider herself so nearly akin to the dead man as to be entitled to hear that he was no more, and curiosity to obtain further insight into the disposal of his brother's property, the latter feeling prevailed. " I'll have the pony saddled, and be at Tring and back in an hour I" cried he. "1 suppose, Maria, Mrs. Varden has no private orders from you not to give me your letters?" And when he was really gone, and the aunt and niece were renew- ing the expressions of their sorrow for the poor exile, who, though fated to survive his wife and children, had been denied the privi- lege of enjoying the fortune for which he had toiled so honourably, Mrs. Barrington drew Maria towards her and imprinted a kiss on her forehead. " At all events, this sad news brings some consolation ! " said she. " You will not leave us now, Maria. At least, you will not leave us to-day ! Sit down and write to the Cornburys. Tell them your aunt is ill and unhappy. Tell them you are staying to comfort your poor aunt." Charles Barrington, careless as he was of the comfort of all belonging to him, might possibly have been shocked at the state in which the old shooting pony, in which he had formerly taken delight, returned, an hour afterwards, to the hands of the old coachman in the Welsh wig ; looking, in short, much as if prepared for tonsure with a lather of Atkinson's shaving soap ! Not, however, because the bearer of the memorable despatch. Had that been the case, Mr. Barrington's frantic interest in the contents would have prevented his respecting the seal; and, instead of galloping back like mad to Easton Hoo, he might have thrown himself into the morning train, and hastened at once to town. But on reaching Tring, he found that the post-mistress, in whose eyes the corres- pondence between the young lady at Easton Hoo and the Earl of Clandon assigned her considerable importance, had judged it better to despatch the huge Indian letter by a messenger of her own; seeing that Dr. Forsyth's boy had only declined taking it by reason of the unconscionable postage. On Mr. Barrington's return, therefore, he found, as he expected, the letter in Miss Brenton's hands. He came too late, indeed, to witness her emotion in opening a packet, which exhibited on its exterioT' as tremenduus a show of black as a ReQent-slveetmayasin de dcuU;—ihe double seal and half-inch borders containing enough to have placed a small family in decent mourning. He lost also the sight of the deathlike paleness that settled on her cheek as she perused the letter.— Luckily, Mrs. Barrington, who had risen in the interim, was there to exhort her to composure ! THE DEBUTANTE. 187 It was not, however, the shock oC learning that she was left sole heiress to her uncle's enormous Ibrtuno, which so blanched the cheek of Maria Brenton. All she thought of at present, was Mr, Barrington's indignation. All she murmured, amid her hysterical sobs, was, " How shall I ever dare to meet my uncle I" ' ' Be yourself, my child ! " whispered her aunt, taking her steadily by the hand ; — "you have nothing to fear from him now. Praise be to Heaven, which has at length secured you the prosperity you will turn to such good account! " Before they could settle between them which of the two was to communicate the astounding news to Mr. Barrington, he was in the room ; his face tinged with purple streaks, partly from the morn- ing chill, and partly from repressed emotion. The woollen com- forter tied over his chin served to render his words inaudible, and the hat, still slouched over his eyes, made their expression difficult to interpret. But, finding his questions unanswered by the two frightened women, he hastily tore off the muffler. "You have opened the letter, then?" — cried he, with a brevity that showed his whole soul to be in his words. — " Tell me at once ! — To whom has he left his money?" — Maria dared not unclose her lips. The safest reply was to tender him the letter, which was signed by his brother's man of business, and contained a copy of the will. "I can't wade through all this confounded rubbish!" cried he, on perceiving that it contained many sheets of paper, and his mind misgiving him, from the downcast looks of his wife and niece. — " Can't you speak out? Whom has he made his heir?" — "His niece Maria!" — replied Mrs. Barrington, in a faint voice. Let the reader be spared the recapitulation of the burst of execra- tions with which that astounding intelligence was received! — CHAPTER XXI. Life's business done,— a million made, what still Remain'd on earth ?— Life's last caprice, — a will. Tlie raan was cliildless, but the world was wide. He thought ou England, sign'd his name, and died. The New Timon. Mrs. Barbingtois might have experienced some compunction, had she been conscious of her share in the suggestion of Humphrey Barrington's will. For though her own interests were indifferent to her by comparison with those of Maria, the prospects of her son ■were sacred. The letter, written by Miss Brenton at her entreaty, and des- 188 THE D£BUTANTE. patched by her intervention, had reached Madras only a day pre- vious to the fatal illness of her uncle's daughter, who, deeply moved by its touching tenor, had instantly obtained from her father that, on their arrival in England, " her namesake, her poor cousin Maria, should become their inmate, and supply the place of the sister she had lost." Death-stricken by that terrible scourge of the East which leaves so little leisure to the victim for the expres- sion of a parting wish. Miss Barring ton had found a moment to falter to her distracted father, — " Bury me by my sister ; and when you arrive in England, dear papa, adopt Maria Brenton as your child. — Her affectionate nature will be your consolation for our loss." When, therefore, shortly after the accomplishment of the first of these pious duties, the broken-hearted father was apprized by his physicians that he must make his peace with the next world and wind up his affairs in this, the will in favour of his two girls, which he was forced to cancel, was replaced by one in favour of her who approached nearest them in name and nature. The self-sufficient ne- phew whose letters he had always held offensive, and whose ostenta- tious marriage he saw pro-announced in the papers, and ihe papers only, had no place in his regard. With the view of uniting him with one of his co-heiresses, he had instituted such a surveillance over Charles's proceedings at Oxford , as salisHed him there wasnot a grain of independence in his character, or steadiness in his mind ; and it was consequently with justice-dealing sternness, as well as with the fond feeling generated by the death-bed prayer of hisoiim Maria, that he insiiiutcd his orphan niece sole heiress to his prodigious wealth, on condition of her assuming the name of Barrington. For, within the year, he had fulfilled his grand ambition of the last ton, — the re-purchase of the Hexholm property, — the owner of which had for some time been coqueting with the predilections of the rich nabaub; and to afford a happy home to him and his daughters on their arrival in England, the old place had been re- paired and fitted up in a style of comfort, which nothing short of engrafting an Indian fortune on a country gentleman's could have justified. His agents in England, (Mr. Filzhugh, the head of the firm, being his personal friend, and recently returned from the land of rupees,) had taken pride and pleasure in executing the com- missions of one so liberal and so worthy ; and it was to them Miss Barrington — Brenton,— no ! let us give her the new name at once, —was referred for fuller particulars of her good fortune by iheir co-executor of the will, the resident man of business of Humphrey Barrington, who had attended him on his death-bed and assisted to lay his head in the grave. The first inqjulse of the disappointed master of Easton Hoo, (to extract four-and-sixpence from whom was like tearing out four of his teeth.)— was to declare he would set aside the will. After pour- THE DfiBLTANTE. 189 ing forth unmeaning oaths that were tVightrul to hear, he swore that his brother was a Bedlamite,— that he had been eccentric from a boy, — and that the death ol' his daughters had completed the overthrow of his mind. " Shall I give you the copy of the will, uncle, to take with you?" said Maria, on hearing him announce that he would proceed that very afternoon to consult his lawyers; and, believing the offer, made in the simplicity of her heart, to be ironical, he was about to launch forth into fresh invectives, when the consequence, which even in his eyes she acquired by her succession to twelve thousand a-year, suspended the words upon his lips. Unable to revile her according to his wont, he quitted the room to curse her in secret, and vent his rage in kicks upon poor Bur. " My dear Maria," said her aunt, sadly and gravely, after he had closed the door, " you must not expect justice in this house. — The great fortune that has fallen on you, requires you to act for your- self. — Arduous as such a task may appear to one who has led such a life of submission as yourself, custom will soon render it easy : for remember that a single day converted the Queen who rules us from a child into a dignified sovereign ! " " Her childhood had not passed in obscurity and privation!'" was the humble reply of the new heiress. " 1 offer you my advice to-day, as 1 have ever done, as a mother and a friend," resumed Mrs. Barrington. " Since your uncle is so full of animosity, you cannot leave Easton too soon. Go to London to-day, — go, before Mr. Cornbury has left it. Mr. Cornbury is not only a man of sense and integrity, but of business. He will enable you to confer with Mr. Fitzhugh. He will even escort you to Hexholm, if necessary. You must not be alone in this great emer- gency, I would be your companion myself, my dear girl, but am in so infirm a state, that I might be laid up on the journey, and an incumbrance. Mary shall accompany you to town, and place you in Mr. Cornbury's hands. — Once there, I am satisfied. — I have already corresponded with him about you, and know the cordiality of his feelings." With a heavy sigh, the young heiress complied. The only diffi- culty was to signify her intentions to her uncle. Having done so, however, by letter, and in terms of such dutiful self-abnegaiion as woke in the mean n)ind of Mr. Barrington a hope that more might be gained by his iniluence over his niece, than he had been able to worm out of her benefactor, he expressed his intention of escorting her himself to London. " Situated as she now was, it was not proper she should go scampering over the country with a maid-servant, — it was not proper she should repair to such a place as the Blue Boar. He would take her to the hotel where his son and Lady Alicia had 490 THE DfiBUTANTE. sojourned, when they passed through London, and which must, consequently, be the thing; and these agents, these people from Billiter Square, — with whom, on his brother's account, he had been in frequent communication on account of presents forwarded to his wife, and the remittance of Charles's allowance, — might come and wait upon Acr." Something of the spirit of Barrington of Hexholm seemed breaking out in him, as during his sojourn at Greensells and He- riford Castle ! He appeared to remember that, disinherited or not, it behoved him to be a gentleman; and, though Maria would far rather have betaken herself and her miserable baggage to the inn in Holborn, and the open hearted counsels of her cousin Cornbury, she was too habitually submissive to demur. When her uncle, in an effusion of liberality hard to account for, offered the loan of 201. for present use, (which, as he grumblingly observed, in order to keep up the malicious farce of threatened litigation, he could repay himself on balancing their accounts in March,) she thankfully accepted it, that she might repair the seeming niggardliness of her adieus in the village; and her final parting from her good aunt was cheered by the hope that she might henceforward obtain for her ailments the best medical advice, and secure to the remainder of her days the comforts w^hich had attended her youth. So confused was Maria's notion of her new rights, that she had not disentangled from the maze of law terms perplexing the will, whether her claim to the overgrown fortune bequeathed her, were absolute and immediate; and, above all, whether her cousin's name were mentioned, and his present allowance secured. And as she had already preferred a petition to her uncle through his wife, that the subject of the inheritance should not be broached between them till he had seen his lawyer, and satisfied himself concerning the validity of the will, it was impossible to ask for a second perusal of the copy she had placed in his keeping. She was, consequently, almost as impatient as himself for their arrival in town; and scarcely were they installed in their hotel, whet) she begged permission to despatch a letter to Mr. Fitzhugh, the partner of the firm to which she was referred as her late uncle's correspondent and friend. In a surly voice, Mr. Barrington set forth, that " London had hours and customs to be respected, as well as the country ; and that the gentleman who would be at her orders the following morning in Billiter S(|uare, was sacred from mtrusion as majesty itself, when installed for the evening at his mansion in Portland Place." He advised her, therefore, to retire early to rest, after a day so fatiguing. " On the morrow he would proceed into the City, and probably bring back Mr. Fitzhugh." THE DfiBUTANTE. 191 All this did not prevent him, however, from proceeding to the private residence of his own solicitor, the moment his niece, obeying a suggestion so much like a command, retired, after dinner, to her chamber ; where the awkward country-girl whom Mrs. Barrington had kindly insisted should attend her, was in waiting, — her eyebrows arched to the elevation of the Green Park gateway from amazement at the profusion of light, warmth, furniture, eating and drinking of the palace called a London hotel, so much at variance with her experience of her father's cottage and the miserliness of Easton Hoo. Had not Maria's bewildered reveries, comprehending such a complication of future, present, and past, as scarcely ever distracted a female brain, been indulged while seated unconsciously before her toilet-glass, instead of in the sitting-room, (on the table of which her uncle flung his best waterproof hat on his return, as regardless as though it were the worst of his three memorable straws,) she would have discerned in a moment that her rights were unimpugnable, and that the will was as good as though the Lord Chancellor himself had made it. But she continued to muse on, in uncertainty ; now, fancying herself the fountain-head of good to thousands ; now, a miserable domestic slave still crouching under the lash of Easton Hoo ; while her uncle was pacing the drawing-room with curses upon his lips, declaring himself a victim to the injustice of Provi- dence and the malignity of his nearest of kin. For if Maria had insolently obtruded herself on his brother's attention, so as to produce his ridiculous proposition of uniting her with her cousin, and, in the sequel, endow her with his whole fortune, it was doubtless at the cunning suggestion of her aunt. Without Mrs. Barrington's advice and assistance she would not have dared to write! Mrs. Barrington was instigated, not alone by the conjugal hatred inherent in woman, but the desire of enriching one over whose simple mind she had more influence than over husband or son. " Yes ! he saw through it all." In the bitterness of his disappointment, he was almost pleased that it would be shared by Charles ! — " The woman, if she despised him, did care for her son; and when Mrs. Barrington found that, thanks to her machinations, his name was not so much as mentioned in the will, and that the poor fellow would stand in the Heriford family exposed as a liar and impostor, perhaps she would repent what she had done. Charles might go whistle, now, for the continuance of his allowance ! Meanly as he thought of Miss Brenton, he did not think there breathed so poor-spirited a woman as to waste her money upon a man who had rejected her ; a man who, even had he not previously given his promise to another, would as soon have thought of pro- posing to Mary the housemaid, as of offering her his hand," 192 THE DfiBUTANTE. Mr. Barrington's exasperation was, in fact, not a little increased by a more deliberate examination of the will, under his lawyer's exposilion. It appeared that Maria had not unlimited power over the property; that there was no hope of piquing her generous spirit into an act of restitution; — nay, not so much as the poor perspective that Charles might become her heir! The whole was vested in the hands of trustees, for her life-enjoyment; and incase she should die unmarried, or married and childless, it was to be apportioned to charitable institutions at Madras. In the event only of an heir of her body attaining the age of twenty-one, was she to become absolutely intitled. All this was explained to herself on the morrow, not by her acrimonious uncle, but by the sensible and gentlemanly man who was to officiate as her trustee ; and the tears that filled the eyes of Mr. Filzhugh in alluding to the hard fate of his deceased friend, bespoke at once the confidence of his young ward. On his part, no sooner had he perceived by the nature of her replies to his proposals about minor arrangements connected with the proving of the Avill, that, in addition to sensibility of heart, she possessed equity and inteUigence of mind, than he proposed sub- mitting to her the whole of his correspondence with the late Mr Humphi-cy fiarrington during the last twelve months. " I ask your attention to those letters," said he, " not only to give you a just estimation of the character of him to whom you are so greatly indebted, and whom you were fated never to know ; but to acquaint you with his exact views and plans with regard to the Hexholm estate. For their wisdom sake, you will hardly fail to adopt them ; even if uninstigalcd by respect towards the memory of my poor friend." Maria felt a little embarrassed that, in these allusions and others more circumstantial to her assumption of the family name and residence at the family place, Mr. Fitzhugh testified no more deference to the presence of her sullen uncle than if he had been one of the fire-screens. The trustee probably hoped, since his own delicacy did not prompt Mr. Barrington to absent himself from the interview, to drive him from the room by unceremonious allusions. The truth was, that, having lived at Madras on terms of brotherly intimacy with Humphrey, at the period of what the elder brother called his " misfortunes," and everybody else his, " misconduct," circumstances had come to the knowledge of Mr. Fitzhugh, not alone justifying his brother's disposal of his property in another quarter, but strongly disinclining him to the smallest communica- tion with the oflender. "That, after perusing your uncle's letters, you will make up your mind to reside at Hexholm," said he, addressing his ward, Tin: nfiBUTANTE. 193 " I cannot doubt, even if such were not your previous intention. You would scarcely believe the devoted attachment of my poor friend to the roof under which he drew breath. Persons driven to early exile in India experience for the word Home a kind of re- Ugious worship. My own experience enables me to understand the passion of your uncle for the threshold on which he received the parting kiss of his mother, — the woods where he used to go bird's-nesting, — the church where his parents were buried. When apprized that all this had passed into the hands of strangers, his mortification amounted to anguish. The family changes with which the circumstance was connected, were, in fact, the means of keeping liim in India many years beyond his original intention. But that at length he was enabled to repurchase Hexholm, I doubt whether he would have returned to England at all : knowing which, I left no stone unturned to secure what 1 trusted would restore me my friend." " It was by you, then," inquired Maria, trusting that her uncle, who~after his usual praiseworthy custom was drumming against the window, was really occupied with what was passing in the street, — " it was by ^jou the purchase was made?" — " By me, — and not, I can assure you, without a hard tug with the limb of the law who had got it into his clutches; and who, having bought it as an investment and not as a residence, was exhausting the estate by his ignorance, and letting the house fall to ruins. You will not, however, I trust, find much fault with the present condition of the latter ; and the former is in fair training. Nor will yov grieve over the havock of the axe, as my poor friend would have done ; since you never beheld the glorious old oaks and beeches swept away by the interregnant ; of which poor Humphrey used to talk in India, with as much devotion as of the cedars of Lebanon?" " I long to see the place !" rejoined Maria. " In my childhood, it was my poor mother's dearest delight to talk of Hexholm. There are parts of the gardens to which, I am convinced, I could find my way without a guide." " I hope with all my heart, that, in my zeal for improvement, I may not have laid a sacrilegious hand upon them I" rejoined Mr. Fitzhugh, with a smile. " But I think I can promise you, not. My poor dear friend's prepossessions were too well known to me to run the risk, as Pope says, of grubbing up an old post that he re- membered when a child." So long and so earnestly did he talk of the spot, to which, Cin warmth of friendship for him whom he was to see no more,) he had been devoting so much time and attention, that, by degrees, even the interest of Maria was too much excited to bear in mind the presence of one of whom Hexholm was the inherited home. She 13 19^ THE DfiBUTANTE. literally forgot that what was now hers, had once been her uncle's. It was soon arranged that Mr. Fitzhugh was to accompany her into Durham as soon as he had gone through the preliminaries of proving the will, of which the original was in his hands. "Ten days, at least, will be requisite for all we have to get through," said he, " for the formalities of Doctors Commons are the most formal in the world. Meantime, my dear young lady, I shall ask your permission to bring my wife to wait upon you, who will answer more questions about your poor uncle and cousins than you may perhaps like to ask of an old fellow like myself. Those poor girls were constantly with her at Madras. I trust their cousin will not be less so, in London." This offer was so frankly made, that Maria did not hesitate to admit how great a comfort would be to her the protection of some female acquaintance. She had no friends in London. Even the effort of ordering mourning seemed unaccomplishable. " She should be thankful for the advice and assistance of Mrs. Fitzhugh." "My carriage is at the door," said he, instantly meeting her wishes halfway. " It will save us a world of talking, if you will get into it, and accompany me to Portland Place. At this hour, we are sure of finding my wife, who presides at the children's dinner. Meanwhile, as an essential preUminary to shopping, here is a cheque-book, for which 1 have already opened an account in your name with my banker. Till matters can be definitively settled between us, you have a credit thereof two thousand pounds." The deadly ire fermenting in the breast of Mr. Barringtou, while hearing his house and lands discussed, in detail, as the property of another,— how the range of stabling he had built for his racers had been pulled down as an eyesore, and a new entrance he had made been closed up, and the old gateway restored, now reached its acme. To lie vanquished on the earth, and find the prancing warhorses of the enemy planting their feet upon his prostrate form ! To have sunk into nothing, and find the poor needy girl to whom he had grudged an end of candle, and to whom he had denied almost the free enjoyment of the light of day, become, ashy a su- pernatural transformation, rich, — powerful, — envied, — free!— While he still kept up the rat-tat-too upon the window which was habitual outlet of his nervous irritation, and heard her successively consulted about her farms, her woods, her mines, with thousands of pounds assigned her as pocket-money, — her, to whom, but two days before, he had refused the loan of a five-pound note,— such a flood of venomous envy was raging in his heart, that, instead of contenting himself with staring out of the window, it was wonderful he did not throw himself head-foremost into the street !— THE DfiBUTANTE. 19* For it was not alone that this beautiful Hexholm, of which they spake as unconcernedly before him as if it had descended straight to Maria from her grandfather, and he had never reigned over its acres or sacrificed them to his fatal pursuits, had been a second time lost to him by his want of favour in his brother's sight. All the injustice of Humphrey towards him might have been repaired, had he not so sedulously forestalled the possibility of a marriage between Charles and Maria. The dread of such an event had been for years a sort of nightmare to him. He had threatened his son with disinheritance, if he showed so much as common courtesy to his cousin. And what was the result? That he had an insolent and expensive daughter-in-law, whose discontents would break forth now that she found her husband stripped, by his uncle's death, of all his hopes, and the moiety of his means ;— whereas, the gentle creature who was at that moment driving from the door in Mr. Fitzhugh's carriage, on her way to the creation of new connexions and the enjoyment of unhoped-for pleasures, would have placed him once more at the head of the family estate, with an income of twelve thousand a -year ! — How was Charles ever to forgive him! — How was he ever to forgive himself! — CHAPTER XXn. The greeting kiss, the tender, trustful talk. Arm linked in arm, the dear familiar walk, The sweet domestic interchange of cares, Memories and hopes,— this union was not theirs ! MoRTAYNE Manor was what ladies'-maids and young ladies in their teens cull "a sweet place." Situated at the entrance of a mountain gorge opening upon Windermere, — embosomed in woods, through which the vistas towards the lake were numerous and varied, — the Manor, which was built with the materials and within a stone's throw of the ruins of the ancient Abbey of Mor- tayne, to which the estate was annexed, never failed to recall to its visitors the often repeated saying, that the monks of old took cai*e to provide themselves with pleasant quarters. Fish, flesh, and game were lavishly provided by the lands which afforded to the eye a banquet as rich as to the palate. At the Reformation, the goods and chattels of the old religious house had fallen to the share of Sir Guy de Wilton ; whose son was created, in the reign following, Baron of Mortayne; the poor monks, expelled from their venerable domicile, having sought refuge, it was said, in the old fortress ol Mortain, from wlience 19f5 THE DfiBUTAME. they had originallv emigrated, in the time of Henry i., by one of whose grandsons the county, or earldom, was enjoyed. For several centuries following, the Mortaynes, who possessed fairer manors in the South, had left their stewards to reside in the rambling grange into which a portion of the ruins were converted. But, during the early part of the reign of George 111. , when building was the mania in vogue, so that even the King could not leave even the frightful domain of Kew, full fronting the still more frightful town of Brentford, without its castle, the father of the present peer, on being informed that the steward's residence was no longer tenantable, and that a new house must be constructed, decided, on visiting the spot, and becoming instantly affected by the malaria or mania for the picturesque, which besets all persons newly arriving in the district of the Lakes, (very speedily to subside again, ascertain wines produce the most rapid but shortest intoxication,) that, instead of building a house for his steward, he would build a residence there for himself; — not a castle, — not a palaz-zo, — but a pied-d~terre ; the pied-a-terre of a noble lord consisting, of course, of three stories, with a suite of noble apartments, and spare bed-rooms without end. The ruins of the old abbey, and the oaks of the domain, would have supplied materials on the spot for a Greensells or Heriford Castle ; and it was, consequently, some proof of moderation on the part of the late lord, that he contented himself with setting up a villa, instead of laying the foundations of a Versailles. Though most people who visited the place, which retained the name it had worn ever since it ceased to be an abbey, were of opinion that nothing could exceed the charm of contrast between the beautiful new Ionic structure, as white as Wyatt and Bernasconi could make it, and the grim ruins, overgrown Avith ivy, of that portion of the ancient pile which had been left untouched, a few cried out against the modern erection, as a Vandalism out of keep- ing with the genius of the spot. Neither Wyatt, however, nor William — ninth Lord Mortayne, could do much to injure the beauty of the surrounding landscape; which was such as would have made Claude Lorrain or Salvator throw aside their brushes in despair. When the present Lord Mortayne succeeded to his title, by the death of his father during his infancy, the earliest years of his life were spent with his widowed mother at the Manor; and though, from the period of her death, soon after he went to Eton, he saw the place no more till he attained to man's estate, it possessed, in his memory, all the charm of youthful association. When forced, by the results of his vicious pleasures, to dispose of a portion of his property, he had expressly exempted Mortayne. His park in Sussex cost him hardly a sigh ; but ho could not have borne to part with THE D6BUTANTE. 197 the place from which he derived his title, and the holiest remi- niscences of his life. Amidst all his dissipations, the fashionable roue had naver wavered in this all but religious love. — It is true the sporting at Mortaync was far from despicable ; but the autumnal visits of the young lord were quite as much dedicated to his lares andpenates, as to his otter hounds or pheasants. He usually came accompanied by a chosen few,— Lady Susan Spilsby and her husband; Bowbridge, Greville, Hildyard, and a few others, who were good enough to content themselves with bachelor's fare, (when served by a first-rate French cook;) and from that epoch, and throughout the pei-iod of his Eastern pilgrimage, nothing had been done to the deserted place, till the day on which he visited it with the hope of converting it into a temple Avorthy of the divinity who had pledged herself to be his. ' Alarmed to perceive how far what had always been cited as one of the most perfect bachelor's residences in the kingdom, fell short of what he could desire to offer to his wife. Lord Mortayne resolved to effect as few changes as possible, till the taste of Eleanor could preside over their progress. Where was the use of converting it into what she might dislike? All, therefore, was left as it used to be during the triumph of those roues conclaves, where all that was best of what is worst in London was assembled at Mortayne Manor. The hall, fitted up as a tent, and ornamented with trophies of curious arms, still, therefore, served foi' dining-room; while another chamber of the suite was adorned with curious heads of deer, foxes, and other products of the chase. Engravings after the least thaste of the old masters, were hung in several of the bed- rooms ; and no one could accuse Lord Mortayne of prudery in the selection of several exquisite pieces of sculpture, gracing the hall and vestibule, which from time to time he had sent home, when visiting the Continent. Strong evidence, in short, was perceptible on all sides, that the owner of that charming house had never con- templated the matrimonial estate. It was not this, however, which produced the disgust with which it was contemplated by the lovely bride. Though warned of its deficiencies, Eleanor had been unable to divest herself of the idea that the residence of a peer of the realm must be on a grander scale than that of a country baronet, hke her fathei' ; and when she saw how much poor Wolseley Hall gained by comparison with a villa that would have done honour to the environs of Richmond Hill or the Bois de Boulogne, she took no further heed of the grandeur of the mountain scenery, or the pastoral beauty of the adjoining lake. There needed only the presence of a Lady Alicia, by way of con- federate, to render her as supercilious as she had shown herself at Easton Hoo. — But she dared not. —The high-bred presence of 198 THE DfiBUTANTE. Morlayne imposed upon her. The authority of a husband alarmed her. But her scorn was not the less bitter for being compassed within the secrecy of her heart. The nature of her sentiments passed unobserved of Mortayne. He was too passionately and absorbingly in love, to ascribe the changes of the countenance in which his soul found its joy, to any other cause than indisposition. When he saw it suddenly fall, on drawing up upon the gravel of a sweep where their four horses found themselves a little embarrassed, he decided that she was suffering from the asperity of the northern atmosphere. " That dreadful climate!— If, after all, it should prove too severe for her! — It had never agreed with his poor mother." — This observalion was laid up by Eleanor in her armoury of de- fensive weapons. Nor was she sorry to hear her fit of the spleen ascribed to the cold ; or to see the grate piled up with logs to the endangerment of the safety of the poor villa, by way of curing by warmth her momentary chagrin. For momentary it was. — Impossible to persist in an ungracious sentiment of any kind while made the object of such obsequious idolatry on the part of her husband! — She was at present in the enjoyment of all the influence commanded by youth and beauty. His sunshine was in her face ; his life was in her heart. It was difficult not to aff'ect interest, nay even to feel it, in the objects around, which he seemed to prize so highly. Of each of the pictures, if of moderate merit, he was able to enhance the charm by some piquant family anecdote, or history of the mode in which it came into his possession ; or some blunder of which it had been the origin on the part of his roues guests of former years. Not a carabine, not a pair of antique pistols, — not a Turkish yataghan, — not a Malay krees suspended to the trophies of arms upon the wall, but had its story. And how charming are such stories, when told by eloquent lips, and heard for the first time! — In the course of four-and-twenty hours, though her rooms were hung with simple chintz in place of the gorgeous tissues she had pictured to herself, — though the carpets did not rival the haute lisse of Greensells, or the Worcester china the Sevres on which her eyes had expected to luxuriate, she looked round with pleasure on objects that seemed instinct with life-like and pleasurable reminiscences. But when Lord Mortayne at last permitted her to leave the house, where he followed every step she took with the idolizing looks of a mother whose (irst-boru is just launched upon its feet, there was no need for his bride to feign enthusiasm. The grounds of her new home were precisely such as she had never seen and never dreamed of. Her life having been spent in an inland county without so much as a journey to the coast — the only Great British pastime to which Sir John Maitland could never be induced to give his support, — the THE DtBUTANTK. 199 very crags that started forth in the plantations like Dryads peeping from th(^ shade in an ancient pi(;ture, excited her interest. Higher in the woods, bold promontories of rock afforded stronger features to the landscape ; and on approaching nearer, the tremendous roar that assailed the ear was amply atoned for, when a turn of the path brought in view the glorious mountain-torrent bursting im- petuously over its ledge of rock, and breaking into foam and fury in the basin worn at its base;— from whence the enfranchised waters went leaping down to the lake,— now, concealed by huge embankments of fractured granite, — now, flowing like limpid crystal in their gravelly channel, and brightening by a thousand lesser falls the darkness of the wood, amid which, their foam and spray seemed like the haunting of fairies. ' ' I was sure this place would charm you ! " said he fondly press- ing her arm to his side as they stood together by the margin of the basin, where long leaves of harlstongue, streaming from the in- terstices of the moss-grown stones into the foaming waters below, were vivified, even at that sunless season, by the perpetual spray. " I was sure you would be delighted with Mortayne. It is neither perched in the clouds, like Heriford, nor swamped in a morass, like Greensells ; but a snug and cosy nook, such as assimilates well with the name of home. " Lady Mortayne endeavoured to infuse an expression of sympathy into the blue eyes into which he was intently gazing, while they gazed as intently on the beautiful waterfall, whose spray was tinted with rainbow hues by the gleam of the wintry sun. She wished he had not invalidated the genuine pleasure of the moment by allusions to Heriford and Greensells,— places associated in her memory only with mortification and regret. As they returned home, in pointing out to her with enthusiasm several beautiful points of view, comprehending the august head of Langdale Pike, the purple horizon of woods fringing his domain, and the fair shrubberies which formed the pleasaunce of the Manor, he could not forbear connecting them with traits of character ex- hibited by former guests of note, — or stories which, though com- mencing with " I am afraid 1 ought not to tell you," were told to the end. The follies of Lady Susan Spilsby, and the affectations of touring marchionesses were related, lest she should find her pro- menade dull!— As if the Ute a tete wanderings of atride with the husband of her choice, in a spot that deserved to be dear to both, could stand in need of enlivenment! — " His mind seems to contain no faculty but memory ! " was Lady Mortayne's impatient reflection when that evening she retired to her beautiful dressing-room, (the only room in the house which had been restored with all the elaboration of modern luxury, to greet its new divinity,) after spending the evening as before, in 200 THE DfiBUTANTE. listening to sparkling reminiscences and tales of wilder days. — "He seems to live only in the past! — Can he not see that my limited experience affords me nothing to tell in return?— Or does he wish to humiliate me by the contrast between his brilhant career and the dull monotony of my existence?— Surely, it is time he should discover that we are about to recommence life together , and that there may be satisfaction in looking forward as well as in look- ing back!" On the morrow, however, it was so pleasant to sally forth with him, on the steady pony which formed in that wild country the only safe substitute for the beautiful barb given her by her brother, the" produce of the Wolseley stud, which was fretting in its stall without much chance of being used, to visit a few of the beautiful mountain-passes in Ihe neighbourhood, that she forgot her weari- ness of the night before. It was not exactly thus she had intended to make her appearance in public, as a peeress. She languished a little after the prancing Arabian and its ornamental bridle, and the attendants in the livery of her house, which had constituted the charm of the Heriford Castle expeditions. But Mortayne, in his Eastern travels, had so divested himself of all taste for parade, and was not alone so sworn an enemy to pomp and show but so desirous to ride unobserved by her side, with his hand resting on the pommel of her saddle and his words of tenderness secure from the curious ear and scoffing tongue of a menial, that he chose to ride unaccompanied. "With such a pony there needed no atten- dance. She could jump upon it without aid ; and was he not always there to supply the place of the most attentive of servants?" In the beauty of the mountain scenery, she soon lost sight of her apprehension that in traversing Ambleside they might " meet some of their neighbours, and be laughed at for their odd-looking set-out ; " and though somewhat startled by his assurance, that at that season of the year they had no neighbours of a class to make their observations a matter of the smallest moment, the keenness of the mountain air soon braced up her nerves. " What a glorious scene this must present in summer!" cried Eleanor, as they surveyed from the craggy height the bright expanse of the lake below. " Oh ! how I wish that summer were come." — Lord Mortayne wished so too ; for, between, lay the intervening gulph of the season, of which he could not think without dread and disgust. What, what would become of his dreams of domestic happiness, if, when the novelty of the Manor and its lovely environs was worn off, he saw her spirits flag, and her bright face over- cast ! — Already, she was beginning to ask for the London Papers, which, foi- the first three or four days after her arrival, had been overlooked . THE DfinUTANTE. 201 *' Did he only lake in the Times?— Ihe Times was such a dull paper!" — " Rather say that it is not a lady's paper," said he, with a smile of wonder at so singular an accusation. And instantly sitting down, he wrote orders te Houghton for a daily paper in better accordance with the tastes of his bride. "The Morninci Post and Court Journal would afford her intelligence of her fashionable friends." It v/as, perhaps, in pursuance of her example, that, on the first evening of their arrival from town, instead of sitting as usual by the side of his adored Eleanor with her small hand clasped in his, and their eyes fixed upon the blazing logs while he indulged in his narrative vein, Lord Mortayne drew towards the reading lamp, and began skimming the columns of the fashionable journals. His wife, whose eye had been attracted by the announcement of her own " Marriage in High Life," after the perusal of which she fell into a fit of musing over the paper that drooped from her listless hand, was struck, even in her somewhat gloomy reverie, by his sudden exclamation of—" By Jove ! what luck ! " " For us?—" demanded Eleanor, who seemed to feel, just then, that they were somewhat in want of luck. " No! for Lady Alicia Barrington.— That bumpkin, whose son she married, is come into an enormous fortune ! " And forthwith he proceeded to read aloud the paragraph, extracted from the Madras paper, which, in announcing poor Humphrey's death, stated his sole surviving relative and heir to be Giles Barrington, Esq., of Easton Hoo, in the county of Bucks. Unable to utter a syllable. Lady Mortayne felt as though the measure of her mortifications were complete. " I remember Lady Heriford telling me, when I expressed some surprise at the match," resumed Mortayne, "that young Bar- rington had great expectations from an uncle in India, at whose cost he had been brought up. Alicia de Capell had scarcely gene- rosity of character enough to marry for lovo ; but I know no one better qualified to disperse a large fortune. Alicia is plain, — but high-bred and clever, and I have no doubt she will make a tre- mendous figure in London next season. She is just the sort of intrigante to become a woman of considerable influence." At the word " influence," an involuntary glance round the quiet drawing-room, dimly lighted by shaded lamps, produced a cold shudder in the frame of Eleanor. VVith the heart of the man who addressed her, she experienced no more warmth of sympathy than with the gilded time-piece ticking on the chimney-piece! And such was the result of her cruel trifling with the feelings of Charles Barrington ! Such was the close of the delusive visions in which she had indulged as a debutante ! — 202 THE DfBUTANTE. CHAPTER XXIII. Par la Revolution, Versailles s'est fondu dans la na- tion; Paris estdevenu I'OEil-de-boeuf. Tout le raonde fait sa cour; c'est le genie do la France , oti on tient 6eole de I'art de plaire. L'Anglais navigue,— I'Arabe pille, — le Grec se bat pour etre libra, — le Fran^ais fait la reverence! — Paul Lodis Courier. " Ay, ruin yourself by acts of kindness towards other people! Be eaten out of house and home by your poor relations!" exclaimed Mr. Barrington to his wife, when seated once more beside the smouldering fire at Easton on his return from town. " The first thing they will do, on being able to dispense with your aid, is to snap their fingers in your face, and send you to the devil ! " Such was the outbreak of his impotent rage at finding a tempo- rary home afforded to Miss Barrington by her worthy guardian ; in order that, in company with Mr. Fitzhugh, she might pursue those measures at the Heralds' Office and Doctors Commons, which were to place her in legal possession of her property previous to their departure for the North. " In Maria's unprotected situation, surely she is fortunate to have obtained the friendship of people like the Fitzhughs, — her uncle's nearest friends? " — pleaded his wife. " What do you mean, Ma'am, by her unprotected situation? — Where has she been abiding for the last seven years? — To whom did her mother intrust her on her death-bed? — Whose bread has she been eating?" cried Mr. Barrington, unable to contain himself. " Don't talk to me about ' unprotected !' — My care of her has been one of the greatest plagues of my harassed life!" His wife was at once too weak and too wise to attempt to con- vince the wolf that the lamb had not eaten up his grandfather. Better allow him to liowl out his chapter of grievances ' She knew that, so far from being ungrateful, the heart of Maria was tenderness itself,' eveft to those who had trampled on her ; and fully coincided in her niece's opinion, that, at present, it was impossible for herself and her disappointed uncle to dwell together in peace. A time would come, she hoped, for more charitable feelings on the part of her angry kinsman. Meanwhile a thousand tokens offond and thoughtful remembrance had been already despatched to her kind aunt, by the Mary whom she had replaced by a suitable attendant,— not as too clumsy to wait upon her in her altered fortunes, but from knowing her services to be indispensable to Mrs. Barrington. Some allowance was to be made for the exasperation of the shabby master of Easton. A milder man might have been irritated THE DfeBUTANTE. 208 at finding that what the had ahenated as an unfertile acre of land, proved to contain a gold mine ; and it was not without pity that his wife contemplated the workings of his rage, and listened to his preposterous accusations against her of not having promoted a nearer connexion between his son and niece. " I objected to it," said he, with the audacity produced by se- curity of non-contradiction, " because unaware that there existed an attachment on either side. But had you confided to me, what 1 have not the least doubt you wrote to my brother Humphrey, (or be never would have taken into his head the strange crotchet of making them man and wife,) I should have withdrawn my objec- tions ; and, at this moment, Charles would have been in the undis- turbed enjoyment of twelve thousand a-year. 1 shall like to hear what he will say when he learns how he has been defrauded !" What Charles had to say, in the interval of learning the great event in the family, was however any thing but what his father liked to hear. On the day following Mr. Barrington's return from town, w^hile he was still swearing away his soul in irritation by way of relieving the dulness produced in the house by the loss of the linnet which, though its cage was dreary and food scanty, imparted cheerfulness by its notes, in the midst of the abuse he was lavishing upon his wife for not being well enough to get up and make his breakfast, and for fretting after her yea-nay companion, — a letter from his son was placed in his hands. The commotion that followed was such as almost to induce the poor invalid to pray that no more letters might ever reach Easton Hoo ! — The consequences of the two last had nearly shaken her into her grave ! Yet there was nothing venj criminal in the request contained in young Bfirrington's letter. He merely applied to his father for the means of getting into Parliament!— Not for the cost of a contested election. Not for even the secret purchase-money of a government borough. — He was in want only of the few hundred pounds, indis- pensable to whet the whistles of the honourable burgesses of Lord Heriford's good town of Rattleford, while doing him the honour to return him, scot free, on the family interest, as the honoured re- presentative of the borough. The retirement into private life of Sir Rupert Catapult, on the strength of a third paralytic stroke, being hourly impending, the noble family into which young Barrington was now interpolated, had determined that Lord Henry de Capell should undertake the representation of Rattleford, when his elder brother came to be honoured with that of the county of Bucks ; from which, the death of his father would probably soon translate him to represent the barony of de Capell in the Upper House. Lord Henry, however, whose naturally feeble constitution was 204 THE DEBUTANTE. broken by premature excess, considered the delicate state of his lungs a sufficient plea against submitting to what he regarded as slavery little short of the hulks ; and, while assuring his lady mother, by whom such matters were now regulated in the family, that the late hours and foul atmosphere of the House of Commons would complete what later hours and hotter rooms had begun, so as to send him to an early grave, he suggested that a stouter represen- tative of Rattleford was readily to be found, within the limits of their family circle. "Alicia's husband, my dear mother," said he, " possesses the constitution of a horse, and far from the understanding of an ass. He is of our own way of thinking. — As Clandon's brother-in-law, he would be peculiarly acceptable to his constituents ; — and a seat in Parliament is the one thing wanting to afford to Barringlon a pedestal in the order of society into which he has found his way. The few who still wonder at his having obtained the hand of my father's daughter, will have no further fault to find with him the moment he writes himself down M. P." Lady Heriford was soon won over to this opinion; — not by her son, indeed, but by her mother, before whom, as usual, she laid the family dilemma. " Henry would only expose himself in the House of Commons, as he does in most other places," was the stern decree of grand- mamma. " By giving time to the lees of his turbid mind to settle, he may perhaps discredit himself less in the Upper House, on the day, (which God send may be a late one!) when he succeeds to my excellent son. Whereas young Harrington is aware that he cannot afford to play the fool, either in Parliament or out. Submitted, heart and soul, to the opinion of the world, (a yoke galling only to those who are restive,) he will understand the wisdom of doing himself credit." An intimation to his effect was, accordingly, despatched to Paris, — in a letter addressed not to Charles, but to his wife; — the marchioness having too fully enjoyed the prerogative of the gray mare, not to contribute, as far as she was able, in behalf of her posterity, towards the maintenance of the sovereignty of the petticoat. " If Mr. Barrington, as I cannot doubt he will," wrote Lady Heriford, " eagerly embraces this opportunity of obtaining such a footing in public life as will materially forward his hopes of official employment, all lies smooth before him. — The cost of his election will not exceed a few hundred pounds." And when Lady Alicia announced to her husband, with cheeks flushed with triumph, that "Papa was going to bring him into Parliament for their family borough," she added the supplemental posfseriplum about the " few hundred pounds," with the careless THE DfiBUTANTE. 205 case of a person acxustomed to hear thousands talked of by tens ! -^A few hundred pounds was the sum subscribed by grandmamma to the County Hospital, and by Papa to all the new churches erected in his county. "A few hundred pounds" was a sum scarcely worth mentioning. Her husband, however, whom the occurrence of Christmas so shortly after his marriage had compelled to book up certain out- standing debts, the fruit of former extravagance, to the amount of nearly six hundred pounds, and whose wedding presents to his bride were proportioned to her rank in life rather than to his means, felt the colour rise into his cheeks, as he reflected on the incompatibility of an immediate outlay of " the few hundreds" thus coolly cited, (which, in election matters, usually exceeds half- a-dozen,) with the wants of the ensuing halfyear. Such a sum, extracted from such an income as theirs, was ruinous ! — Instead, however, of frankly admitting the fact to one who, being bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, ought also to have been mind of his mind and purse of his purse, he expressed proper gratitude for the honour designed him ; but reminded her, with an air as nearly sentimental as was in his power to assume, that his entrance into Parliament would cut short the continental tour they had taken so much pleasure in projecting. " When we left England," said he, " old Catapult's death was expected from day to day. They talked of the cold-v/ater cure, — a thing which, like extreme unction, announces the last extre- mity. And think how vexatious it would be, to be forced back to London a few weeks hence, when our friends here are starting for les eauxr — " You surely do not nnagine I preferi'ed les eaux as an alterna- tive with London?" cried Lady Alicia ; (who, though she wrote her- self Barrington, still felt and spoke like Alicia de Capell.) "Dread of the country alone instigated my wish for the tour. Grand- mamma insisted so strongly upon the propriety of occasional visits to your father and mother, that the idea of that dreadful old tumble-down house at Easton haunted me like a nightmare?" " 1 think you might have relied upon me," said Charles, proudly, " not to expose you to any annoyance of the kind " •' A tons les coeurs bien ues , que la patrie est chore ! " rejoined Lady Alicia, shrugging her shoulders. " How could I be sure that you might not yearn, now and then, after a peep at the halls of your ancestors?" " The only visit I have paid to Easton, since I arrived at years of discretion, of my own free will," rejoined her husband, " was for the purpose of meeting yourself." '* Accompagnee de plusieurs autres !" retorted his wife. " Three 206 THE DEBUTANTE. parts of your heart were then with Eleanor Maitland. The quarter to which I gave no quarter was, at that time, all I had to hoast of. But to talk of what is more to the purpose — Rattleford. — If in Par- liament, London becomes a matter of course, by which, all my scruples are removed. — No fear of Easton, thenl — At the close of the session, we may still proceed to the German baths." SmiUng an almost hysterical smile, Charles answered, slightly and vaguely, in the affirmative. For he knew these projects to be wholly incompatible with their means. A season in London, as Lady Alicia understood it, would absorb their year's income. Still, he stood too much in awe of the flighty sarcasms which she in- flicted with as little concern as though the seeming sugar-plums did not contain arsenic and Prussic acid, not to shrink from the disclosure of his prudential motives. There was a certain curl of Lady Alicia's upper lip, with which, having been already once or twice favoured, he would have been thankful to anybody who gua- ranteed him against seeing again. A few hours afterwards, previous to proceeding to one of those dazzling Parisian balls, which, in brilliancy of illumination and elegance of costume, approach nearest to the iaXAed fetes of a fairy tale, the Harringtons made their appearance in the far-famed circle of Princess L.; — a circle, where it needs to be something, as well as somebody, to obtain even toleration. In that arsenal of European diplomacy, where worn-out minis- ters are laid up, like the venerable Victory in Portsmouth harbour — a mere hulk, but glorious from Ehe halo of former triumphs, without disparagement to the lighter frigates in process of construc- tion, whose future victories are predicted as they rise on the stocks ; — in that arsenal, where piles of cannon-ball lie rusting, and cartridges and small arms are amassed in anticipation of war, till there appears some danger of spontaneous combustion, or an explosion produced by some unguarded spark, — Lady Alicia, admitted only by virtue of a letter of introduction, vouchsafed by Lord Mortayne (in whose case wit had been accepted as an apology for want of political influence,) had hitherto felt somewhat embar- rasseede sacontetiance. She had not found courage to refrain from the weekly soirees of the ex-ambassadress ; pardy from the pride of being privileged to penetrate into a sanctuary from which the majority of her countrywomen, however high in rank, are ex- cluded ; but still more, from feeling that,— born for the atmosphere of that ultra-exclusive temple of Conservatism, — it was there the Machiavelic faculties of her brain would expand and ripen. The more than Jesuitical influence of high diplomacy was to her as the breath of life ! — To bail a hook with a sna-serpent's tail, And Bit upon a rock, and bob tor whaJe, THE DEBUTANTE. 207 was, in her ladyship's estimation, a far less gigantesque diversion, than to sit behind a rock, trolling in the stream of time for kings and ministers. She could perfectly understand what must have been the sensations of her noble hostess, on feeling a Prince Re- gent nibbling at her bait ! It was the first time in her life she had beheld Influence vested in a woman; — such influence, bien entendu, as exacts courtier- ship from all who approach. In modern courts, courtiers are wisely abolished. The intrinsic value of these stately pieces of furniture made itself suspected at the first French revolution, and was de- termined by the second ; — the interest assigned them by the per- secutions of the Reign of Terror, having vanished with the poltroonery of the Three Days. Rut Vartdefaire sacour being, as asserted by Courier, inherent in every Frenchman, when legiti- mate opportunities are wanting, he dehghts in the gratuitous exercise of the faculty. Amazed, in the first instance, to perceive the possibility de tr6- ner sans etre reine, the instincts of Lady Alicia's ambitious nature thrilled within her, while watching the graceful deference, the deprecation of word, look, and gesture, with which the bearers of the greatest names in France approached a footstool, whose majesty was now but traditional. The retort of Louis XVIII to one to whom it was seldom given to be wounded by a retort, mechanically recurred to her mind. " Sire, je suis vieux," said Talleyrand, wishing to deter from the Spanish war the king to whom, though of his own age, he could not say, " Sire, your Majesty is too old." " Non, monsieur de Talleyrand, vous n'etes pas vieux, car I' am- bition ne vieillit pas /" And never had the imperishable nature of ambition struck her as being more aptly illustrated, than among the old courtiers of the aged Influence before her, Rui however deeply imbued with the genius of the place. Lady Alicia felt inwardly humiliated by the consciousness that, at pre- sent, she had no right to form one of so august a conclave. Neither the daughter, sister, wife, nor mistress of a Minister of State, she was decidedly below par. The only triumph yet achieved by her talents for finesse, — that of having out-generalled a near kinswoman in the great struggle of her first love, and eclipsed one of the prettiest faces extant by one of the plainest, — if a greater victory of cunning than to have forestalled the adhesion of some duodecimo Rhenish prince to the Zollverein, or to have impeded the progress of the Spanish courier by a skirmish on the frontier, — was not the species of mancEuvre that counted in such a congress. — The soul of a Mazarin might be within her; J)ut she had not fait ses preuves. 208 THE DfeBUTANTE. Smarting under the sense of her own and her husband's insigni- ficance, she accordingly felt more ashamed of him in a circle of ill-looking, ill-dressed individuals, — bald, snuffy, or spectacled, —the affixing of any of whose names to a treaty would have influenced the price of Stocks, and in each of whose brains abided the elements of a revolution, or the still mightier power of its controlment, — than in those brilliant saloons, where, according to continental custom, his want of precedence so often assigned her the lowest place. But Lady Alicia had noticed that, in the Temple of Echo, wherein she was performing Ko Too, while an Irish peer was black- balled as of no account, certain English members of Parliament, with whom, in London, Lord Heriford's daughter would not have been brought in closer contact than between the pit at the Opera and her box on the grand tier, were welcomed by acclamation. The value of their " most sweet voices" was perfectly understood by those to whom it is as essential to have an English majority in their sleeve, as a friend on the back-stairs of the Winter palace, or a confederate concealed under the Divan ; and who court distin- guished people, not as lions, but as implements With innermost joy, therefore, though under the impassive mask of good breeding, when questioned with her usual half-listless, half-fretful inquisitiveness by her distinguished hostess, as to the object of her ball costume which announced some ulterior engage- ment, she adduced the fete of the Duchesse de R . " Nous nous empressons , maclame," said she, "rfe boirca toutes Ics fontaines , our stay in Paris being so limited. My husband is under the necessity of returning to England to take his seat in Parliament." From a momentary sparkle in the eye of the princess, — as in that of a veteran lion in his den at the sound of a distant conflict, — she saw that her object was attained. For the first time, the great tactician treated her with more than distant civility. She even condescended to look round and inquire for Mr. Barrington ; and, on hearing from his wife that he had probably proceeded to the ball, where he had dancing engagements early in the evening, the Princess, instead of being oftended or disappointed, felt convinced that the new member had fled before the chance of being solicited for his support to a question which just then absorbed the interest of her political cUquc. That anybody, especially anybody arrayed in broad-cloth and double-milled kerseymere, could find her house and conversation a bore, was a thing as out of her calculation, as for a pope to fancy himself in peril of purgatory. The husband, being for the moment unattainable, it might be as well to spread a little bird-lime for the wife. When fixed upon the spray, it would be easy to determine whether her ramage were I THE DfiBUTANTt;. 209 of higher quaUty than her plumage; the Princess justly surmising, that the tall, plain, grave young Ladyship who thought it worth while to neglect the noisy fetes of Paris ^orhev soirees, might have pretensions to be a superior woman. Lady Alicia thus singled out, and placed on the sellette of the Princess's causeme, was neither surprised nor sorry to find herself instantly surrounded by the covrtisans of the reine du salon. Enchanted to be elected on any terms a member of the pri- vileged circle, she exerted herself to exhibit powers of conver- sation, for which she had hitherto received little credit among those who measured her by her lace flounces and her husband's handsome face. She possessed, indeed, every qualification to dis- tinguish herself in conversation. She was well-read and intelligent, —her manner was cold,— her head cooler, — her heart coldest of all. She was never the dupe of her own sentiments ; and examined those of other people, ere she adopted them, with the flaw-seeking eye of a diamond-merchant. This clear-sightedness was the more necessary, as her light was chiefly borrowed. Habituated to associate, at her father's house, with the most eminent men of the day, she copied their patterns, just as those ot Eleanor Maitiand's Parisian canezous were taken by her sister, Lady Mary. At all events, she talked well enough to make the Princess regi-et the approaching departure she announced ; and to convince herself that, once settled in London in an establishment of her own, she might create a bureau de i)olitiqiie, rivalling the one whose era- chats and cordons were displayed around her, and which she regarded as the Eden of modern civilization. Charles Barrington, meanwhile, had deserted the field, not to be first in the ball-room of the Duchess de R., but to indite, un- suspected and unobserved, an application to his father anent the representation of Rattleford, and the " few hundred pounds;" the receipt of which at Easton has been already laid before the reader. On arriving at the /eYe, Lady Alicia looked vainly and indignantly around for him ; not from any personal feeling, but because aware that the convenances of Paris exact of a married couple, that, even if they never meet in private, they should appear together in pubhc, and enter together the evening parties to which they are together invited. " How could you leave me at the Princess's ? " said her Ladyship, in her harshest tones, when at length she descried him, standing in sublime meditation in the doorway of the whist-room. " And, above all, why not tell me that you had other engagements to fulfil berL,re you came here? 1 would then have taken precautions against the mon^ficalion of entering the room alone. In a certain set ol English people,— with whom, I trust, I have little in common,— 44 210 THE DfiBCTANTE. it is thought, I believe, a clever thing to outrage the customs of the country in which you are residing. But with me, ' a Rome comme a Rome,' and, since you have determined to set all bienseance at defiance, I will never go out here again," One of Lady Alicia's bitterest looks accompanied this sortie, which was, in fact, addressed less to his desertion of her at the Princess's soiree, than to a peccadillo in which he had indulged two nights before; her resentment whereof proved that she was not pleased to extend to him ihe proverbial license of " d Rome comme a Rome." It did not suit her that her husband should do as was done at Paris, when such doings led him to the bal de V Opera I With a few old Oxford friends he had joined, a few nights before, a party to the bal masque; which, commencing at midnight, extends its feslivilies to an hour that nothing but the winter solstice prevents from being daylight ; and, accustomed to measure such diversions by the coarse excesses of a London masquerade, Lady Alicia re- garded with unconcealed disgust this outbreak into bachelor dis- sipation; not as a proof of conjugal slight, but as a symptom of mauvais ton. A few hours after his return from what she considered an orgie, just as she was about to proceed to the English church, (for it is into the Sabbath-day these revelsextend their tumultuous pleasures,) a note was placed in her hands, intended fort the luckless Charles, who was still sleeping away his fatigues; the handwriting and perfume of which betrayed it to be from a woman, and, probably, not a lady. Too proud to pry into his secrets, particularly secrets of a nature such as she suspected, Lady Alicia ordered it to be placed by his bedside, and proceeded to her devotions; which, doubtless, borrowed little unction from the feelings festering in her heart against " Les suites d'un bal masque.'^ A little more knowledge of l*arisian life, and she would have been aware that the greatest and gravest, as well as the most dis- solute, are among the frequenters of the bal de I'Opera. A little more graciousness towards her husband, and the mystery of that pink not scented with frangipane, would have been cheerfully confided to her; and a mystery it was, which, as bitters or astrin- gents reanimate exhausted nature, would have afibrded twice as much excitement to her mind as even the promised seat in Par- liament. Even the suggestions of her baffled curiosity, however, — even her resentment of his sins against les convenances of the ca>te over whom the forms of society exercise far stronger inlluence than tbt5 tables of the law, were overlooked in her eagerness concer)""g tlie accomplishment of the family project to aiford him 3 ■s^iat in A^^r- liament. As the passive instrument of the futui-e distinctions she THE DfiBUTANTE. 211 trusted to acquire, he became of far more account in her eyes than as the admirer she had inveigled from the feet of the beautiful debutante. What would have been her sensations, — what her exacerbation of temper, — could she have surmised that the ideal throne she was building for herself, was likely to lack a foundation, for want of a paltry, miserable " few hundred pounds !" CHAPTER XXIV. J'ai voulii peindre le mal que font 6prouver, mSme aux oceurs arides, les souffrances qu'ils causent; et cette illusion qui les porte h se croire plus legers ou plus corrompus qu'ils iie le sont. Benjamin Constant. Of the eventful months that ensued, let the results speak for themselves. When Easter arrived, that equinox of the fashionable year, most of the personages of our story, and, above all, those who had protested loudest against joining in the pleasures of the London season, Or who, from circumstances, had regarded their chance of them as hopeless, were again settled in town. And, were the truth to be told at all times, how often would the fog-crested me- tropolis be apostrophized by its votaries with, There is no living with thee, or without thee ! Among those most triumphant at setting foot once more within the magic circle, was Lady Mortayne ; who fancied she had gained a point in conquering the antipathies of her husband, and at all events, accomplished her own in the success attending her debut in matron life. At the drawing-room, where she was once more presented by the Marchioness of Heriford, the lovely bride was cited as the beauty of ihe day. Her new chariot was the prettiest equipage going; the Opera-bos., which she shared with Lady Barbara Bernardo, one of the best in the house; and brightened in complexion and developed in form by country quietude, it would have been difficult to find a more brilliant specimen of truly English beauty. It did not need the enhancement of her rich trousseau, or of the splendid diamonds presented to her by her brother, to attract the public gaze. Even if as simply attired as poor Maria on her first appearance at Greensells, every eye would have been riveted by the charm of her delicate features. " Just the wife for Morty !" and, "By Jove, Morty's a lucky 212 THE DKBUTANTE. fellow!" was I'epeated by dozens of those thoughtless friends who, dazzled by the surface of things, trouble thenaselves with little beyond. But, though greeted on his first appearance at White's with con- gratulations still warmer than those which had attended his return from the East, certain of the Newbury juveniles, to whom neither his face nor his tons mots were as familiar as to the conscript fathers of the club, whispered to each other, when he was pointed out to them, (elevating their eyebrows and depressing the corners of their mouths,) " That the husband of Eleanor Mailand !" or " That the sposo of the beautiful Lady Mortayne !" Even Lord Bowbridge, the man of all London who loved him best, and grasped him by the hand on seeing him, as though to save himself from drowning, was so struck by a certain air of concern which he noticed, or fancied he noticed, lurking in the gray depths of Morty's expressive eyes, that he could not forbear exclaiming — " By Jove, old fellow ! I expected to see you looking as fresh as a four-year old." Then checking himself, at the suggestion of a heart that was a trifle better than his head, lest Morty should be vexed by this im- plication of a want of bridegroom-like alacrity, he began to discuss the news and scandal of London ; — anecdotes from the coulisses of the French theatre, nearly as dramatic as the scenes acted upon its stage ; and stories about the coryphees of the ballet, which assigned to one or two of these little barefaced, barelegged tags of female nature, more than the importance of a duchess. Morty listened with a vague, inattentive face. He even heard, without an attempt at a bet, the state of the odds on the Derby; and without a smile, the account of Henry de Capell having threatened to call out any man who repeated the sobriquet anony- mously bestowed on Meschech Bernardo, of " The honourable member from Coventry." '^Apropos to Bernardo," added he, "the Barringtons are in town. The Herifords have put that young fellow into Parliament, by way, i suppose, of keeping him out of mischief; and they have a capital house, and do things in famous style. Thanks to a Parisian toilette^ Alicia has come back looking almost handsome? Dress is nothing to a, pretty woman ; but it is amazing what it will do for an ugly one, particularly to a stick, like the lady in question, that will bear being crinolined and furbelowed." "1 thought her looking wonderfully well yesterday, at the draw- ing-room," replied Lord Mortayne. " But though no beauty, Lady Alicia had always fair distingue, -which 1 confess 1 almost prefer " Lord Bowbridge, who had been puzzling in his mind what could have converted the once sparkling Xi of Morty's conversation into such decidedly still Champagne, now settled tliat he vas disap- THE DfcBUTAISTE. 213 pointed in the etlect produced at the drawing-room by his wife, — who was unquestionably less distinguished than pretty. " I am beginning to think," said he, cogitating aloud, with more frankness than discretion, " that, in point of looks, the brides, this year, have the best of it. Barrington is amazingly changed for the worse, by his season in Paris, I fancied Alicia would improve him; but a man loses as much as a woman gains, by Frenchifying his dress; and he is grown either solemn or out of spirits. Poor Charley is not half so good-looking a fellow as he was last season, when one used to see him running after El after Lady Mortayne. Lady Alicia's ugliness seems to have rubbed off upon him, and left the mark." " I should think the rubs of her temper more likely to have done the mischief!" observed Lord Mortayne. "Lady Alicia has all the cutting severity of old Lady Kilsythe, without the warmth of heart that delights in healing the wounds of her making." " Ay, I suppose that's it !" rejoined Bowbridge. " You usually hit the right nail on the head, Morty. All / know is, that they don't seem particularly on velvet." Mortayne was not sorry that the matrimonial grievances of other people should divert his kind-hearted friend's attention from his own. For, notwithstanding the poeans of triumph with which he chose to environ his arrival in town, his heart was heavy as lead. He was come of his own free will. But, while affecting to concede to the unexpressed wishes of his bride, for a house in town for the season, he dreaded only lest she should discover that he desired it a thousand times more than herself. So artfully had the debutante concealed the real nature ot her sentiments, that he was afraid it would break the heart of his poor Eleanor should she ever surmise that her society and affection were insufficient to complete the measure of his happiness. For a long time, he had closed even his own eyes against the conviction. He had tried to attribute the weariness of his heart to indisposition, to the influence of change of climate, — to anything but enmii. He recalled to mind, fifty times a day, that he had committed an act of madness in commencing his experience of domestic life, in winter time, at a place like Moi'tayne, — where the hunting was exactly of a nature to confine a Meltonian to the fire- side. But at length, the eagerness with which he found himself counting the hours every day till post-time, that he might possess himself of his London letters and London papers, rendered it im- possible to remain blind to the fact, that, however often he might repeat to his Eleanor the assurance that his earthly felicity was comprised within the ring-fence of home, there was a world else- where which supplied interests short of " felicity " perhaps, but far more exciting. 21 & THE DfiBUTANTE. By degrees came the fatal discovery, that the perpetual sunshine of too long a honeymoon may become fatiguing to the eyes ; — that he required a companion of wider experience and more com- prehensive sympalhies, than a mere girl ; — that no real confidence can exist, between one whose thoughts are with the past, and another whose thoughts are with the future : — that the vistas of Hope and Memory lie in wholly opposite directions. Slill, he had too much faith in the attachment of that youthful heart, wantonly to inflict the torture inevitable on discovering that its rich treasury of affections had been bestowed in vain. " Let me, atleast, avoid the crime of wasting her brilliant youth, by shutting her up here, labouring to extract music from this old stringless spinnet ofahearti" mused the repentant husband. '■' In London, amid a host of friends of her own age, she will never find out that my attachment is less omnipotent than I fancied." And when Eleanor, the moment she found the house in town a settled thing, affected to remind him of his often expressed desire to watch, among the beautiful woods of Mortayne^ the gradual dawn of spring, and hail the first notes of the nightingale beside their happy home, he imprinted a long kiss upon her fair forehead, and hastened from her presence to indulge in feelings of com- punction, at having so falsely miscalculated the purity of his tastes; and, — far worse, — of having sacrificed to the error a being so far more worthy than himself. Lest his lovely wife should find leisure to participate in his dis- covery, he endeavoured, on arriving in town, to bewilder her eyes with jewels, equipages, and fetes. " She must not perceive that I love her less than at first. She must not find out that she is wedded to one whose nature is so uncongenial with her own I" was his romantic idea ; and, with all the chivalry of a noble character, he endeavoured to replace, by the gauds and pastimes of the world, the sympathy of which he fancied her defrauded. Thus encouraged to the cultivation of all that was dear to her ambition, the debutante in matron life soon became as marked a figure on the glasses of the magic-lantern of fashion, as the girlish debutante of the preceding year. What more delightful to an ear like hers, than to have it whispered — " How beautiful Lady Mor- tayne is looking ! — I no longer wonder at her having vanquished the Invincible !" or, " By Jove ! Morty's wife is, out and out, the prettiest woman of the season. What diamonds and what eyes ! — One can't help wondering which borrows their lustre from the other." The spirited barb for which the craggy paths of Westmoreland had been too severe, was now again in request; and the day on which Mortayne officiated as escort in the Park to the charming THE DfeBUTANTK. 215 rider of whom the graceful animal appeared, by Iheplayfularching of its neck and porfeetion of its paces, to be so proud, was one of the brightest triumphs his vanity iiad ever tasted. But it was a triumph oUnere vanity : and, after the ride had been once or twice repealed, he learned to understand the difference between accom- panying another man's wife and his own ; and why when in former days he rode by the side of Lady Susan Spilsby, poor Spilsby had seemed to think it so great a bore to skulk behind them, swallow- ing their dust; in company with Old Vassall, or any other of the established bores of the community, to whose companionship he was exposed by the ignominy of a second-class ticket. It was insulting enough to find two saucy boys, like Lord Newbury and Lord Henry de Capell, assume a place on either side of Lady Mortayne, as coolly as though they were the legitimate supporters of her coat of arms; and above all, inexpressibly provoking, to catch only a syllable here and there of a conversation which, by the graciousness of her air and readiness of her mirth, she seemed to find so entertaining. But Morty had been too facetious, in his time, upon the absurdity of jealous husbands, and wasted too much eloquence in demon- strating, like Don Juan, that these rash grumblers Deserve the fate their fretting lips foretell, to emulate the fault. If ho found himself in a disagreeable position, he had no one to thank for it but himself. Had he not forced poor Eleanor to tovrn, they should still have been enjoying their tSte-a- tete, strolling in the lanes near Ambleside, on the shaggy pony and his favourite brown cob ! And yet, somehow or other, not even by comparison with the other animals, called Newbury and Henry de Capell, did these res- pectable quadrupeds recur temptingly to his mind's eye. The thought of Ambleside made him shudder. His ride in the Park was at least preceded by a pleasant, gossiping half-hour at White's ; and followed by sonie snug dinner party;— -or Mario and Grisi, in all their richest luxuriance of song,— essential enjoyments to an essentially London man. He would, perhaps, have felt disposed to delegate, now and then, to Sir Wolseley, the charge of his lovely equestrian,— for to Sir Wolseley, to ride in the front or rear rank, was immaterial ;— nor would HIS good breeding have prevented his shaking off Old Vassall, like^a viper into the fire. But Sir Wolseley, true to his re- solution of eschewing " the humbug of London," from the moment his sister was married, was gone salmon-fishing to Ireland ; where, soit (lit enpaRmnt, he never recalled to mind his penance in Rotten Row of the preceding season, without devoutly wishing his unfor- tunate brother-in-law well through his drill. 216 THE DfeBUTANTE. At length, an important question before the House of Lords, to which he had pledged himself to the noble friend by whom it was brought forward to give not only his support, but his attention, compelled Lord Mortayne to withdraw himself for some days from the field; on which, his wife entreated with such cheerful alacrity to be allowed to keep the house till he was again able to accompany her, that he could do no less than insist that she should join the riding party of her cousins, the Ladies de Capell. He was too conscious of loathing his daily task, not to feel bound in conscience to secure this innocent diversion to the woman whom he compas- sionated as thrown away. It was, consequently, no fault of hers that she found herself in- cluded in a group, wherein Charles Barrington was officiating as attendant upon his sisters-in-law. Lady Heriford, who had more confidence in his discretion than that of his friend Henry, insisted that, whenever Clandon was engaged and the new member could obtain a respite from his parliamentary duties, he should ride with the girls; and happy were the Wednesdays and Saturdays when he was able to exchange the harsh voices of the House of Commons, for the prattle of the pretty lispers who talk nonsense as classically as though it were their mother tongue. INor were Lady Mary and Lady Blanche less delighted when they could engage their cousin Eleanor to become their chaperon; for, once more by the side of his idol of the preceding year, Charles Barrington took as little heed as they desired of their flirtations with the madcap parson and penniless attache, who served as escort to themselves. No chance of being reported to the marchioness, and, through her, to grandmamma, so long as Lady Mortayne made herself so pleasant ! — Had they taken a less selfish view of the matter, they would have discerned, perhaps, from these and other indications, that, between Lady Alicia and her husband, there existed no longer, or perhaps had never existed, the warmth of Avedded love that effaces all pre- ceding predilections, as a spring-tide sweeps away all trace of lighter objects scattered on the beach. But Lady Alicia had been too domineering an elder sister to attach her family beyond the common instincts of nature; and when, on the arrival of the Barringtons from Paris early in the month of March, it became clear to their friends that they had taken their parti, and that it was one strictly in accordance with a mariage de convenance, — i. e. mutual civility and mutual non-in- terference, — their friends were satisfied to leave their arrangements undisturbed. Even to themselves, the fashionable couple did not, perhaps, specify by the exhalations of what upas-tree their slender chance of happiness had been poisoned. Though Lady Alicia was conscious THE DftBDTANTE. 217 of having projected her marriage to secure emancipation IVoni a formal home encumbered with younger sisters,— and though Charles was aware of having proposed to Lord Heriford's daughter in the hopes of mortifying the jilt by whom he had been mortified, —both had anticipated, in place of the passionate attachment of wedded life, at least, the perfect understanding cemented by good breeding and good sense. But, the pink-paper note having afforded a signal for discord, the bonds of mutual forbearance which depended solely on prompt- ings of expedience, became as the smoking flax when brought into contact with the influence of a haughty temper. Resenting, as an act of lese-majesle, her husband's appearance at the b(d masque in contradiction to her wishes, Lady Alicia was glad to seize upon the supposed billet doux as a theme for displeasure, believing it to be the fruit of his escapade. Unluckily, while smarting under the sarcasms to which the in- cident gave rise, Charles Harrington was rash enough to observe that his lady-wife might have saved herself a world of vexation, if, instead of conjecturing the contents, she had used her conjugal privilege, and broken the seal of the suspected note. For a few days after the indiscreet sanction thus by implication accorded, a letter arrived during her husband's temporary absence, which had been forwarded from England by the Ambassador's bag ; of which Lady Aliciahadsome pretext for tearing open the envelope. The newspaper announcement of the heirship of Mr. Barrington to his rich brother, had, that very morning, placed them in agonies of suspense. It was, in fact, to inquire at Galignani's concerning the origin of the paragraph, that Charles had quitted the house ; and, instead of prudently waiting his return, his wife, by her wild precipitation, obtained the first reading of the following agreeable epistle : — " Easton Hoo, January 9th. " Dear Charles, — Your ridiculous application to me, of the 5tli of this month, was prompted, I conclude, by the still more ridi- culous statement of the newspapers that 1 have inherited my brother's cursed fortune. For when, pray, did you ever know me with a few hundred pounds at my disposal, to make ducks and drakes of,— or two hundred, or even one? — By this time, you arc all the wiser; though considering what you dinned into my ears concerning the generosity shown at your wedding by the old hag of a dowager, to whom, in return, you made me lose the Lord knows how many rubbers of halfcrown whist, I cannot say you have made much proof of wisdom in having so squandered her gift as not to have wherewithal to pay for your new rattle. For, to a person like you, without either talent, or the sense to understand 218 THE DfeBUTANTE. your want of it, Parliament is a rattle; and, if you take wy advioe, you'll set your mind on one less costly. Once for all, you have nothing further to expect from me till my death ; and I promise you my constitution is a tough one ! Meanwhile, as you have made your bed, you must lie in it. You have found out by this time, I suspect, that you had better have contented yourself with the wife that was waiting for you by my tireside, or at all events, with the heiress you brought junketing over to Easton ; instead of pretend- ing to a Ladyship, — a proud minx, that took up with you only because she had outstayed her market, — a faggot, good neither to sell nor burn I — This is plain speaking ; but, when I consider what you have missed, Charles, it is enough to make a man lose his patience. " I suppose we shall have you over in England soon ; in which case, no need of further correspondence on a disagreeable subject. For foreign postage comes heavy ; and between one expense and another, I have not a shilling 1 can call my own. Your mother is ailing, as usual; but sends her love with that of '' Your affectionate father, " G. Barrington." Lady Alicia, who, if harsh and an intrigante, was a high-bred gentlewoman, perused this epistle with feelings of unqualified disgust. To do her justice, her vexation at the discovery of her husband's disappointment as regarded his uncle's fortune, was secondary to her indignation at finding herself thus coarsely canvassed in his family, and, doubtless, with his knowledge and sanction; — and a burst of passion ensued, that might almost have been mistaken for grief. But to rage succeeded a panic of shame. She felt that there was no excuse for her having opened the letter. The interception of fifty billetf! doux would have committed her less in the eyes of her husband, than to have perused the abusive epistle of his lather. Never, never could he forgive the betrayal of his family penury to eyes like hers ! — By the feelings of aversion already engendered in her own heart, she could measure what would be the bitterness of his I Two alternatives presented themselves to the world-governed mind of the delinquent : — she must either avow the truth, and brave, to the utmost, the upbraidings likely to ensue, even at the risk of forfeiting the new position which her fancy, stimulated in the school of Parisian salonisni, painted as the supreme of happi- ness; or burn the letter, and attribute its destruction to accident, leaving him to obtain, through some other channel, the important intelligence it contained. While deliberating with the letter still open in her hand, between THE DfeBUTANTE. 219 the shame of a despicable action, and the loss of her imaginary crown, her bushand rushed into the room. " You have a letter for me !" gasped he, his heart leaping with the agitation of such a chance as accession to a fortune of millions. *' Francois tells me the Embassy porter has been here with a letter?'' " You have just come in time to prevent my reading it," said Lady Alicia, chilled to the soul by the sense of her own meanness, " for the suspense was getting too painful to be borne." " Has he made my father his heir?" cried her husband, snatching the open letter from her hands, blind, in the excitement of his feelings, to her offence in breaking the seal; and proceeding, without listening to her explanation, to decypher the letter. And it was almost sufficient penalty for Lady Alicia's breach of faith to have to stand by, as if eager for information, while he perused, line by line, word by v/ord, that tissue of ungentlemanly abuse. Impossible not to watch with tremulous interest for indications of the nature of his sentiments. — Was he so utterly engrossed by his disappointment concerning Humphrey Barrington's will, as to be insensible to the taunts of his father, and the disgraceful epithets applied to herself? — " Ruined ! — utterly, w^^er/y ruined!" was all, however, that she could clearly understand of the mutterings amid which he folded up the letter. And the pang that arose in her heart at finding herself thus utterly disregarded, overspread her cheeks with so deathly a paleness, that, when compelled to look her in the face, in order to explain with more coherence that the information of the newspapers was incorrect, her husband became impressed with instant conviction that every word of the letter had met her eye ! — Too horror-stricken by the idea of having his family disgraces exposed to the gibing of her sarcastic spirit, to find words to upbraid her breach of trust, he quitted the room as abruptly as he had entered it. But, even in that short interval, a barrier, impassable as a moun- tain of ice , had sprung up between the husband and wife !— 220 THE DfeBUTANTK. CHAPTER XXV. C'est le sarcasme, c'est la froide moquerie qui blesse et qui outrage. L'amour-propre conseniirait k etre blame ; mais il ne peut pas souffrir d'etre raille. Le blame n'exclut pas I'estime; il laisse la consolation de discuter, de contredire. La raillerie est I'expression irrevocable du d(5dain. VILLEMAIN. The tete a tete dinner of that day put the self-possession of both parties severely to the test. Neither of them could look the other in the face. Since the days of our first parents, never was a human couple more thoroughly ashamed. But when, in order to escape the gene of each other's company, they proceeded to fulfil their usual evening's engagements, they were beset by new annoyances. The paragraph circulated by the London papers having been copied into Galignani's Messenger, half Paris was , by this time , apprised of their accession of fortune, and congratulations were lavished upon them on every side. But, as if by tacit understanding, or rather by a mutual leaning towards deceit, both simultaneously replied, that "They knew nothing of the matter beyond what was reported by the public journals ;" — a mode of reply which sounded so like modest affir- mation, that, at present, their augmentation of consequence expe- rienced no drawback. Those accustomed to curtsey to Lady Alicia, accordingly curtsied to the ground ; while an affectionate pressure of the hand was bestowed by many who had formerly extended only a finger. The beau monde was loud and unanimous in opinion, that the Barringtons were charming young people, who would do ample justice to their twenty thousand a-year. But while rumour was thus accomplishing her usual feats of exaggeration, the whole tlipughts of Charles Barrington were en- grossed by the health of Sir'Piupert Catapult; whose retirement from the county of Bucks would be the means of irrevocably betraying to the Heriford family, and, through them, to the whole world, the shallowness of his resources and disappointment of his hopes. Nor was Lady Alicia, ( now more keenly alive than ever to the necessity of assigning adventitious importance to a man so insigni- ficant in social position as her husband,) less distracted by her uncertainty concerning the state of his immediate supplies. To lose the opportunity of sitting for Rattleford for want of a few hundred pounds, would be loo humiliating ! But, though only a few (lavs before, she would not have hesitated to inquire frankly THE DtBUTAiNTE. 221 the exact stale of their ways and means, — conscious that her pre- sent anxiety arose from the perusal of the fatal letter, she dared not hazard a question that might possibly produce the rejoinder of " What reason have you to suppose that my funds are exhausted? — What i-eason have you to fancy that I could lind difficulty in raising five hundred pounds? — After all, then, you did read my father's letter!" The husband of Amina, in the Arabian Tale, could not have felt more guilty in her presence, after discovering her to be a Ghoul, than the great lady in her husband's, after having ascertained him to be a beggar. Some days afterwards, a communication from Lord Henry to his sister brought this awkward dilemma to a crisis. " You are in such disgrace at Heriford Castle, my dear Alice," wrote he, " that, having a commission to give you for Privat, (who has had the impudence to send me six dozen pair of gloves, my provision for the season, with silver buttons, such as I conclude were worn in the ark, instead of the patent ones which Boivin has made universal,) I take the opportunity of advising you to intimate to the august authors of your being, of how many thousands a- year you have come into the enjoyment. '' Grandmamma has despatched to my mother, from Warleigh, one of her sternest addresses from the throne, reproaching her with your negligence. In short, they are magnanimously indignant, at your leaving the Morning Post to acquaint them that my friend Charley has progressed into a Rothschild ! — At all events, you are bound to state whether this golden shower makes any alteration in Barrington's intentions concerning Rattleford, which I must know by return of post. " By the way, pray inform Privat, that in the next six dozen, half must be white and \\^\'i paille ; and tell bim to write to me the week before they are forwarded, that 1 may have some shaving- soap sent from Lubin's, to put in the parcel." " And what do you wish me to answer to all this?" inquired Lady Alicia of her husband, in whose hands, as the shortest way of dealing with the question, she had placed the letter. " Surely you need not ask me ! — You are as well acquainted as myself with the state of the case! " — In this observation, the guilty conscience of Lady Alicia discern- ing only a bitter intimation of his discovery that the entire contents of his father's letter had met her eye, she resolved to brave out what she had not arguments to extenuate. "You intend, then," was her haughty reply, " that the disastrous situation of our affairs shall be made known to my family ? You 222 THE DEBUTANTE. wish them to understand that we are ruined, — to afford them an opportunity of visiting upon you, some portion of the insults lavished by your father upon me and them ? " " As you please!" replied her husband, no less astounded by the tone she had suddenly assumed, than nettled by having learned from Lord Henry's letter to how many false impressions he should be obliged to afford explanation. '' Your better experience must of course suggest how far it may be wise to confide in their discretion." In this observation. Lady Alicia descried a twofold taunt. The point, however, on which she was most sensible, was the " better experience," that seemed to allude to her superiority of age, — a point on which, since her arrival at Paris, she had been rendered painfully susceptible, by the sensation created by the personal advantages of her husband, in a spot where such distinctions are singularly wanting. " My experience," she retorted, " suggests that in this case, as in all others, we cannot be too frank. You may, perhaps, find it somewhat late in the day to begin the task of candour with those, who, whatever else may be their faults, are superior to the baseness of deceit. Neither they, nor I, have ever misled you. If I have neither youth nor beauty to recommend me, you knew it when you selected me for your wife. The peerage apprised you of my age, — your own eyes of the ugliness that seems so revolting to your father. — Even of my fortune, such as it was, you knew the exact amount. I never endeavoured to impose upon you by supposititious heirships; and the allowance made by my grandmother, was expressly explained to be conditional. In return, I have been taught to my cost, that in certain spheres of life, it does not do to accept people's fortune, qualities, or expectations, simply on their own showing." Writhing under the consciousness of former disingenuousness, Charles Barrington answered these bitter words by a still more vexatious retort. He saw that his father's letter had drawn aside the veil from all he had so laboured to conceal. He saw that he was despised as well as detested; and in the frenzy of the moment, recrimination succeeded to acrimony. Incisive and corroding truths were, in short, exchanged on both sides, such as, like the small-pox, bequeath from the festering venom of an hour an indelible impression for life. Lady Alicia's cognizance of the vulnerable heel of her victim, enabled her however to plant the keenest shafts. " Your father, though brutal, is, at least, more honest than yourself!" said she. " 1 agree with him, that, since it was your policy to make an advautageous match, you were unpardonable in selecting the poor, proud minx who had outstayed her market. THE DfiBUTANTE. 223 when Eleanor Maitland and her fifty thousand pounds were quite as much at the service of your beaux yeitx! Or, if I clearly in- terpret the more mysterious part of Mr. Barrington's gentlemanly letter, when you might at least have secured a good housewife in the poor drudge of a cousin, who, when we visited your land of Canaan, made a conquest of my brother, as Charlotte of Werther, while cutting bread and butter in the pantry ! " Every drop of blood in Charles Barrington's body seemed, at that moment, to lake refuge in his heart. He could scarcely find breath for utterance. "Lady Alicia," said he, at last, in a low concentrated voice, "you are at liberty to attack me, for 1 have injured you. You are at liberty to revile my father,— for, by prying into my letters, you have ascertained that he has spoken revilingly of yourself. Bui, by God's mercy ! not a syllable will I hear against poor Maria Brenton ; who never spoke ill either of you or any other human being, and who is goodness and humbleness itself." So contemptuous a smile denoted Lady Alicia's opinion of this burst of Quixotism, that, unwilling to insult her, and incapable of controlling his impotent rage, he dashed his hat upon his head, and rushed like a madman from the house. Hastily directing his steps towards the quays, where he was secure from collision with his fashionable friends, he was not perhaps wholly free from the promptings which have beset so many unhappy beings on the same spot,— to fling himself over the pa- rapet, and put an end to his troubles. At his age, having, according to the laws of nature, half a century of hfe before him, to be bound heart, soul, and body to a woman with whom, henceforward, all sympathy, or even show of sympathy, was impossible, was indeed a fate to fly from;— Ae, accustomed to women of so diflerent a nature;— Ae, so idolized by his mother,— so cared for by the humble cousin who had been at once his servant and his friend ! — But he deserved it. —He admitted that he deserved it ;— that it was all his own doing. The paltry ambition of shining in a sphere that was not his own, had betrayed him into a marriage branding him as with the eternal slavery of the galleys. iNever should he forget the countenance,— the air of demoniacal scorn with which Lady Alicia had alluded to the menial occupation of Maria and the pauperism of Easton. For Easton had begun to acquire a sort of charm in his eyes. Since he had been abroad, he had learned to prize it as the spot where he was worshipped, — the spot where he was loved. And what has the most dazzhng circle of wits,— the most influential knot of politicians,— the most polished salon of courtiers, to compare with that? — How much less the miserable home of which he was so little the master ! — After long, long hours of bitter self-communing, he was forced to return, however, to 22a THE DfiBUTANTE. this joyless shelter; and, as he passed the porter's lodge, the con- ciercje stepped out and placed a letter in his hand. After the adventure of the pink-note and the mischance attending his father's disastrous communication, Charles Barrington had peremptorily ordered that his letters should be delivered solely to himself; and it was only thanks to his tempestuous exit from the house, that some hours' delay had arisen in his receipt of a despatch which arrived at the same moment with that of Lord Henry. He took the letter listlessly from the porter,— barely casting his eye upon the address, — like one who knows his worst, and has nothing more to care for in this world. But on seeing the hand- writing he started. It was one that had become almost unfamiliar to him, — and which the tremulousness of the writer's hand in inscribing his name, rendered still more difficult to recognise. Nevertheless he was sufficiently moved by the reminiscences with which it was connected, to place it in his waistcoat pocket, and, hurrying up to his dressing-room, lock himself in, previous to breaking the seal ; instead of reading it during his leisurely ascent of the staircase, as he would have done a second communication from the writer of the pink-note. He was right; for the letter was one of considerable length, as well as of vital import to the happiness of his future life. Already the hot blood had rushed to his cheeks on perceiving that it was dated from his birthplace, — from the home of his forefathers, — from Hexholm ! " I have delayed writing to you, my dear cousin,— my dear friend, — my dear old playmate," wrote Maria Barrington, " till enabled fully to comprehend the state of my affairs, and explain my intention of repairing the oversights of a will, which, with all gratitude and respect towards his memory, I cannot help feeling to have been prompted by undue partiality on the part of my poor uncle. " I left to others the ungracious task of apprising you. that he had bequeathed me the whole of his fine fortune, amounting to somewhat more than twelve thousand a-year ; the principal being secured in a manner to render it impossible for me to follow the impulses of my inclination in its re-distribution. As far as lies in my power, however, dear Charles, I wish to do my utmost towards equalizing our lot. " Hexholm is to be my future residence, and there, I shall make it my duly to accomplish the projects and intentions of my late uncle. But for this, half my income will suflice. Half my uicome exceeds that on which my grandfather effected so nmch good in the country, and commanded such universal respect. The oth&r half, dear cousin, is yoin-s, on condition of paying a thousand a-year to my dearest aunt for her separate enjoyment ; and effecting, with THE DEBUTANTE. "225 part of the remainder, such an insurance on my Hie as will prevent your suffering a painful deprivation in the event of my death. More than four thousand a-year will remain for your personal enjoyment. *' Do not think me ungenerous, however, dearest Charles, if 1 encumber my donation by further conditions ; - first, that not even to your wife, your accession of fortune be explained as derived from any other source than a will, the particulars of which can never reach beyond our family; — next, that you use your influence with my uncle, to procure me the happiness of his wife's society, for as large a portion of every year as she can be prevailed upon to be my inmate ; — and, lastly, that you take an early opportunity of getting into Parliament, and exerting your excellent abilities to obtain such distinctions in public life, as, had you secured them during his life-time, would, I am convinced, have determined my generous benefactor to make you his heir. " If I rightly understood the tenor of Lord Heriford's arrange- ments at the time of your marriage, five hundred a-year was given you by some member of the family, till an official appointment could be obtained. By this, it strikes me that your public career would be unduly shackled ; and if I dare suggest a line of conduct to one so much "better acquainted than myself with the usages of the world, I should think you would become more independent by relinquishing both the allowance and alternative. " On this point, pray follow your own good pleasure. But it may afford some grounds for your government, to know that the ar- rangements I propose are already secured by deeds drawn up by my uncle's solicitor, under the direction of my guardian, Mr. Fitzhugh. On the 7th of March I attain my majority, and the day following, they will be signed; unless, in the interim, you have some change to suggest. " I will not disguise from you, dear cousin, that I have had some difficulty in obtaining the sanction of my trustee to my projects. Not knowing by how deep a sense of the duty of restitution my conduct is actuated, he persists in foreseeing a time when an esta- blishment of my own, or a growing inclination for the luxuries of life, will insure repentance of my present views. For Mr. Fitzhugh is a new acquaintance, Charles, and cannot understand how im- possible it would be for me to create a scheme of happiness in which your welfare had not the foremost place. You know that I shall never marry ; and, so long as I see you occupying in the world the position to which you are qualified to do honour, how could I ever regret or repent a gift which, to me, God knows, is but a trifling sacrifice ! " And now, farewell. 1 have paid to your account at Coutts's, lest you should be annoyed about the means of an immediate return to England, a sum of two thousand pounds. — Had you been here, 15 226 THE DfiBUTANTE. I know not how 1 should ever have found courage to talk about what I have found it even difficult to write ; but I need not, surely, add, that the strongest proof of brotherly affection you can afford me is, by accepting my offers in the same free spirit they are made by " Your affectionate friend and kinswoman, " Maru Barrington." The emotion with which this startling letter was perused by a man whom it seemed expressly sent to rescue from the depths of shame and despair, subsided, as he perused the last two words, as though a bolt of ice had shot through his frame. Yes! Maria Barrington she should from the first have been! — It was no fault but his own that there existed an Alicia Barrington; but for which calamity, what happiness might now have been his portion ! For the discovery had not folloived her accession of for- tune. By living under the roof with fine ladies, he had learned to estimate the charm of the gentle, submissive, punctual being, who was so much more deserving the name of woman ; and the very month succeeding the month of moonshine which we call the honeymoon, had sufficed to convince him that, as a companion for life, the woman who loves us is preferable to the woman we love. How much more to one who neither loves nor is beloved ; — to the worse half of a manage de convenance I — But after his first burst of feeling, he found that in this over- whelming stroke of fortune he must not think of Maria. To enjoy his prospects without reserve, he must not think of Maria. To triumph, without compunction, over his haughty wife, he must not think of Maria. — Even his sterile nature would have found tears like a well- spring in the desert, had he permitted himself to dwell upon one who felt so tenderly for his mortifications, and thought so nobly for his honour : — the woman who had forgiven him for preferring the beauty of Eleanor, — who had forgiven him for pi-eferring the di- stinction of Lady Alicia; — and who, content to resign half her for- tune to him, was about to bury her youthful charms in obscurity, with no other companion than the mother who shared her misplaced affection . That she had refused to be Marchioness of Heriford, thanks to her own delicacy and his brother-in-law's reserve, he was never likely to be apprised. But Charles was beginning to be too familiar with the London world, to be ignorant that, with a fortune like hers, a choice of Marquisates was at her disposal. And she was willing to relinciuish them all, — all that London envelopes within the gorgeous folds of its mantle of purple and gold, — to live wedded to the pale shadow of friendship which had wandered by her side amid her childhood's dready waste. THE DfiBUTANTlc;. 227 To escape the shame of reflecting upon all this, he sat down and indited a hurried letter of warm and unqualified acceptance. And lucky that he did so at once; for acting, as was so rare with him, on the impulse of the moment, his letter wore some semblance of warmth of feeling. Having expended upon it the better emotions that were stirring within him, till his nature became hard again, like the iron rendered malleable by temporary heat, he paused only to compose his plans sufficiently to assume in presence of his wife a tone of promptness and decision, ere he made his appearance in the salon of Lady Alicia. In a few minutes his resolution was taken; but on reaching her presence, she was not alone. — Though the lateness of the hour justified the lighting of the apartments for dinner, two guests were still seated by her fireside; the one a French duke, one of the ele- rjantissimes of the Faubourg St, Germain, who, having understood that Lord Heriford's daughter had made a " manage ou d' amour ou d" argent, ou qnelque betisepareille,''' treated her ill-chosen husband with the distance-driving civility due to a " vil roturier;'' the other, a German Secretary of Legation, who, having been assured in Princess L 's set, that " cettc charmante Anylaise''^ was married to a "■ freluquet, — un homme nul," usually addressed him in the patronizing tone used towards the hobble-de-hoy son of a family with whom people are in the habit of dining. Both monsieur le Due and the Herr Baron, however, were a little surprised by the steadiness of step with which the man they had regarded as a hen-pecked puppet, walked straight to the fireplace, bowed stiffly to both, and made it apparent by a glance, that, as soon as possible, without compromising themselves by an air of having been dismissed by his arrival, they had better vacate the field. Lady Alicia, who had been refi^eshing herself ever since his departure by the causerie of a succession of visitors, with the pretext of canvas and a needle in her liaud, pour se donner une contcnance, was already compressing her thin lips with rage, while meditating a renewal of her sneers in reproof to his ill-breeding the moment they quitted the room; when, lo! a single glance at his face in- formed her that her kingdom was taken from her — that the slave was free ! With a smile, admirably copied from one of her own cold-blooded assumptions of com-tesy, Charles Barrington addressed the Due de B , to inquire whether he had any commissions for Englaad. And monsieur le Due, whose errand with Lady Alicia was to entreat, in the name of the Duchess, his mother, and several oiher sommiUs of the Faubourg St. Germain, that her Ladyship would accept a list, as patroness of the ball for the benefit of the pcusiotifiaires de la Uste civile, which was fixed among the latest of the season, looked 228 THE DfiBUTANTE. as uncxquisitishly surprised at the demand, as though he had been a reasonable being, or the sky exhibited symptoms of falling. " Pour V Anglcierrel — Mais je croyais tanfot comprendre, mi- ledi," — he was beginning, when his eloquence was playfully cut short by Lady Alicia. " Quand vous avez affaire a mes compatriotes," said she, '* ne pretender jamais compter svr leurs mouvements. II suffit qu'on vous annonce nn voijage a la mer Rouge, pour intimer un veritable depart pour la mer Blanched " Que le projet sinistre annonce par monsieur Barineton, nous laisse au moins I'esjmr que vous ne nous quitterez pas avant la fin du Carnavair replied the young Duke, rising to take leave, and bowing his way, chamberlain-wise, out of the room; — while the Secretary of Legation followed his example in silence, but not without an inward meditation of " Voila une luiie de miel qui commence a tourner diablement en lune defiel .'" — The door having closed upon them, Lady Alicia waited, with well-dissembled unconcern, for some further explanation of the altered plans and deportment of her husband. But he chose to be interrogated. — He was now in a position to choose. Already, the leaven of his father's character was beginning to risf^ within him. Her Ladyship's curiosity being stronger than her self-command, she could not long refrain from inquiries. '' After all, then," said she, " we are about to return to England. That for which a seat in Parliament was not sufficient inducement, has apparently been decided by a shifting of the wind. " No answer ! — It is true Charles was busily occupied in what occupies a large portion of Parisian winter life, — proving that le mieux est I'ennemi du bien, — by displacing the logs admirably adjusted by their French servant, in order to fill the room with smoke. " And where, may I ask, are we to go?" persisted Lady Alicia, hoping to taunt him into the reply that was not suggested by polite- ness. "Have you been planning a pleasant spring for me among your country neighbours at Easton Hoo?'' " Not unless you prefer it to the house in Belgrave Square, or Grosvenor Place, which I have written to your brother Henry to engage for us I" was his cool rejoinder. "A house in Belgrave Square!" repeated Lady Alicia, looking nearly as umpardonably astonished as the Due de B . " When you were so witty this morning on the subject of sup- posititious heirships," replied her husband with well-sustained coolness, "it did not seem to occur to you, that, though the dis- posal of my uncle's property had proved so great a disappointment to my father, some modification might have been made in my favour. Anxious to penetrate your secret sentiments towards THE DfiBUTANTE. 229 me , 1 allowed you to say your worst ; and that worst com- prehended such utter scorn of me and my affairs, that I judged it superfluous to acquaint you, that the allowance hitherto made me has been so nobly replaced, as to admit of my dispensing for the future with the stipend,— salary,— what shall I call it, — allotted by your family; who, as you justly observed, look my talents and honour too much upon trust ! If, on the other hand, I consent to sit for Lord Hertford's borough, it will only be on condition of exercising the most perfect independence in the House of Commons ; and if 1 do not find my conditions palatable," con- tinued he, with a command of voice and countenance that did ample credit to the accomplished dissembler before him of whom he was the pupil, "it is not impossible that I may try my fortune against Lord Clandon for Buckinghamshire. My family interest there, was (as you learned from himself at Easton) established some centuries before his own ; nor could I make an appropriation of my uncle's rupees more grateful to his memory than by asserting the dignity of his family name, where it has been unfairly disparaged." As he pronounced these starthng announcements, the emotions which, three hours before, had produced so wild a commotion in the veins of the husband, seemed transferred to those of the wife. ^nlhers was a mind that looked straight to results, and dwelt little upon means. Even at that irritating moment, all she saw was the accomplishment of her ambitions ; — a house in town, and a posi- tion so influential, as to enable her to march front to front with Lady Mortayne ! — No matter that it was to be obtained from the hand of a husband, upon whose heart she had trampled, even unto bruising. He oc- cupied but small space in the picture which developed itself before her mind's eye. If she thought of him at all, it was chiefly in admiration of the self-command he had exercised, in disdaining to fling the truth in her face, while smarting that morning under her insolent attack. " I did not give him credit for such strength of character !" was her secret reflection. " One may make something of him in time." Lady Alicia was not likely to surmise that, in her turn, she had been deceived ; — and that " a trompeur, trompeur et demi r She was not even fully aware that, where vitriol has been thrown upon the earth, let the sun shine as it may, the herbage refuses to grow again ; — and that neither art nor blandishment would ever restore her to even the moderate place she had occupied in the regard of her husband. But it was not domestic confidence from which she had ever looked to extract the happiness of life ; and she was scarcely able to subdue within becoming limits her feel- ings of exultation, while completing her hasty preparations for an immediate return to England, to commence her brilliant career. 230 THE DfiBDTANTE. CHAPTER XXVI. Oh ! los jolis tableanx!— Que ces gens sont heurenx, Comme leur vie est gaie, et comma ils n'ont d'affairo Que les riants propos, la rausique, les jeux, Le loisir sans scrupule, et I'amour sans niystSre. Ehilb AL'GIER. " My liege lady, generally," quod he, "Women desyren to have soveraynte As well over ther husbondes as ther love." Chaucer. Lord Bowbridge and Lord Mortayne were far from the only persons who decided Lady Alicia Barrington to be wonderfully im- proved by her sojourn in Paris. On many, the courtesies of manner, and graces of adornment she had acquired in a capital, where, of all others, people learn to make the best of their personal appearance, produced a strong impression; while, with others, the consequence derived from standing on a sufficient pedestal, conferred on her the charm of the cestus. No one was surprised to see the Barringtons commence their London with an excellent house, establishment, and equipage. The newspaper announcement of Humphrey Barrington's inherit- ance sufficed to satisfy the world that the handsome young man of good prospects, who had flirted through the preceding season with Eleanor Maitland, was now in the enjoyment of his fortune. As a man with thousands per annum, — as the husband of a Right Ho- nourable Lady Alicia, — as the Honourable Member for Rattleford, — he had only realized his former deceptions assumptions. This was a happy thing for him ; since no omen more inauspi- cious can attend a debut of any kind in society, than a general feel- ing of surprise that demands explanation. Even Lady Mortayne, the only person in whom some astonish- ment was justifiable that, with prospects so brilliant, he had not endeavoured to efface from her mind the unfavourable impressions produced by her visit to Easton, having given implicit confidence to the paragraph recited to her by her husband relative to his accession of fortune, began to attribute to the desire of adding dis- tinctions of rank to those of money, that sudden transfer of his attentions to the daughter of the Marquis of Heriford, which she had hitertho ascribed to pique at her coldness. The vexation of finding the rival, whom, for a moment, she fan- cied crushed by her own union with the popular and distinguished Mortayne, prepared to dispute with her the palm of fashion, pos- sessed of the same worldly advantages, and actuated by the same THB DfiBUTANTK. 231 hollow-hearted pretensious, served, however, only as a spur to her flagging vanity, and increased the interest of her return to town. "It will be hard, indeed, if, matching my face and age against Alicia's, I do not obtain the best of it!" meditated Lady Mor- tayne, while surveying herself in the swing-glass of her new man- sion in Brook-street, arrayed for the drawing-room, at which her presentation as a bride has already been described ; and though, in spite of the airy grace of the ringlets playing like light around her delicately turned throat and against cheeks rivalling the delicate texture of the rose-leaf, she was not wholly able to withdraw the public gaze from the dignified figure of Lady Alicia Barrington , attired with the perfection of taste that nothing but Paris can supply ; the taste that forbids the introduction of a flower, bow, feather, or inch of lace too much, whereas the chief aim of English costume seems to consist in exaggeration, — there was certainly some pretext for the enthusiasm with which the fashionable journals dwelt upon the splendour of Lady Mortayne's diamonds, and. the lustre of her eyes. Lady Heriford, by whom the two brides were presented, and who, recently arrived in town, was overwhelmed with compliments on the happy establishment in life of both her daughter Alicia and her debutante of the preceding year, (unable to resent against the latter her withdrawal of Morty from poor Lady Sophia, seeing how unceremoniously Charles Barrington had been appropriated by poor Lady Sophia's sister,) could not forbear glancing, amid the feUcitations with which she was overwhelmed, at the happy bride- grooms of the two envied brides. For there, all was not as it should have been ! Though by nature a nearer-sighted person than might be expected of her mother's daughter and daughter's mother, it was impossible for Lady Heri- ford to be otherwise than struck by the hollow eyes of Lord Mor- tayne, and by the lowering brow of her son-in-law. No brightness of exultation shone in either of their faces. Of the latter, however, who was making his first appearance in that brilliant scene, in the highly-becoming uniform of Lord Heri- ford's yeomanry hussars in which, with that very view, he had obtained a commission, as much was said in extolment of his fine features and striking appearance, as though he were a parti to be disposed of. Nor was it possible for Eleanor to close her ears against the commendations lavished upon him, which, among the fairer moiety of the spectators, exceed even those of which she was the object. " I had no idea Mr. Barrington was half so good-looking!" ob- served Lady Essendon, who had troubled herself little about his looks, good or bad, till she found him a man of sufficient conse- 232 THE DfeBUTANTE. quence to become the object of an opinion. " I am sure no one thought much of him last season I" — " Fine feathers make fine birds," retorted Lady Barbara Ber- nardo, the gaudy plumage of whose vulgar husband usually rivalled that of a macaw ; " and he has got such a divin uniform I " " It is the same worn by Lord Henry de Capell, and I am sure it does not make an Apollo of himV replied the Countess, who being a quiet domestic woman, and no scandal-monger, little knew how strongly her observation inclined Lady Barbara to ex- tinguish her by slow poison. "And just now, in the presence- chamber, 1 heard the new ambassador, Prussian, Russian, Austrian — what is he ? — (I never remember the names or distinctions of the corps diplomatique^ — " So I should have guessed!" murmured Lady Barbara, though in too low a voice to interrupt her. — " but I mean (he man in magnificent regimentals, all over turquoises and embroidery, and covered with orders, — inquire Mr. Barrington's name, and say he was decidedly the finest figure he had seen in England." " A mere sympathy of gold lace!" cried Lady Barbara, pettishly, shrugging her shoulders. But the eyes of Lady Mortayne, beside whom she was standing in the vicinity of the Marchioness of Heri- ford, turned instinctively at the observation towards the towering form of Charles Harrington, made prominent by his showy hussar accoutrements ; and, a few moments afterwards, //'om thai brilliant figure to the person of Lord Mortayne, disfigured by the most frightful costume of civilized Europe— an English court-dress, — something between the uniform of the " Monkey who has seen the world," and the gala-dress of the valetaiUe of continental courts, — which even Morty's proverbial elegance of aspect could not redeem from the ridiculous. He was not even looking at his ease. The drawing-room was a scene almost as strange to him as to his rival, and far more uncongenial. An appearance once a year at the levee, as a suitable homage to his sovereign, was all he had ever attempted in his " Morty" day ; — in the discreet consciousness that a man having neither wife nor daughter to escort, is as much an encumbrance to others as is bag and sword to himself. There was consequently some pretext for feeling uncomfortable and out of place. However proud to present to the world, as his wife, the lovely being whose appearance in the throng was greeted by a murmur of applause, he could not help thinking that the only thing to be done at the drawing-room, after quitting the Royal presence, was to inquire for the carriage. It might have afforded some consolation to the feelings of vexa- tion produced in what Lady Mortayne would have called her THE DfiBUTANTE. 233 •' heart," by the exterior inferiority of her lord, could she have surmised that the very beauty which so dazzled her in Barrington w^as a source of annoyance to his wife. — It was to that, rather than to the unaffectionateness of her nature and hauteur of her conduct, that Lady Alicia attributed his estrangement.— Above all, it was to that she ascribed his preference of the idlest scenes of youthful pastime,— ball, masquerade, or concert, — to the graver political circles, with a taste for which she was desirous of inspiring him. Instead of forwarding her hopes that he would adopt his parlia- mentary career with the zeal indispensable to distinction, the new member went through his duties with the careless levity of one whose world is elsewhere; one whom " a few hundreds" have rendered the representative of a family borough to which he is wholly unaccountable, and to the patron of which he is pledged only to give his vote for government when government happens to be hard pressed. Her own intentions, however, were by no means changed by discovering that the battle must be fought single-handed. The greater the distance between her and her husband, the more com- pletely was she at liberty to dispose of her time and engagements. Charles Barrington seemed bent on proving to her, that, roturier as he was, he could be as high-bred in conjugal indifference as the best-born duke of her favourite Faubourg St. Germain. Profiting by this letter of license, she accordingly hastened to attach herself by every filament within reach, to the dignitaries of the party supported by her family, in the way dignitaries of a party most value,— by their '' ayes" and " noes." While her cousin Eleanor was enjoying the much-coveted delight of inaugu- ration in the sacred circle of ultra Fashion, more important in her eyes than Royalty itself, the loftier bride, to whom the smiles of duchesses and marchionesses were too familiar to be of the smallest account, derived scarcely less satisfaction from the introductions she requested from her mother to two or three bald-headed men, shuffling with crab-like grace out of the palace, and one or two particularly disagreeable-looking women, whose words were as round as their persons angular; but whose names will make the fortune of a book of memoirs, fifty years hence. A few of the heads of the corps diplomatique, on the other hand, volunlarily solicited to be made known to Lady Alicia Barrington ; according to the orders to that effect transmitted to them, as joer electric telegraph, from the head-quarters of intrigue, — totally forgetting, even while gazing upon her unattractive face, that she was the same Lady Alicia de Capell to whom they had been accustomed to perform the morning and evening service of a bow, in each of the hundred and twenty-two days of the preceding London season. 23ft THE DfeBUTANTE. Any one disposed to notice the acquaintanceships made, or renewed, on that memorable day by the two brides, might have understood how totally distinct their ideas and ambitions ; Fashion being the idol of the one, as Influence of the other. Meanwhile, however cold the deportment of the Honourable Member for Rattleford towards his wife, and however abhorrent his feelings, he was far from insensible to the credit she imparted to his social position. While conversing with the first men of the day, with an intelligence brightened and polished by recent inti- macy with those able talkers of France, by whom conversation is cuUivated as one of the fine arts, or, rather, among whom fireside fluency is prized as scarcely less valuable than the eloquence of the rostrum, — Lady Alicia appeared to have stepped into the exact niche which nature qualified her to grace. — She was not only thoroughly in her place, but it was one that afforded more con- sistency to the position of her husband, as a newly-inheriting man, possessing neither landed property nor aristocratic connexion, than the utmost beauty and gentillesse of his fair partner of the preceding season. Far other, alas ! the feelings with which poor Morty contem- plated the young wife by his side, whose tiara of diamonds bespoke the admiration of the vulgar ; and whose lovely face, of all. He was scarcely less annoyed by the airs of indulgence with which she was received by the great ladies of his elite set, as a novice requiring encouragement, than by the familiarity affected towards her by boys like Lord Newbury and Henry de Capell. " How amazingly late you have come to town !" said the latter, interrupting, without ceremony, the embarrassed dialogue which accompanied her first introduction to the supercilious Countess of Bowbridge. " D'ye know there were bets out you would not come at all,— that you were going to ruralize through the season?— "Wasn't it good, — eh?" " Have you been very gay, then," replied Lady Mortayne blush- ing from the fear of what might follow, " that you consider the beginning of May a late period of the season?" — " Oh ! amazingly !— Lots of balls !— If the influenza and Passion week had not come to set us right, one might have mistaken April for July!— We missed you shockingly at the soirees at Heriford House, didn't we, Henry ?— What fun we used to have, last season, eh, Lady Mortayne, leading the cotillon through the suite, down the back staircase, and up again through the great hall ! Do you remember that famous night when Henry made you carry the sofa- cushion to Esher, who turned sulky, and looked very much as if he were going to throw it at your head ?" — While Lady Bowbridge stood by, listening in dignified silence, as if waiting till Lady Mortayne was at liberty to withdraw her at- THE DfiBUTANTE. 235 tention from topics so interesting and renew the conversation with herself, poor Morty felt that, had a cushion been within reach, he might have been tempted to follow Lord Esher's example. But before the prating grandson of his friend lluntingfield had half exhausted his silly reminiscences, Lord Henry de Capell com- menced a series of whispers, a thousand times more offensive. " When may I come and see you?" said he. " I hear you have a capital house,— which means, I hope, that you intend to do some- thing to amuse us. We are sadly in want of something new; why not give Mazurka parties? Mazurka parties would be immensely popular ; and, so fond as you are of dancing, amuse you better than all the stupid dinner parties in the world." " We will talk it over some morning, when you have seen my house," replied Lady Mortayne, solely with the view of getting rid of him. " The Barringtons, who have been in town since March," re- sumed Lord Henry, nodding, rather than bowing, his acceptance of her proposition, " are by way of giving grand dinners, and that sort of thing. Alice was sure to have the dullest house in town; and she has made Charley as serious, and nearly as full of pre- tensions, as herself. But now yoic are come, you will, perhaps, bring him to his senses; which, I must do him the justice to say, have been absent without leave ever since he became a member of Parliament." Of this " bald disjointed chat," not a syllable was lost on Mor- tayne; who listened simply because he saw that Lady Bowbridge was silently forming an opinion of his pretty wife, from the nature of the incense laid upon her shrine. There might have been a time when he talked in the same rattling, vapid style himself. But it was in his beardless boyhood, — twenty years before, — so long, that he had forgotten everything about the matter, except his sovereign contempt for the women to whom his nonsense was dedicated. Even now, he could scarcely think of them without shrugging his shoulders I^ — And to hear a wife bearing his name, addressed whith such prating familiarity, and in the hearing of Lady Bowbridge who had always thought so highly of his taste ! — If, after all, this lovely, graceful Eleanor, who, had he taken her at her word, would have been passing the spring with him among the lilacs and laburnums of their secluded shrubbery in the North, should turn out one of the group of dancing, flirting, young mar- ried women of the London season, whom he had always regarded as the most pitiful specimen of the sex!— If, after all, his name should be trailed in the dust of every ball-room,— polluted by the censure of every club ! As the idea glanced into his mind, his countenance assumed so 236 THE DfiBUTANTi:. despairing an expression, that he was not surprised, on rousing himself from his reverie, to find the eyes of Lady Bowbridge fixed upon him with looks of ineffable compassion. For a vast looking- glass opposite to which they were standing, reflected the whole group ; and the contrast between Lady Morlayne's spring-like form and apple-blossom complexion, and his own forlorn person, was only too grievously apparent. Unwilling to dwell on objects so unsatisfactory, his eye took a wider range in the same tell-tale mirror; and, lo! the dignified figure of Lady Alicia de Capell, as she stood receiving the compli- ments of a prince of the blood, brought back so accusingly to his thoughts the image of the Sophia w^hom, at that moment, she strongly resembled, that it was no wonder he found it difficult to preserve his patience, when Lord Newbury recommenced his flippant flirtation with the Lady Mortayne so far less suitable to his age and habits of life. " By Jove ! what a surly brute it is I" observed Lord Newbury, turning to Lady Mary de Capell, as soon as Morty having by per- suasive looks, and a still more persuasive jerk of the arm, managed to impress on the lovely Eleanor that, her presentation being over, there was no occasion for her lingering at the palace so long as it might suit Lady Heriford and her unmarried daughters, — they disappeared from the gallery. " A pretty joke truly, if a superan- nuated Don Juan, like Mortayne, should take into his head to bring back from the East the lock-up-wife principle, and veil-and-lattice system I " — *' I hardly think it would answer with my friend Nelly," rejoined Lady Mary, laughing ; " but I must say, Lord Newbury, in justifi- cation of his Oriental fancies, that you attacked her somewhat like a Turk." •* And I can tell you it will not answer to put Bluebeard out of sorts!" added Lord Henry. " Having lost the Barrington's house as a lounge, we cannot afford to part with Morlayne's," Then, taking him by the arm, he quietly impelled him down stairs. " Bernardo's carriage must be here by this time," said he. "1 desired him to send it back for me, and I can set you down at Mivart's, on my v/ay to Heriford House." THE DEBUTANTE. 237 CHAPTER XXVII. Have they not got polemics, and reform, Peace, war, the taxes, and (what 's called) the nation, The struggle to be pilots in the storm, The landed and the monied spccilation. The joys of mutual hate to keep them warm. Instead of Love,— that mere hallucination ? Byron. Had any one undertaken to insure to Charles Harrington or his wife, at the commencement of the preceding season, the position they now enjoyed, both would have regarded it as bliss beyond compare, as well as the unattainable vision of a fairy tale. Could Charles have believed that he was to exchange the mi- serable discomfort of Easton, his precarious allowance and uncer- tain standing in society, for a noble fortune, a noble wife, a seat in Parliament, and the command of a well-appointed house in Arlington Street, he would have called himself a new Aladdin ; — or if, in Lady Alicia's case, to these advantages was added the alliance of one who passed for the handsomest young man about town, the superannuated young lady's notion of worldly bliss would have been quite as lavishly perfected as that of her husband. Yet happiness was not in their household. The one thing needful was v/anting. They were at peace neither with themselves nor with each other. Open warfare had not been renewed since they quitted Paris ; but only because there was too much of the epicurean in both, to hazard the discomfort of dissension. To the world, therefore, nothing was apparent of their mutual contempt. The world saw only the easy grace with which Lady Alicia did the honours of her house, and the supreme excellence of her dinners. For with the true instinct of her calling, her Ladyship had soon discovered that the shortest way to people's intellects is the same as that usually described as the shortest way to iheir hearts, — and that to make them talk supremely well at her table, she must make her menu equally supreme. — A moderately good chef would not suffice to attract those whose vocation it is to barter their birth- right of wit for a mess of pottage. One of her first communications with her Parisian friends after her installation in town, therefore, regarded the transnjission of a French cook, of sufficient merit to collect together under her roof the tribe of British and foreign celebrites, born to perfect the su- bordination of mankind, as that of Levi to minister to the mysteries of the synagogue; — a commission that sufficed to confirm her in their estimation, as worthy to preside over a branch-6«/-mM of their calling — the white slave-trade of modern civilization. 2S8 THE DEBUTANTE. It did not surprise them to perceive, in due distance of time after the start of Monsieur Pointd'ail and his accessories, that the para- graphs extracted from the London papers exhibited weekly, in a list of the company " entertained by Mr. and Lady Alicia Barring- ton, at their splendid mansion in Arlington Street," the names of the leading ambassadors and ambassadresses, — cabinet ministers, privy councillors, law-lords, ex-governors- general, and retired lords-lieutenant after their kind ; — besides presidents of academies, and now and then an artist or literary man of European renown, as a spice of flavour to the Cabinet pudding. — Such guests, and such a cook were as inseparable as cause and effect; eras the dual principle of the Hegelian philosophy. A few of the Morty set,— a few of the White'sians, sufficiently versed in London life to know that a clique of this description is generally the foundation of years, — a cairn constructed by the voluntary contributions of personal respect rather than a Pimlico palace built by contract, — could not forbear inquiring, in one of their moTnva^ juntas, what took lord chancellors and archbishops, French ambassadors, English dukes, and, above all, such squaretoes as Lord and Lady Coylsfield, to dine with such a person as " young Barrington." To which Old Vassall, a man as fully versed as Dodd's Peerage in the intricacies of aristocratic relationships, replied that the Coylsfields were his cousins; while, as regarded the still bigger wigs, a general chorus arose to explain, that they went to dine, not with " young Barrington," not even with his cook,— but with his wife; the woman by whom the casserole trap was baited. "Lady Alicia, I can assure you, is a most superior woman!" observed some one who had tasted the supreme de cailles of Pointd'ail. "A woman of first-rate understanding!" added another, who was ambitious of the same honour, and, knowing that he was talk- ing in a place where what is said is said to be repeated, trusted his defence would be properly reported. " She was in Princess L- ^'s set, this winter in Paris, and passed among them for one of their best talkers." "Indeed? — Why, if praised by them, she must be something better than a good talker, — i.e. a good listener!" — cried Sir John Hildyard; "and, by Jove! I'll go and leave a card in Arlington Street this very afternoon." " It is a great relief to find that Lady Alicia, and not her husband, is ' I' Amphitryon oil Von dineV" — observed Lord Mortayne apart to the last speaker, as soon as the noisier group were out of hearing. ** Before I came to town, the reclames of the Morning Post apprised me that a new Power had arisen among the great dining-houscs of the great metropolis; and, not perceiving any justification for Bar- rington's sudden accession of consequeTice saving the M.P. attached THE DfiRUTANTE. 239 to his name, I was afraid this portentcd a new prodigy in the House of Commons. — One has had such an inundation of prodigies within the last few years ! " — " And the young Roscii are so apt to progress into lumbering hobble-de-hoys," added Sir John, with one of his quiet smiles, ** that, blase with genius a si hon compte, one begins to languish after the common-place. Like the meteors on the stage, the smell of the resin puts one out of conceit with the blaze," " A good table is certainly a safer kind of sublimity than great oratory, as times go !" rejoined Mortayne. " Your man of genius, with a certain number of thousands a-year, is, moreover, always mistrusted. The vulgar conceive that his talents are grown for him, like his prize pine-apples and early peas, by people salaried to understand the business better than himself." " Of course, of course I — Hope never showed himself cleverer than by disowning ' Anastasius,' till it had gained its ground," re- torted Hildyard. "Put forth as the work of Croesus, it would have been read only by his friends; who, behind his back, would have gone about screwing up their mouths, and wishing he had con- sulted them before he ventured upon print." — " But why shouldn't a man purchase a parliamentary, as well as a philanthropic, or any other reputation?'" rejoined Mortayne, with a languid smile. " Advertise in the Times for a good speech of so many minutes on Free Trade, or the Oregon Question, and 1 have no doubt you would secure half-a-dozen chef-d'cenvrc ! " — " Prize essays, — not speeches!" interrupted Hildyard. — " Pliny told us, some ages ago, that you may simulate philosophy, but not eloquence : for which reason, there is more integrity in parliamen- tary renown than any other 1 wot of." " It is a speciesof celebrity that has done much harm in its time," — replied his friend. " There is far too much speechifying for the newspapers going on in the House. — All laurels contain poison, we are told ; but it is strongest in those that spring in a soil which should produce only esculents for the good of the country. All honour to Pointd'ail, therefore, who has relieved us from a Cha- tham, forced into bloom by Lady Alicia Barrington's ambition of notoriety ! " " But is it a house worth diuing at?" inquired Hildyard, who, having noticed the names of Lord and Lady Mortayne among the recent guests in Arlington Street, was desirous to ascertain a fact, important to a man whose days being bespoken in the highest places, cannot afford to waste on upon anything mediocre. — " Lady Alicia is an old friend, — Lady Alicia is my wife's cousin !" replied Morty ; an answer instantly interpreted by Hildyard into ' ' scandal in disguise, " 240 THE DfiBUTANTE. " I understand — I understand!" cried he. "Thanks I — On second thoughts, I will not leave a card," — "Then you will do yourself and the Barringtons wrong," — rejoined Mortayne, more warmly. " Beheve me, I saw nothing to blame in either the hosts or their table. — If I found the thing a bore, the fault was in myself. — But one grows sick of seeing the same eternal efforts recommencing again and again; — people labouring to construct a clique, or a cabal, in eighteen hundred and forty anything, precisely with the same cunning one saw in use in eighteen hundred and twenty, and which our fathers beheld in operation twenty years before." " I am afraid, my dear Morty, you and I have our London a htlle too accurately by heart!" rejoined Sir John, with half a smile and half a sigh. — " I remember reading in Dr. Plot's history of my native county, of an idiot who, having lived many years near a turret clock, and repeated the hours after it, continued after it had been removed to repeat the hours as correctly as before ! — The force of habit renders one a sad automaton." — " And as Pope observes in his Letters," added his companion, with the sigh without the smile, " out of habit and out of Hell, there is no redemption !" " You should not say so, Morty," rejoined Sir John llildyard, ** after taking us by surprise, as you did, by your marriage I —I never expected to miss you from my side in the ranks of the — Bachelors of England, who live at home at ease ; much less, that, having deserted us, you should still complain of the monotony of London life. — You have now seen the shield on its golden side." — " Which does not prevent its being the selfsame shield which I approached on the silver one !" — rejoined Mortayne, more cheer- fully. " From the moment one joins the corps d'armee of society, whether we fight in the light infantry or heavy brigade, the field to be conquered, and the means of conquering it, are the same. What can Lady Alicia Barrington achieve by her endless toil of bospitality, but to do the thing worse in Arlington Street, than she has been seeing itdone all her life at Hertford House?" " Make herself popular. — She probably wants to blind her hand- some husband to her want of attraction." Poor Morty almost winced. Even by an old friend, he could not bear to apprehend that his own raw was discovered. " I suspect the handsome husband exercises but small share among her motives!" said he, — " My dear Alfred, how are you? — From Lumley's of course, by your privy-council airs! — When are we to have the new ballet ?" But though it was easy to change the subject of conversation, THE I)6BUTA1\TE. 261 he was tolerably well aware that people expressed quite as much wonder at his doing so /j7Y/fi in his new establishment towards for- warding the pleasures of the season, as he at the gratuitous exer- tions of Lady Alicia. Morty's old friends had fully intended him to entertain them as freely as they had long been in the habit of entertaining himself. From him they wanted no supreme de caif/es. He might have had a Pointd'ail or a Jane Thompson to preside over his stoves, and their feeling on the subject would have been the same. They wanted to taste his bread and salt. — Bowbridge and Hildyard wished to see him happy, — happy with his pretty wife, — happy under the shadow of his own vine : Lord Alfred and Alan Harkesley, to discover whether a wife and a vine of his own, had converted even Morty into a snob I — But their interest or curiosity remained ungratilied. — Morty who professed "not to give dinners," gave nothing. On that point, Lord and Lady Mortayne were unanimous. The fair Eleanor had no mind to be matched against her more experienced kinswoman ; nor, even if certain of eclipsing her, had she the smallest taste for the eclat to be obtained by the small-talk emitted between ambas- sadress and cabinet-ministers, while eating pdtcs at her dinner- table. For her there was as little charm in the hollow-hearted, hollow-chested, hollow-eyed sons of cipher, with their Orders and disorders, — cordons on their shoulders and bowstrings in their pockets, — as to Lady Alicia, in the slender guardsmen, the Lord Newburys and Henry de Capells, by whom, to the utter annoyance of her husband, Lady Mortayne was surrounded the moment her brilliant figure was seen in a ball-room. Whenever from some opposite box at the Opera he glanced into his own, to ascertain whether the moment were propitious for at- tempting the sea)ice which even the most ultra-fashionable of hus- bands is allowed for half an hour or so, in the course of the even- ing, he saw it filled with a group of boyish faces, like cherubs clustered over a tombstone. — Such companionship he could not but hold unsuitable to Caesar's wife ; and it was a relief to him when- ever Barrington, whose manner was at least cold and correct and whose position in the world positive, made his appearance in the box, to take his almost silent place by the side of Lady Mortayne. — Not because from that moment the lovely face of Elea- nor assumed its most sunshiny appearance ; but that no further inroad need be apprehended upon those formalities of custom which, in certain circles, are more formidable than law or pandect. It was the delicate appreciation of these, — a tact that was inca- pable of sinning against the fitness of things, or hazarding a word or look save in the proper place, — which constituted the good breeding for which Morty had always been so famous. This fasti- 16 242 THE D6BUTANTE. diousness was, in fact, Mortyj and though, at a distance from London life, — ^in the wilds, no matter whether of Westmoreland or Arabia, — better qualities had assumed the ascendancy, no sooner was he once more involved in the ever-moving atmosphere of London, and the restless, noisy, vulgar round of its tumultuous pleasures, than he experienced his former desire to mark his dis- tinction from the herd, by calmer modes of life and a more reserved deportment. When, on passing his drawing-room door one morning, on his way to his dressing-room, and, hearing shouts of laughter proceed from it, in which the voice of Eleanor was intermingled with strange voices of the most vulgar intonation, and a key that would have done honour to a party of country cousins vociferating their wonder at the feats of Monsieur Philippe or Herr Dobler, it was no consolation to be told that his lady's visitors were Buckinghamshire neighbours of Lady Heriford, — " Mrs, and Miss, and Miss Geor- giaua Vicary Arable." From Lady Alicia, such people would never have obtained toleration. — After a few hints on arriving in town concerning the selection of her acquaintance, he had, however, refrained from interference. He made allowance for the tastes of her age. He did not want her to think him a bore. — After all, Lord Newbury, Lord Henry, and the rest of the cherubim, were of her own years, and, in point of connexion, irreproachable. It was his own fault if he had selected a partner from a generation which was the posterity of his con- temporaries. — It was his own fault for having lived before his time^ and for pretending to live after it. — At all events, he was careful not to expose the discrepancies of his menatje to the microscopic eyes of his intimates. — Lord Alfred and Harkesley should not carry good stories to the Clubs of the naivetes of the country-miss who presided over the cold cutlets and scorched turkey-poults of " poor Morty." Nor did he choose to see some raw boy like Newbury, occupying by her side at table the place of his urbane and intelligent friend Hildyard. To Eleanor, this was a relief. — She had rather apprehended a system of eternal dinner-giving to the class of middle-aged gentle- men whoso conversation is chiefly prefaced by " I remember," or *' 1 recollect."- — At Morlayne Manor, she had supped full of remi- niscences, and was far better pleased to shine in ball-rooms, or trdner in her Opera box, than preside over the stateliest entertain- ment ever planned and performed, (for if funerals be " performed" why not state dinners?) by the ambitious lady of Arlington Street. Not having yet attained the age of discovering to how much greater advantage a woman is seen in her own house than in that of any other person, she was glad to dispense with the corvee of enter- taining people as tedious to her, as Old Vassal! to her lord. — THE DEBUTANTE. Ifiii The danger of all (his was, that the sameness of the home tcte- a-teto might impart too great a charm to the company of such as, Hke Charles Barrington, were at the pains to make themselves agreeable elsewhere. So long a time had not elapsed since the pre- ceding season, but he had still perfect, by heart, the whims and predilections of the lovely debutante of Heriford House. He knew, though Morty did nol , what operas she preferred, — whose pictures attracted her to linger near them at the Exhibition, — the favourite passages of h(;r favourite writers, — the pet shops she frequented, —the promenades she liked best, — and, above all, the negative or positive attraction of the various members of her set. — No fear of his placing her at table near a bore.— No fear oHiis omitting to inform hei' that one of her affidees was come to town. — If Meschech Bernardo inquired, on entering the French play, whether Lady Mor^ tayne were there, not the slightest chance of learning from him the number of her box ! — With every body, indeed^ Barrington was becoming a popular man. All -that had been unrecommendatory in his manners the preceding season, (the result of a false position and uncertain pro- spects,) was giving place to a deportment as pleasing as his person had always been handsome. Barrington was invariably cited among the three best-looking men in London; and, as many years the junior of the Horatian and Cecilian triumvirate Avith whom the voice of society did him the honour to conjoin him, he had deci- dedly the best of it. When the lovely Lady Mortayne was seen leaning upon his arm on her sortie from some place of public amu- sement, or riding by his side, in the Park, on her beautiful barb , the unsophisticated crowd, mistaking them for man and wife, wa^ sure to proclain them a charming couple. " God bless ye, my Lord and my Lady !" was the cry of one of the Irish linkmen at the door of Lady Bowbridge's ball; — " sure it's an iligant sight to see such as yees logither !" — It was, at all events, a pleasure they often afforded. No two people of the set they lived in, fell so readily to each other's share. — Habit had probably some influence in their approximation. They came instinctively together, at the close of a/eVe, as was their wont the preceding year; and it was as mu(^h pleasanter for Bar- rington to meet, on such occasions, the sunny face that always smiled upon him, than the one whose dark eyebrows and marked features were habitually contracted by dread lest he should have been infringing les convenances, or talking nonsense to a magnifico, (much in the habit of talking leading-articles,) to whom she had iDcen forced to present him, — as to Eleanor to be accosted by oile who exclaimed, " I will not ask whether you are tired, — your looks answer for you ! — You feel, as I do, that it would be well to have so delightful a ball begin over again!" — instead of " The carriage 2Zl4 THE DfiBUTANTE. has been here these three hours I — Are you aware that it is four o'clock?" — On this latter point, indeed, it was so difficult to impress Lady Mortayne, and Morty was one to whom it was so impossible to make a bugbear of his coachman, or set up his carriage-horses as personages to be lespected, (after the custom of most ball-going husban Is of a certain age,) that he accepted the less offensive al- ternative of stealing off as soon as night became at odds with morn, and leaving her to settle the question. — While surveying London, as a remote evil, from his Westmore- land fireside, a dancing Lady Mortayne had appeared an impos- sible thingi His sylph-like bride was of a dancing age, indeed, — but she had embraced another destiny. She, who had chosen to be the wife of a Morty, must have known that Morty's wife was not to be confounded with the throng, or to act upon general prin- ciples. — Morty's wife was specific. — Morty's wife, like Falkland's, must not condescend to " run the gauntlet through a string of puppies." There was no need to make an enactment on the subject. — He was not going to present himself to the eyes of the lovely spirit that had alighted beside his household hearth, in the guise of a tutor. — She had, of course, tact enough to discern such things, unprompted. At all events, there was no immediate occasion to convert himself into a Mentor ; for at that epoch, he little contem- plated a season in town. But by the time a paroxysm oi ennui determined them, as soon as the leaves were again on the trees, to hasten back to London, — dear London, — the London so reviled and so beloved, — it was too late! — Lady Mortayne had taken the initiative by speaking of dancing, as of breathing or eating her breakfast, — as a matter of course. After which, how was Morty to find courage to say, " Surely you do not mean to dance? — The wife of a man oimij age is out of place among dancers I" — No ! decidedly he could not fling the first stone at himself by the words " a man of T/zyage." Arrived in London, however, Eleanor showed no inclination to dance. The marked position assumed in society by Lady Ahcia Barrington inspired her with a higher order of ambition : — not, indeed, that of contending with the influential lady either as a dinner- giver or an intrigante; but to hold her own in Morty's set, — to obtain her allotment as Lady Mortayne, on the same line with the Duchess of Nantwich, Lady Bowbridge, Lady Harkesley, and the rest of the clique; — a pretension which necessarily kept her aloof from the callow twitterers of the ball-room. But having made the attempt, her pride revolted against the mere toleration extended to her. — To those with whom she was desirous THE DfiBUTANTE. 245 of identifying herself, Morty had so completely belonged, that they could not refrain from an air of patronage towards his pretty little wife, as if she, too, were their property; — regarding her with the same indulgent notice she bestowed on her Italian grey- hound. As much dc trop among persons whose antecedents were totally unknown to her, (though as well known to each other as if they formed part of the same family,) as Barrington among the protoco- lists with blue ribands with whom his wife would fain have com- pelled him to consort, no wonder that, before the close of the month of June, she should be cited by the newspapers as among the belles valseuses at the ball of the French ambassadress. An invitation to dance from a royal partner had, in the first instance, made refusal impossible. But, either because aware of the admiration she excited by resuming her place in the ball-room, or because Lord Mortayne was too proud to express his annoyance at seeing her confounded in the giddy crowd of the boys and girls of the day, she took his silence for approbation. From that night, not a fete at which Lady Mortayne, and her favourite partner of the preceding year, were not seen engaged together in what the Morning Post, with elegant originality, designates " the mazy round I" — CHAPTER XXVIIL A sort of intellectual mule, Man's stubborn mind in woman's shape; — Too hard to love, — too soft to rule, — An owl engrafted on an ape. To what she calls the realm of mind She leaves that throne, her sex, to crawl ; The ceslus and the charm resign'd,— A public gaping-show to all. BuLWEii's Translation of ScniLLER. The progress of the season achieved for Lady Alicia Barrington, what the cross ugly girl, reclining in a corner of Lady Hcriford's family coach the year before, had certainly never ventured to con- template, — a definite position in the highest circle of London society. Every one was ambitious of being on the visiting list of a person disposed to take so active a part in the pleasures of life ; and when, in the month of July, a period of the season when fine people have progressed into slill finer, and the edge of the exterminating sword of exclusion is at its keenest, her Ladyship's admirable dinner- parlies were crowned with a select concert, consisting, by way of attraction, of the elite of the Italian opera, and by way of audience. 246 THE DfcBUT ANTE. pf the handful of foreign royalties which, thanks to steam, arrive in England every spring by a migration as regular as that of the svi^allows, — all the foreign ministers and their females, and a couple of hundred persons of the highest rank or personal consi- deration, — Mrs. Vicary Arable and Lady Ironsides, who had been careful to send cards to the bride on her return from Paris, were forced mutually to admit that there was no use in troubling their heads further about Lady Alicia Barrington,— that " it was plain she fancied herself a very great lady and did not mean to be civil." The damsels in pink satin and lilac gauze, who had laboured so hard at Greensells to recommend themselves to the graciousnees of the Ladies de Capell, suggested, indeed, to mamma that it was all her own fault ;— that they had heard her describe the Bar- rington family to Lady AUcia's brother, Lord Clandon, as " people of whom she knew nothing." — But Lady Ironsides assured them in return that this could have had no share in excluding them from Lady Alicia's charming concert, inasmuch as she had reason to know that Lord Clandon never entered his sister's house. As their county member, he was not able, even if inclined, to shake off in London the lady of the Buckinghamshire baronet, with the great park and great estate, whom it behoved him to entertain in the country ; — and he was consequently forced to undergo, with ap- parent cheerfulness, their fussy state dinners in Cavendish Square. " Even Lord Clandon, " added Lady Ironsides, " is not half fashionable enough for Lady Alicia." The woman who was tine enough to cut her relations, and too fine to be seen in the usual places of public resort, passed, of course, with the vulgar for something exquisitely refined; and by the earnestness with which her acquaintance was sought by those usually courted for their notice, she had reason to congratulate herself on having accomplished her aim. It was with the utmost reliance on herself and her consequence, therefore, that when, about the middle of July, the Dowager Lady Kilsythe passed through town on her annual expedition to the Isle of Wight, Lady Alicia displayed the house and establishment of which she was so |)roud, to grandmamma and her sister Sophia, who, in the tranquil contentment of Warleigh, appeared to have regained all her happier impulses of youth and health. " You have indeed a charming house, Alice!" said her sister, with warm approval, as they stood gazing from the drawing-room window across the animated scene of the Green Park, towards the far loss favourably situated palace of their sovereign. " Somewhat more cheerful, is it not, than the horrible old courtyard of Heriford House, which looks like the preau of a prison?" — THE DfiBUTANTE. 247 " Did you fit it up, yourself, my dear?" inquired grandmamma, glancing contemptuously al the curtains of woollen damask. " Myself, grandmamma?— Surely you give me credit for better taste ! — No ! We took it as we found it. It was not worth while to make much alteration as we have it only for three years." — " Three years V " Impossible to obtain a longer term. Lord Clanmorley, to whom it belongs, will be of age by that time, and intends to reside in it himself." " After all, then, it is a ready-furnished house, hired of a house- agent! — whereas, my dear Alice, what you graciously call a prison, is a family mansion, — a freehold, —the house built by your grand- father, and intended to last the lime of his great-grand-children's great-grand-children. That is what / call a charming house; — where the expenses and improvements you indulge in are not made for the benefit of strangers!" ♦' You forget, grandmamma, that /am not married to a marquis of Heriford !" argued Lady Alicia. " You are married to a man who has attained, within a thousand a-year, all the fortune he pretends to," rejoined Lady Kilsythe ; — *' and it would be consequently better policy to purchase outright a residence proportioned to it, and establish yourself for the re- mainder of your days." " I am not certain that such a purchase might be convenient to Mr. Barrington," answered Lady Alicia, a little out of the habit of being taken to task. " Not convenient? When he has just come into a princely for- tune,— a fortune enabling him to decline further assistance from my hands, — (a spirited and honourable feeling, by-the-bye, for which I give him ample credit.) With the prospect of a family before you, you should persuade him, my dear, to provide you with a permanent abode." " Entre nous,—\ have some reason to think," rejoined Lady Alicia, in a lower key, " that Mr. Barrington's fortune consist prin- cipally in an annuity, — a life income" — "You h^ye'some reason to think !''' retorted the dowager, hastily taking off the spectacles through which she had been con- templating the rising shrubberies of the Green Park, and seating herself magisterially in an arm-chair which had been placed for her near the window by Lady Sophia. " Are things come to such a pass between you after six months' marriage, my dear, that you are admitted only so far into your husband's confidence as to have ' some reason to think ' about the terms of his uncle's will?" " Most men are reserved about money matters, even with their own family," replied Lady Alicia, with increasing indignation at being thus catechized. — " It is not every woman who obtains in 248 THE DfiBUTANTE. her menage the overweening influence enjoyed by my mother. And if lo be purchased only by marriage witli a man thirty years older than oneself, and at the cost of a life of attorney-work such as I have seen undergone by mamma, I am quite content to leave to Mr. Barrington the undisturbed, enjoyment of his parchments and banker's book! " — '■'■ It strikes me, however, my dear Alice, that if the newspapers tell truth," observed grandmamma, "your comings and goings for the last three months (m order to accomplish the great labour of nothing), have taxed your time nearly as much as if you had been at the pains of taking a share in your family concerns. A journey to Doctors Commons, and a shilling, would have put you in pos- session of the contents of the will, if your influence over your hus- band be insufficient to obtain them in a more suitable manner." "But, surely, dearest grandmamma," interposed Lady Sophia, her cheeks suffused with a rising colour, "you would not have my sister obtain by underhand means the information her husband thinks proper to withhold?" — " I would not recommend such measures to yon, my dear; and to you, Sophy, they would never have been necessary. But Alicia affects the strong woman — the woman to whom all arms are avail- able in self-defence; — and among these, I do not consider the faci- lities afforded by one of our national institutions the most ob- jectionable." "I am content to take my fortunes as they reach me, without troubling myself about their origin, just as I do not think it neces- sary to pull up yonder beautiful rose-tree to examine the form of its roots," said Lady Alicia, with a smile. "We have five thousand a-year; we are to inherit anoLher thousand at the death of Mr. Bar- rington's parents ; and, having no country place to keep up, such an income enables us to live handsomely in town." "To entertain your friends brilliantly during the season, and live upon them the rest of the year I— Is not that it?" was the cool commentary of the dowager. "The system is not a new one among people having no seat of their own." "To visit my husband's family, or mine, at their country resid- ence, my dear madam," replied her granddaughter, with some hauteur, "can scarcely be termed living on one's friends !" " Have you ever thought of inviting your father and mother-in- law to come and stay with you here ?" demanded the matter-of-fact dowager. " Mr. Barrington is a man who detests Londnn," replied her granddaughter. "But with respect to visiting him, he gave me a general invitation to Easton, at the time of my marriage." — " By which you have shown wonderful alacrity to profit I" — " Dear grandmamma I — Alice will fancy you are displeased with THE DEBUTANTE. 2^9 her!" interposed Lady Sophia, perceiving from certain inflations of the nostril, familiar of old to Lady Alicia's sisters, that the chafings of her temper were becoming greater than were likely to be controlled by the authority of a grandmother of whom she was now independent. "INo — not displeas(?d, my dear. — She has acted precisely as 1 expected. — I have no right to be displeased." "I can scarcely imagine any just cause for displeasure," said Lady Alicia with some dignity, " in my having surrounded myself with the best society in London and given offence to no one." "The best company, my dear, is the most suitable .'" replied the dowager, undismayed by the grandeur of her airs. " I quite agree with the public (whose opinion, strange to say, reaches even as far as Warleigh I) that you were not called upon, as the wife of a squire, with (according to your own account) a life income of five thousand a-year, to entertain the same personages whom your fa- ther, as the second Marquis in the kingdom, was bound to receive at his table." " I rather think," observed Lady Alicia, in a tone of exultation, which not even the strictures of the dowager had power to repress; ' ' I rather think that a considerable number of my guests are known only by name at Heriford House. " " I believe you, my dear, I believe you, — and so much the worse! — What in the world is there, Alicia, in your condition or talents, to place you on a level with the cabinet-ministers and ambassadors you have been gathering together, by hook or by crook, at your table? You are a young woman of moderate under- standing, or you would not have acted with so much precipitation, as to allow your ambition of forming a salon politique to be found out, so as to authorize those who know that Rome was not built in a day, to laugh at you in their sleeve, as they did at Aguado the speculator, for fancying he could improvisate a gallery of the old masters !" — "The sneers of all London would do nothing to disprove the fact that my house is frequented by the leading men of the day," per- sisted Lady Alicia, not a little nettled. — "Not frequented, — do not mistake yourself, my dear!" perse- vered grandmamma, with her usual provoking firmness. "When you ask them to dinner, — they dine with you — to meet each other at a table where they are sure of good cheer. They do not, and never ivill, come to you gratuitously, and again and again,— as they used to Princess L and Lady H., whose houses were ' fre- quented,' — because they were those of an ambassador and cabinet- minister, or leader of the Opposition. In their hands was power. Their talking tended to action. But the utmost your endeavours will accomplish is a sterile copy, the Dalmatic robe of empire, 860 THE DfiBUTANTE. Stuffed with gtraw! Sorry work, my dear Alicia, for a grown-^up baby of your age, to be playing at make-believe diplomacy !" To divert the attention of her angry sister, Lady Sophia began to question her about their family interests. — " Blanche and Mary are looking well, and seem in excellent spirits," said she. — "Ay, ay! Because by the removal of two elder sisters," inter- rupted grandmamma, drily, *' they have tontined to the head of the house. But for your marriage, Alice, and Sophy's consenting to keep the old woman company, they might have waited for the next ten years for any thing better than a back seat in their mother's carriage or Opera box ! " — "I hear nothing of Sir Wolseley Maitland, this year?" said Sophia, interrogatively, and, as if in relation to her sister Marry. " Heis in Ireland." '* On a visit to his estates, instead of wasting the season in London ? Then there may be good in him after all." " I am sorry to clip the wings of your Quixostism," said Lady Alicia, still half sullen from the lesson she had received. " Sir Wol- seley is simply gone salmon-fishing." " I cannot say he was ever a great favourite of mine," added her sister; " but Mary seemed to like him, and mamma thought it an advantageous match." " At present, Mary scarcely knows what she likes," replied Lady AUcia, "except flirting and folly. I am sorry to say the intimacy with Harry Rubric is greater than ever." " Rubric? — A son ofLordGreatithe's?" inquired grandmamma; ^' the man with that fine preferment at his disposal?" " Yes, but unluckily his family is as large as his patronage," replied Lady Alicia. ' ' Poor Mary fancies that, because Lord Greatithe 6an give livings, instead of estates, to his sons, they are sure of rising to be dignitaries in the church, and dreams of nothing but lawn- sleeves. Yesterday, she asked me, seriously, how many of the bishops had palaces in London, and whether it would be thought odd for a bishop's wife to dance!" " Mary was always a giddy, prating girl!" said Lady Kilsythe, with an air of disgust, apparently conceiving it impossible such a question could have been asked in earnest. " I am glad she did not marry young Maitland ! — His was not the character to improve her. Bad blood those Maitland; — the men, boors, — and of the women, the less said the better!" — " 1 assure you, dear grandmamma, the world finds much that is agreeable to say of Lady Mortayne," observed Lady Alicia, — glad of an excuse to disagree with the dowager, though on a point where their opinions coincided. THE DfiBUTANTE, 251 " I am glad to hear it, my dear. It will require a great deal of merit on her own and her brother's part, to efface the memory of their mother, — one of the worst women that ever breathed!" Lady Sophia, who had seldom heard grandmamma thus acrimo- nious, could not forbear whispering — " We must not, however, forget that she is a relation." " That we have never forgotten it, Sophy, is sufficiently proved by the kindness of your mother, in introducing her daughter to the world," replied Lady Kilsythe, sternly. " For it was a sacrifice, 1 can assure you." " Poor Eleanor's situation was so friendless!" pleaded Lady Sophia— "left solely to the mercy of that selfish, thoughtless brother ! " " Ay, poor thing,— deplorable enough !" rejoined the dowager; — " her father dead, and her mother worse than dead!" — " Is Lady Maitland, then, still alive?" demanded Lady Sophia, with some interest. " Do not call her Lady Maitland, my dear.— She was divorced twenty years ago !" " Yes, — 1 am aware of that. — But not knowing what name she has since assumed — " " She was divorced, 1 think, for running away with Colonel Grimston, of the Guards?" said Lady Alicia who piqued herself on knowing everything about everybody ; — " that grey-headed Gene- ral Grimston whom one sees at the Ancient Concert." " Sir Robert Grimston. — But he, you know, my dear Alice, is married to one of the sisters of Sir Alan Harkesley," observed Sophia. " Colonel Grimston's connexion with our wretched relative was a very momentary affair," said Lady Kilsythe; — " only sufficient to deprive him of public respect and ten thousand pounds, and to secure her being divorced by Sir John. But it is both impiudent and repugnant to inquire into the history of such people! — The lesson afforded is often dearly bought; for I scarcely ever knew a woman who renounced her place in society, that did not prove herself incapable of understanding its value, by falling fifty fathoms lower than her original fall : — as in some noble struc- ture, when a single column gives way, the whole edifice is in danger." " Lady Maitland, then, has disgraced herself since her divorce?" demanded Lady Alicia, to whom the modern instances of grand- mamma were less insupportable than her wise saws. " I requested you before, my dear Alicia, not to describe her by the name of Lady Maitland ! She has been known for some years by the name of Comtesse de St. Chamond." 252 THE DfiBUTANTE. •' Comtesse de St. Chamond?" reiterated Lady Alicia, with an air of the most profound amazement.— " Perhaps you came across her during your visit to Paris?" — rejoined old Lady Kilsythe. — " But no, it is scarcely possible! — For when, ten years ago, at the request of one of her sisters who was then living, your mother commissioned the Comte de Choiseul (who, when attached to the French Embassy, used frequently to be staying at Greensells.j to make inquiries, he was forced to apprize us that after taking up her residence abroad, she had fallen into the worst hands and the lowest depths of infamy. After all we heard, it would have been a relief had further tidings satisfied us that she was no more." " The Comtesse de St. Chamond ! " was all that Lady Alicia still articulated. But it was evidently a mechanical ejaculation, con- nected with some inward struggle of emotion. " And is it likely that poor Lady Mortayne should be aware of these grievous particulars?" inquired Lady Sophia, with an air of genuine sympathy. " I rather think not. — My daughter exacted of the Count to keep secret the result of his inquiries ; and it is generally believed among her former friends that this unfortunate woman is no more. Sir John Maitland, who, to his dying day, retained the bitterest spirit of animosity against one who had dishonoured himself and his children, and never spared them the shame of hearing her name coupled with the most fearful epithets, dwelt only on her delin- quencies with reference to Colonel Grimston; and, if aware of all she had become, would not, I suspect, have confined his invectives within such narrow bounds." — " And you are quite cerlain,dear grandmamma," persisted Lady Alicia, " that the mother of Eleanor and Sir Wolseley now goes by the name of Comtesse de St. Chamond?" " Quite certain. But in what way does it interest you, my dear, since it appears certain that Sir Wolseley has no thoughts of pro- posing to your sister Mary?" — " I was only trying to find excuses in such parentage for the levity of Lady Mortayne's character," replied Lady Alicia, en- deavouring to look unconcerned. "But surely Eleanor is steadied, now? "inquired Sophia, becom- ing more interested in the subject of conversation. " What do you mean by steadied noiv ? " reiterated her sister. — " It is only recently that opportunities for levity have beon afforded her. — Any silly flirtation in which she indulged last season, arose from girlishness, — from lightness of heari. But to llirt as the wife of Lord Morlayne, — of a nran so much oldei- than herself, — lays her opt'n, of course, to the suspicions and animadversions of the world." THE DfiBUTANTE. 253 "And does she flirt, as the wile of Morlayne '" again inquired Sophia, with a face of the utmost concern. " May, my dear Sophy, if you can find nothing better to discuss with your sister than the scandals of the season," grandmamma was beginning in her turn — " Do not be afraid!" — interrupted Lady Alicia, surmising the cause of her uneasiness. " In this house, the name of Lady Mor- tayne is sacred. The utmost I have to say about her is to thank Heaven that Clandon resisted our foolish importunities that he would make her his wife. For worlds, would I not have had her for a sister-in-law I " — " I am beginning to think you are never likely to have a sister- in-law!" — cried grandmamma, fractiously, rising from her arm- chair with the deliberateness of her age, and accepting the offered arm of Lady Sophia, to make the best of her way to her carriage. " Your mother tells me that her son Henry never leaves the side of that seed of thistledown, (and therefore, perhaps, the fitter food for him !) — Lady Barbara Bernardo ; while as to Clandon, i find he has never shown his face in society this season ! " " I can, at least, certify that he never comes here V replied Lady Alicia : — "but that \ attribute to the shyness he perhaps feels towards my husband. He may fancy that Mr. Barrington is inclined to take in ill part his conduct towards his cousin." " Whose conduct? — Glandon's?" — " ]\o one can deny that, for so shy and reserved a man, my brother flirted outrageously with Miss Brenton ! And though, at the time, he meant, of course, nothing but to render his stay at a place so dull as Greensells less insupportable, as things have turned out, she would not have been so bad a match for him after all." The tapping of the dowager's high-heeled shoes, as she was making towards the door, ceased suddenly, as she stopped short and faced about to Lady Alicia, to see if she were speaking in earnest : and there was certainly no appearance of her ladyship's observations being ironical. " I never thought you much of a wiseacre, my dear Alice!" — said the old lady, peering into her face, and patting her on the arm with the long bamboo handle of the parasol that served her for a walking-stick. " But I did not fancy that your brother had so little confidence in you as to leave you thus completely at the bottom of the basket ! — Miss Barrington refused him ages ago " " Refused him? — Refused ClandonV — " ' Refused,' (you would say, if you dare,) ' a marquis-expectant, of eleven descents ! ' " " She was afraid, perhaps, that he was attracted by her fine fortune ! " — said Lady Alicia, thinking aloud. 25ft THE DfeBUTANTE. "No, no, Riy dear ; — you must fish out some other motive !" — said the old lady. ** The proposal was made and declined," added Lady Sophia, " while Miss Brenton was still the humble Cinderella of Easton Hoo." " FoMwere his confidant, then, Sophy?" — cried Lady Alicia, in a resentful tone. "The confidant only of his wretchedness, at the moment of his disappointment. Had he consulted me beforehand, I should scarcely have advised his risking the proposal ; — so certain was I that it would be useless." "And why, pray?" — " One cannot always assign a reason for one's convictions. But, when Clandon arrived one day, unexpectedly, at Warleigh, (while you were abroad,) and told me he was come to acquaint me with the bitterest mortification of his life, I answered at once, — 'Spare yourself the grief of repeating it : I know all ! You want to marry Mrs. Harrington's pretty niece, and cannot obtain her consent.' " "And how came you to surmise it? If I remember, you were not of that famous party to Easton Hoo, which was predestined to decide so many destinies ?" "1 was one of a still more famous party at Heriford Castle!" replied Lady Sophia, with a smile; "and, not having quite so many calls on my attention as yourself and Eleanor, was at leisure to perceive how thoroughly my brother was engrossed by his pretty Maria. And Clandon, you know, is a man to be in love but once— and for ever!" — Lady Kilsythe, who had been waiting patiently in the lobby at the head of the stairs, to afford the sisters an opportunity for a few last words, now hobbled back again, to claim the arm of Lady Sophia. "Good bye, my dear Alice!" was her far from affectionate fare- Well to the lofty lady of the house. " Make haste and put all your political crotchets out of your head, and try to be a reasonable creature. Leave them to poor Blanche, who, being still in hef teens, knows no better, and had set her heart, it seems, on mar- rying one of the honourable young penmenders and despatch- spoilers of the nation. Depend upon it, child, this is no moment in the history of the country for a pack of foolish women to mend matters by whispering in the ear of a foreign plenipo or two ; or exchanging nonsensical notes with some ultramontane Majesty on his travels. — Better slick to your distaff, my dear, — better stick to your distaff ! — The finest translation of Ne sutor ultra crepidam is * No woman beyond her worsted work !' " — THE DtBUTANfi. 255 CHAPTER XXIX. Une dame de grand cceur qui couve uiie vindication est fort k craindre. — BraNtome. Eagerly did Lady Alicia long to find herself once more in pre- sence of her husband. She had mysteries to unfathom almost beyond the controlment of her powers of discretion ; and though no longer on terms with him to push her interrogatories on points which he seemed inclined to reserve, she flattered herself that, from his replies to casual observations, her own perspicuity might enable her to extract the information she was desirous to obtain. Was he, in the first place, aware of the slight that had been offered to Lord Clandon by his cousin? — The self-command with which he had submitted to her scornful apostrophe at Paris, while possessing the means of silencing her in a moment by the announ- cement of his accession of fortune, prepared her to suspect that, though not a syllable had escaped his lips in reply to her frequent allusions to " Miss Harrington's prudence in fixing her residence at once at Hexholm, where she was a person of consequence, in preference to hazardingthe eclipse, — the insignificance, — the obscu- rity, — certain to extinguish in London a person destitute of con- nexion with the great world," he had been enjoying, all the time. With concentrated malice, the consciousness that, by this obscure and insignificant kinswoman, the heir of all the Herifords had been dismissed as a suitor beneath her notice I — But this was not all. Lady Alicia's family affection and family pride were so secondary to her self-estimation, that she was pre- pared to forgive an insult off'ered to her brother, far sooner than the merest slight levelled at herself, A suspicion had crossed her mind, that, between Eleanor and her husband, she was made a dupe ; and, though conscious that she had no great claim on Charles's affection, she was determined to exact, to the last and utmost, the personal respect which every wife, whose conduct is irreproachable, has a right to claim in her menage. She had ascertained without much difficulty that the pink-note, the original cause of her domestic dissensions, — was from a ma- damedeSt. Chamond. On thatpoint, indeed, her husband affected no mystery. In despatching an answer, he had said to the servant, almost within her hearing and as if braving her, " Give this to the servant of the Comtesse de St. Chamond, who is to call for an answer to the letter left here this morning." Concluding him to be too well-bred, if not too well-principled, to rtiake a display of correspondence with a woman of disreputable 256 THE DEBUTANTE. character, Lady Alicia had hastened to inquire of one of ihe legions of diplomatic //o;w attached to her circle, — "it^/io was theComlesse de St. Chamond?" — making the inquiry with the same unmyste- rious nonchalance that would have dictated a similar question concerning a Montmorency or a Grammont. •' Who has dared to mention the name of such a person in your Ladyship's presence?" — was the indignant reply. '■^ Est-ce qu'on parlc. de ces especes-la devant unefemme comme ilfaut ? " Whereupon, heartily ashamed of having committed herself, Lady Alicia was glad to drop the subject, and nurse in the secrecy of her heart her wrath against a husband who had so little consideration for his own respectability and hers. But she was now beginning to suspect that in this correspondence, Bairington had only been the means of communication between the mother and daughter. — Eleanor, who in her girlhood had always spoken of her mother as no more, had perhaps been all this time entertaining with the infamous woman a secret correspondence. — Those beautiful French dresses and flowers by which Miss Maitland had formerly excited the envy of the Ladies de Capell, had doubtless been despatched regularly to her from Paris, by the Comlesse de St. diamond! But in making the projected attempt, Lady Alicia was forced to admit that her pupil had piofited only too apty by her lessons. — Not the shrewdest proprietor of the most petrified face among her diplomatic associates, could have more thoroughly distanced her curiosity than Mr. Barrington, by the frigid reserve into which he retreated against her attack. — The moment she pronounced the name of St. Chamond, he seemed to sink into an icehouse. — Inexpressibly vexed, — for his hasty retreat from the room ren- dered it impossible to persist in her interrogatory, — Lady Alicia determined to renew it on some early occasion ; and if he again affected solemn airs of discretion, to tax him in plain terms with the intimacy he had formed at Paris with the worthless mother of Sir Wolseley Maitland. For in Lady Alicia's mind, had long been rising one of those progressive tempests so far more deadly in their results than the angry gust of an hour, soon excited and soon tranquillized. — Though the wretched position in which she stood with regard to her hus- band, was in a great measure of her own creation, it was not the less hard to be endured. — Every one might see, — every one saw, — that she was an object of perfect indifference to Mr. Barrington. But this was not the worst. Every one might see, — and every one saw, — that he lived only in the presence of her fair cousin ; that, when sunned in the smiles of Lady Morlayne, he was no longer to be identified with the dispirited man who moped in her drawing-room ; or whose surly silence was (she trusted} interpreted into indispc- THE DfinUTANTE. 257 sition by the illustrious guests whom he pever so much as conde- scended to lift up his voice for the purpose of entertaining. — Against tliis humiliation, the blood of the dc CapcUs rebelled. In the course of the three short months which constituted her expe- rience of domestic conlidence, — a period which, improved upon by a wise and amiable woman, might have been made to last for life, — Charles had vented without scruple his accusations against the coquetry of Eleanor Maitland's character and the shallowness of her heart. But he spoke of her with a degree of bitterness that might have induced a less self-occupied woman than Lady Alicia to apprehend a relapse — He spoke from pique, and not conviction. — Even had he spoken from conviction, was he not of an age when all the unfavourable prepossessions in the world disappear, like snow in the sunshine, before the smiles of a face so supereminently lovely as that of Lady Mortaynel — Lady Alicia had no personal experience in that supreme power of beauty which renders the resolves of rational and reasoning man subsidiary to the glance of an expressive eye, — to the symme- try of a beautiful hand. Accustomed to assign the preponderating influence to the charm of what Leonora di Galigai has rendered proverbial, — " the power of a strong mind over a weak one," — she had yet to learn that even the stongest combinations of the stongest minds may be defeated by the blandishments of a fool with a fair face. — On this point, however, she was beginning to be enlightened. She saw her Eleusinian salon, in all its glory of foreign and native illustration, deserted by her husband, even at the risk of public reprobation, for the pleasure of sitting silent beside Lady Mortayne in her Opera-box; or of figuring with her in the ctourdismnt whirl of a valse, at some fashionable ball! — If Eleanor (finding Lord Mortayne engaged,— at Tattersall's — the Tennis-court,— the House of Lords, or any other of the resorts to which a man of his condition occasionally owes himself, ) applied to Mr. Harrington to become her escort to some exhibition of frescoes, or flower-show, or riding-party, — an Order in Council would not have prevented him from being in attendance! — All this weighed sorely upon the heart of one, who had but to look at her own face in the glass, to read the apology which the world was assigning for his conduct. — At that moment, more especially. For it was not, because, as she quitted home for the continent immediately on her marriage, her beautiful Berengaria, (so prised by Sir Wolscley Maitland at Easlon Hoo,) had fallen to the share of Lady Mary, that she was debarred from joining their equestrian expeditions.— Early in the autumn she had the prospect of becoming a mother, (an event so touching to the heart of even the least tenderly affectioned woman!) and she was consequently M 258 THE DfiBUTANTE. compelled to privations, for which no compensation was felt to be her due by the resentful husband whom she had so thoroughly estranged. — Unaware of her situation at the moment of that bitter dissension which, only three months alter their marriage, had alienated the heart of her husband at once and for ever, her wounded pride ren- dered it difficult to communicate the fact to one who would pro- bably regard it as a mere attempt to reconcile herself with one in whom she so unexpectedly beheld a favourite of fortune — Not an allusion, therefore, had slie made to the subject, — however much indisposed, — however fatigued by travelling or exertions in her own house, — till nature rendered her situation unconccalable; when, in answer to his expression of a desire to spend the autumn in a foreign tour, she observed that he could not do better, — but that " she must remain in England, — since, in September, she expected to be confined." Whether the savage rejoinder of " What a bore!" — that escaped the lips of her husband, were expressly intended to punish the haughty obduracy with which she had persisted in concealing the fact, or whether the genuine expression of his selfish calculations, the heartache of Lady Alicia was the same. From physical influences she was now often sad, — often desponding; and even her ambi- tious spirit was forced to admit that there are moments in human life when human sympathy becomes indis}»ensable ; and that the homage of all the Stars and Garters, — Toison d'or and Saint-Esprit in the world, was poor requital for the want of atfectionate female companionship; — the younger sisters cooled towards her by her scornful disposition, and the indifference to their interests she had evinced since her marriage, — and the fair kmswoman converted into an enemy by treachery and fraud. — It was in a mental paroxysm produced by involuntary recognition of these disagreeable truths, (as she was driving along Park Lane, nearly at the close of the season, on her way home to Arlington Street after calling at the French Embassy, where the intimation of the departure for Paris of the Ambassadress created another gap in the social circle from which the gems were gradually dropping away,) that a feeling of jealousy against Lady Mortayne, almost amounting to frenzy, took possession of her soul. Feverish and irritable from the oppression of the weather, she had proposed that morning to her husband, (when he visited her drawing-room previous to repairing to his club, to examine the programme of their engagements for the day,) to walk with her in the Botanic Garden in the Regent's l*aik ; a promenade so little within reach of fashionable inquisition, as to secure him against being quizzed by her brother Henry or Lord iNewbury, concerning the humdrum nature of his tete-a-tete. THE DfiBUTANTE. 259 But to her mortification, — a little, too, to her surprise, (for, since his attentions to Lady Mortayne had exposed thenri both to the danger of public disapproval, he had been scrupulously courleous towards his wife, as though to deprecate her joining the ranks of the opposition, ) he excused himself from the walk. *' Some other day, he should be very happy. — But he had an en- gagement from five till eight, thai, rendered it impossible." Involuntarily, his wife glanced from the window across the Park, — overhung at that mon)ent by the sort of oppressive haze which, in July, often renders the atmosphere of London as sultry as that of a blast-furnace, — as though to remind him of her peculiar occasion for the refreshment of the lighter climate of Northern London. But the vapours of Pimlico might have risen around them, black and stifling as from a lime-kiln, and it would have made no differ- ence. — Having announced an engagement and taken up his hat, a London man considers himself entitled to stand his ground against any commotion, — his wife, or an earthquake. Reared in a numerous family, Lady Alicia was little in the habit of attempting any kind of expedition alone. — To her, such an exertion appeared as impossible as it was to the unfortunate Prin- cesses, the aunts of Louis XVI, to make their way down stairs wiihout the arm of a gentleman-usher to afford them support. The walk so desired, was consequently abandoned; and a round of visits adopted instead ; — a round of visits, not of the friendly order that warms and regenerates the heart, but a cold, card-leaving ce- remony, purporting to conciliate a few great personages, with whom she was desirous of appearing on friendly terms. — The last eHort of this deposit of crocodile's eggs having brought her Connaught-place-wise, down Park Lane, towards Arlington Street, she was reclining in the corner of her carriage, chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancies, (but, alasl far more bitter than sweet, j — when one of those groups of pleased and proud eques- trians, of which, the preceding season, she had so often formed a part, turned leisurely from Rotten Row to make the round of the ring: — all, admirably mounted, — from the lady who reined, with a grace peculiarly her own, a black barb, well-known by sight to the jealous owner of Berengaria, down to the three or four grooms that followed far in the rear; — gossiping together with more aplomb than even their masters. — One of the grooms wore the Barrington livery ; a sufficient inti- mation, even wiihout the sickening consciousness weighing like lead upon her heart, that the cavalier on the off side of Lady Mor- tayne, — the cavalier in whose favour all the rest of the party were disregarded, — was no other than her husband. 260 THE DEBUTANTE. Such then was his engagement! — Such his motive for setting her health and comfort at nought! — At that moment, had the black barb reared and fallen backwards, crushing its mistress in the fall, the cry that might have escaped the lips of Lady Alicia at the terrible spectacle, would have been of exultation rather than pity. At that moment, she loathed the triumphant beauty, in the light of whose smiles the enamoured Charles Barrington was evidently content to live and die ! — A moment afterwards, she caught sight of three persons riding exactly at the same distance from the front rank as the grooms lagged in the rear of the whole party ;— three men, each of whom had turned the corner of the age defined by Hippocrates as the close ot youth ; that one of the three who had overstepped it last, was Lord Mortayne, wearing tokens of a far more advanced age than his elder companions Lord Bowbridge and Sir Alan Har- kesley. All three, however, exhibited unmistakeable symptoms of that decrepitude of heart and soul (more oppressive than the weariness of mere age), which besets, at the close of the season, the bkiH's, or dcvastes, or cnnuyes, or whatever may be the term in fashion for those who are sick to surfeiting of the good things of this world : —and who, at the end of July, having eaten and drunk of all that is most out of season, and heard and done all that is most out of reason, for some weeks preceding,— having exhausted the excite- ment of the Derby, the Oaks, the Ascot cup, and the new ballet, — fall back upon themselves under the oppression of the dog- days, like a collapsed balloon whose elasticity is exhausted. — With the perspicuous glance of a woman of the world. Lady Alicia instantly discovered that Mortayne was vainly labouring to find conversation for the other two, — his Eliphaz and Bildad. — who on their parts were endeavouring, the one to console him for being married, the other to discover how he managed to put up with it. — Lady Alicia could perhaps have answered the question to Sir Alan Harkesley, as satisfactorily as his own observations; for she, too, made it her study to ascertain what was passing in the mind of Eleanor's husband. — INo one had noticed as slie had, his air of mournful concern, — as of remorse, not for a crime, but for a fault! No one but herself perceived that in recognising the folly of his marriage, he was far more angry with himself than with his wife; or that he was still convinced that, young, rich, beautiful, highly- connected, she had chosen him for his own sake, and from personal preference. — It had depended on herself to make a better match. — If unhappy, he was not ungrateful. — Even when noticing with regret, what he must have been blind to avoid seeing, the growing intimacy between his wife and Bar- THE DfiBUTANTE. 261 rington, Lady Alicia saw, with indignation, that his countenance, — that expressive and elegant countenance, — acknowledged more in sorrow than in anger his perception of the fact. — It was him- self, and not Eleanor, whom he accused. — " Had this poor girl found me the same eager, fond, devoted, worshipper as at first," was his sad reflection, — " she would have had no leisure to look abroad for change. But conscious of having been treated like a toy, and prized no longer when the gloss of novelty was worn of!', her ear is naturally captivated by protesta- tions that remind of mine, which she hears no longer. — Poor Eleanor ! — It is only doubly my duty to watch over her and protect her from harm ; and with unwearied care withdraw her from the perils of the world, without alienating her confidence by a show of misplaced severity." By degrees, when he saw that, afford what encouragement she might to Charles Barrington , a place was always kept for him, by her side, to which he was welcomed with smiles as ingratiating as of yore, and that it was apparently in the simplicity of her heart she gave herself up to the flirtation which did her so much injury in the eyes of society, — he redoubled his efforts, not alone to win back her wandering fancy, but to conciliate in her favour the women of bis set, who he saw were beginning to look on with a smile. He condescended to flatter the Duchess of Nantwich, — to gossip with Lady Bowbridge, — and to listen with patience to the affected jargon of half-a-dozen others ; only that they might deal mercifully with the poor Eleanor whom he had introduced into the fatal jurisdic- tion of their tribunal. — But he did more than all this. He conquered his disgust towards that unwomanly specimen of female nature, Lady Alicia, whom, in former days, during his brief flirtation with her sister, he had detested as hard, pretenUeiise, and ambitious; and, wherever they met, honoured her by a deference of attention, purporting to leave her no leisure for discovering how completely she was neglected by her husband. — He dreaded the growth of jealousy in such a nature as hers. — He knew that there are certain districts of Arabia, and of human nature, which produce only stones and serpents. — The manly tenderness of his disposition — that disposition which had rendered " Morty" so universally beloved, — instigated him, in short, to protect the happiness of her who was gone from him. With the persevering devotion of an Orpheus, he trusted to win back his wife from the gloomy regions of perdi- tion. — Satisfied, therefore, of her hold over him, Lady Alicia felt that, whenever or wherever she pleased, she had only to mark her desire to converse with him, to retain him by her side. To enlighten 262 THE DfeRUTANTE. his blindness, opportunities For the mischief she meditated would not be wanting. Lord Mortayne should be placed upon his guard. Lord Mortayne should learn the pure nature of the blood coursing through the blue veins that adorned ihe ivory skin in which his eyes delighted. — The mother of Eleanor had, doubtless, been described to him, as to others, as having expiated her frailties by death. — He should be taught better. He should be instructed that, in the infamous career that mother was pursuing, she was not only supported by the recognition of the daughter of Sir John Mailland, but that it was by the hands of that daughter's devoted admirer the illicit correspondence was carried on. As the group of equestrians disappeared afar off into the haze which even the coppery gleams of the setting sun rendered only semi-transparent, secure and happy in themselves and each other, — talking of operas and ballets, — forced peaches,— /roma^^e de glace a la rose, — regattas, — new novels and old flirtations, — as if earth contained no tomb, and life no business more urgent than the dinners they were pre- paring to eat, and the ball at Heriford House, to which they were afterwards invited, — an evil eye was fixed upon them. A heart, as cruel as that of Philip of Spain, or Mary of England, or Ali of Janina, had marked them as objects of vengeance I — CHAPTER XXX. I know them, And wliat they weigh, even to the utmost scruple , Scambling, out-facing, fashion-monger! iig fools That lie, and cog, and flout, deprave and slander. SUAKSPEARE. "What a charming ball I" — cried Lord Bowbridge,who wasapt to find those things charming on which the reflection of his own happy temper streamed like sunbeams on a harvest-field. — " Heri- ford House is one of the few in London in which people should pretend to give a ball !" — " I do not agree with you," rejoined Sir John Hildyard, — to whom he was addressing himself, — as they stood aloof from the throng, — pretty ncai-ly on the spot occupied by Charles Barringtun and the debutante, when first introduced to the reader.—" It is a fine old house, — but too solemn for a fete. There is a style of old-fashioned grandeur about it, that reminds one of the British Museum." — " Henry !" exclaimed Lord Bowbridge, endeavouring to snatch THE DfiBUTANTE, 263 the arm of Lord Henry de Capell as he just then passed on to the ball-ioom, — " here's Hildyard s^ys that Henford House always puts him in mind of " "Don't be a fool, Bowbridge!" — rejoined Sir John Flildyard, quietly drawing him back to his place, while Lord Henry, after a staring look of wonder at being thus roughly seized upon, passed hastily on — "Henry de Capell is too wise to listen to any one's impertinence but his own I" — " What you said was not impertinent, my dear fellow, but pertinent." " The greater the truth, you know, the greater the libel ! — Seriously, this house does strike me as totally incongruous with Jullien's band. The heavy-painted ball-room, with its sprawling gods and goddesses, looks as if nothing but minuets should be danced under its domed ceiling. Even leaning against these gilded window-shutters, it seems as though we ought to be criticizing the measures of Lord North rather than of Sir Robert Peel ; or at least of t'other Sir Robert — the Sir Robert who bought his adherents instead of selling them, like him we wot of I" — " Ha, ha, ha ! Alfred, what do you think Hildyard says? — that Sir Robert—" But again the man who was too open-hearted to keep even a joke to himself, was quietly drawn back to his place. — " I suspect," resumed Hildyard, by way of occupying his Lordship's attention, " that what makes you fancy the ball so gay to-night — " " Well! — it certainly is more brilliant than the balls used to be here, last year !"— " Exactly ! — is the translation to a higher see of Lady Alicia, and Lady Sophia, — who were sad killjoys. Lady Mary is a buoyant spirited creature, with more of the lights than the shadows of human feeling in her face and nature." " The pleasantest girl in London, — and I can't think what Wolseley Maitland meant by not marrying her I" "He meant, probably, that he found himself happier single." " Yes — Maitland is one of those fellows who take such con- founded good care or' themselves, that they end by marrying a chorus-singer!" " 1 am not sure that I would not sooner marry a chorus-singer,'* replied Sir John, gravely, " than a raw-boned termagant, like Lady Alicia Barrington. — whom such animals as Bernardo call ' a fine aristocratic looking woman' — simply because she has features large enough for one of the colossal sphinxes at Thebes. — At the end of such a woman's fingers, I always expect to find the claws of a harpy I" — " By Jove, old fellow, I am beginning to believe that you are 26ii THE d£butante. the person who set poor Morty against Lady Sophia!" said Bow- bridge, in a momentous whisper. " And what then?" — demanded Sir John, without shrinking an inch from his responsibilities. — " 1 merely advised him to have those tremendous teeth of hers drawn before he married ; — and asked leave to cool myself sometimes under this shadow of her prodigious altitudes, in cherry-ripe season, when the dogstar was ng!"- Precisely ! — You quizzed him out of his liking for her ; — as you and I and others have done fifty times of fifty other men concern- ing women who would have made them happy." " And which we have left undone, unluckily, about women likely to make them w/ihappy ! — 3Iorty's marriage was scuffled over in the country. But, depend upon it, had I been within reach of him, he would not now be the miserable man you see yonder, looking nearly as ancient as Old Vassall I" — " 1 can't say much for his looks, poor fellow? But he was never the same man after he relumed from the East." — " Had he not felt himself an altered one, he would never have gone there I — The fact is, Morty was not intended by nature for • domestication. — Morty is like Byron, and a vast number of other fine organizations, too fastidious for his own happiness. Instead of giving himself up to the force of a current or influence of a feel- ing, he is always stopping short to examine and inquire, and make sure that he is enjoying the right kind of happiness, in the right kind of way. Were he to dream, to-night, of being at the glorious feast from Persia won ; or a banquet in the golden prime of good Haroun Al Raschid, he would instantly pinch his finger, to ascertain whether he were awake, and so dissolve the spell. Such a man should never marry !" — " So he has begun to find out, I fear. — Poor Morty I — Morty is a glorious fellow. — I would sooner almost any thing should happen, than harm to Morty." — " Then tell your beads for him at this moment I" — rejoined Sir John Hildyard, with a smile ; " for he ' lies among the Moors.' — Lady Alicia has bound him down in the chair of torment beside the head of the sofa where she sits enthroned like Semiramis : — et sauve qui pent! ^^ " I shan't order a mass said to redeem him out of purgatory, on that account!" replied Bowbridge. " Lady Alicia is reckoned an agreeable woman by those who are fond of dry talking; — and Morty is not one of those who cannot swallow Portugal grapes for the sawdust clinging to them." — THE DtBUTANTE. 265 " She can be agreeable enough, I admit, when she has a purpose to gain," retorted the uncompromising Sir John; — " like the boa constrictor, that slavers its victims to render them the easier swallowing. — But Lady Alicia's nature is as bitter as quassia ! She has never forgiven Providence for making her an ugly woman ; and takes her revenge upon God's better-looking creature whenever oc- casion presents itself. — I remember her being punished, when a child at Heriford Castle, for sticking pins into her canary birds ! The aviary was getting nearly depopulated, when the governess bethought her of blowing aside the feathers of the dead birds ; when lo ! they had been converted into pincushions by the fairy hands of little Lady Alicia !" — " Ugh I — What a trait of character ! — Yet it is hardly fair towards grown-up people to recall their childish faults." — "So it is always said when the faults convey indications of crime. — But the meritorious qualities of heroes and sages are usually connected by their biographers with early foreshowings, of some kind or other. — Judging the Lady Alicia Barrington of to- day, however, simply by the Lady Alicia Barrington of to-day, I shall not be sorry to see Morty out of her clutches." — "By Jove, how white he has turned all of a sudden!" cried Bowbridge, his intention being thus directed towards his friend ; " as pale as a newly-joined cornet after his second bottle of claret." — "I am glad you call that pale, — / call it ghastly?" retorted Hildyard, with a look of grave concern. — And he was about to push his way through the stream of guests dividing him from the sofa, and inquire of his friend whether anything ailed him, when Lord Mortayne, who had suddenly quitted his place, came staggering towards them, with much the pace and gesture to be expected of the cornet in the plight adverted to by Lord Bowbridge. He could not, however, readily reach them, on account of the throng pressing to and from the ball-room ; — and during that brief detention, had time, in some degree, to recover his self- possession. — " Push across to this open window, Morty! — 1 am sure you are not well. — The room is disgustingly hot!" said Bowbridge, ex- tending his arm between two stuffy dowagers, to assist in drawing Lord Mortayne towards the cooler spot where they were standing, " Thanks !" faltered Morty, merging through the aperture thus made. " But I am so overcome by the heat, that I had better go home. Will you be kind enough to explain this to Lady Mortayne, if you see her looking for me? — But beg her, on no account, lo leave the ball before her usual time. All I want is fresh air." The lips that uttered these few words were so blue, and the eyes that shunned to encounter those of Hildyard and Bowbridge, 266 THE DEBUTANTE. seemed suddenly to have so sunk, in their orbits, that the latter, pressing his way through dowagers and all other obstacles, was by his side in a moment lo offer bis arm. — " Lei me help you to find your carriage, or some other person's !" — said hc; and as Morty had little strength or breath to resist his good-natured proposal, Lord Bowbridge would not leave him till he had procured the use of the Duke of Nantwich's chariot, his own not being ordered till three in the morning. " Morty talked of the heat of the room and of being in a high fever," said his Lordship, when questioned, on his return to the ball-room, by Sir John Hildyard. " But he took otf his glove to give money to the fellows who ran to call up Nantwich's carriage; and, by Jove, when I shook hands with him as he was getting in, he was colder than marble!" That night, on Lady Mortayne's return from the ball, she found a note, a kind note, from her husband, saying that he had retired to rest with a bad headache, in his dressing-room, which was on the ground floor, that he might not disturb her in the morning by his early rising. " He was going to Brighton by the early train, for four-and- twenty hours, hoping that a vapour-bath would get rid of his mi- graine; and was desirous of going alone, because they could not both absent themselves with propriety from the Duchess of Gloucester's concert, the following night." This was a relief to Eleanor, — who, hearing he had gone home ill from the ball, fancied that " ill" meant angry. — Nothing could be better imagined than his trip (o Brighton. — She only thought that two day's trial of the vapour-bath would be better than one. The message she left for him with the servants, however, was, that, unless he wrote to the contrary, she should expect him home to dinner on the second day. But although he did not write, he did not make his appearance. Neither circumstance, however, weighed much on the mind of his wife; for people suffering from migraine are privileged to be lazy. He was probably suffering from one of the hypochondriacal attacks to which he was subject; — which lie attributed to a relapse of malaria fever, and his wife to a relapse of the inertness produced by his oriental habits.— Better that he should secure his perfect re- covery by the bracing of the sea breeze. But it was not to Brighton he was gone. That highway of the ennuypH of London was not for the stricken deer, who had little hope of the assuagement of a wound like his from the mere levities of life. — It must be healed in solitude. It must be healed by his own elforts ; if indeed that bleeding heart were ever again to be made whole! — Yearning after the solitudes of his northern home, and having THE DfeBUTANTE. 267 secured himself from molestation on his journey by hiring the coupe so far as the railway conveyed him on his road, he was a hundred miles distant from London by the lime the fair Eleanor opened her eyes to the light of another day, and heard, in answer to her inquiries, that " My Lord, as he had announced the night before, had started for the station at seven o'clock." — What sta- tion, was a matter of unconcern both to the lady and the lady's- maid. On his arrival at Mortayne, the following morning at daybreak, where Mrs. Gairey, the head-keeper's wife, who remained in charge of the house, was called out of her bed to welcome and make coffee for her lord, — after complaining, as such persons are apt to do, of not having been warned of my Lord's coming (so that her neglects during bis absence might be repaired before they were exposed to the detection of I'ceil du maitre,) the delight of seeing again so unexpectedly the master beloved by every human being in his service, prompted her to add, that "It put her in mind of old times, his coming unbeknownt like, and taking every body unawarr ! " But on glancing at his face as he reclined in the great library chair embroidered with his arms by Lady Mortayne, (on which Mrs. Gairey had never found leisure, since the departure of the family to place the cover, according to my Lord's express orders), she saw that she must not talk of old times ; so different were his Lordship's present haggard looks, from those of the joyous being for whom she used to be called up to make a fire when he arrived suddenly with some friend, to enjoy a few days' shooting, or sport with the otter hounds of the district.— The life was gone out of him. — The unhappy man before her was but a shadow of Lord Mor- tayne ! — The sympathizing zeal of poor Mrs. Gairey was at least easier to dispose of than the officiousness of the waiters of a Brighton hotel. When my Lord had intimated to her that " he wished to be alone, — that no one was to be admitted to him, — that no one was to intrude upon him, — that he was come but for a visit of four-and- twenty hours, and wished to be w*holly unmolested," his solitude was as secure as in the heart of the great Pyramid. " No doubt there's been a breeze 'twixt my Lord and Lady, and he be com'd down too cool abiti" — was Mrs. Gairey's soliloquy over the grouts of the mocha she had been brewing. " Well, they han't lust no time ; — for whensobe they left the manor, God knows they was as thick as a swarm o' bees !" — In the course of the day, more than one party of that savage order of tourists who persist in visiting the fields and floods when clad in their vernal glories, though Parliament be prattling and the Opera fiddling in town, — were inexpressibly mortified at being 268 THE DfeBUTANTE. answered, on application at the lodge for leave to visit the beau- tiful pleasure grounds of the Manor,— (one of the lions of Lake- land,)— that " nubbody couldn't on no account be admitted, 'caus' my Lord was down." — And little did those who went their ways, grumbling, conjecture the solace that was afforded to the lord of the soil by the silence of those tranquil shrubberies, — by the sooth- ing voice of the lonely waterfall! — He had come down, doubting whether he had a right to live, — doubting whether, even if he resisted the desire of his distracted mind to put an end to the struggle of corroding thoughts which, for the last day and night, had tortured him as with the self-judg- ment of a condemned cell, — by rushing from the retributive justice of his conscience to the tribunal that would render it eternal, — he should have strength of mind ever again to return to his desecrated home,— ever again to afflict his eyes by the sight of his unfortunate wife. He had never pretended to superior sanctity. But it was not till the present crisis of his fate he had taken an accurate survey of the thing he was. — Measuring himself by the customs of the society in which he lived rather than by the holy canons he infringed, or the purity of Him in Avhose sight it behoved him to be pure, he had often assured himself that, if a roue, he was no worse than his neighbours. — As a libertine, he was exceeded by the Duke of Nantwich, — as a spendthrift, he was surpassed by Bowbridge; and Harkesley, Lord Alfred, Esher, Hildyard, twenty, fifty, a hun- dred other men, — were more careless in their duties, and more hardened in impenitence. — But it was not till now, — when, amidst the social order of modern civilization and under the enlightenment of the Christian dispen- sation, he found himself guilty of a crime which, even in the law- lessness of the antique world, was represented as the result of some cleaving curse of the elder gods, and visited by the ven- geance of the furies, — that he learned to tremble while contem- plating the profligacy of his career. At first, as he paced along the weedy gravel of those deserted shrubberies, every object around him seemed tinged with the jaundiced hues of his own meditations. — His pulses throbbed, and the parching of fever was upon his lips. Every sense seemed clogged. Every glance appeared to communicate the nauseous tinge of corruption to the lovely scene around him. But by degrees, as the summer atmosphere breathed healingly upon his brow, and the beauty and stillness of the landscape argued to his inmost soul of the beneficence of its great Creator who sendelh his rain upon the just and the unjust, the despondency of the horror-stricken man gave way. He was able to see extenuation, where before all was dark. His sin had been one of ignorance. He THE DfiBUTANTE. 260 had not wittingly taken to his arms the daughter of one who had long abided there in shame. — As to putting away privily the wife to whom this horrible disclosure would doubtless be a sentence of death, it would be a wanton aggravation of every former injury. His motive was one that could not be adduced; and the world, which seizes so readily on the slightest pretext to brand disgrace upon a brow so fair as that of Eleanor, would doubtless attribute to vengeance against her girlish follies, what was in fact an act of atonement dictated by an unquiet conscience. — No ! — he had no right to make her pay the penalty of his fault. He had no right to make her walk barefoot, like the Saxon queen, over the burning plough-shares of human malice. That young creature, whose life was still before her, — that young creature, for whom the lovely scenery around him, and the birds that were chanting their summer song so exultingly, had still a charm, — must not be made a mark for the scorn of the scorner I — It would suffice that, thenceforward, they lived under one roof, but in estrangement. Eleanor would doubtless attribute his con- duct to caprice, — to the wilfulness of a despotic temper; or the peevishness of ill-health. — The truth could never present itself to her unsullied thoughts. She believed her mother to be dead ; and to that mother he would address such an admonition, as must render it impossible that the execrable truth should ever transpire further. For himself, would not his youthful excesses be suffi- ciently punished by the chnging consciousness eating for ever, like a vulture, into his heart! — Meanwhile the malicious originator of all this misery, who, in her purpose of mortifying Mortayne by the knowledge of being united to the daughter of a woman still living a life of shame, was far from suspecting of how frightful a visitation of divine vengeance she had made herself the instrument, could scarcely recover her amazement at the degree of emotion her communication had drawn forth.— In the course of a conversation of which she had herself held the helm, after adverting to the annoyance of being compelled to pass a portion of the autumn in town, she added that she anticipated some compensation from being in Paris by Christmas. " Paris was the only spot on earth unattainable by the di'eariness of winter! — Paris was the only place on earth that reconciled, in their utmost perfection, every physical and intellectual enjoyment. What eating,— what drinking,— what talking, — what music, — what dancing, and above all, what a charm of laisser-aller, re- doubling all other enjoyments. — Surely, Lord Mortayne," added she, as if at the instigation of the moment,— " you will take Eleanor to Paris next winter, instead of burying her alive in your family owl's nest? — But I forgot!" continued Lady Alicia, inter- 270 THE DfiBUTANTE. rupting herself. "On Madame de St. Chamond's account, a so- journ in Paris would be impossible." At this audacious allusion, a sudden flush rose upon the cheeks of her auditor. For the name of Madame de St. Chamond re- called to him only a woman with whom, eight years before, he had wasted a Carnival, in the full tide of vain and vicious dissipation. More angry than hurt at Lady Alicia's ill-bred allusion, he did not spare her in return. "The name you have pronounced," said he — "which I cer- tainly never expected to hear from the lips of a lady in society " "Nay," interrupted Lady Alicia, " I thought it would be less offensive to you, as Eleanor's husband, than to hear the unfortunate woman mentioned by the name of Lady Maitland — to which, indeed, by her divorce, she forfeited all title." — " Divorce! — Lady Maitlandr — ejaculated Mortayne, precisely in the tone of consternation anticipated by his companion. " Surely you are aware," she continued, with serene plausibi- lity, — " that the wife of the late Sir John Maitland, — the mother, in short, of my cousins, Sir VVolseley and Eleanor, — now goes by the name of Comtesse de St. Chamond ?" — "Not the Comtesse de St. Chamond?" — reiterated Mortayne, cold dews of horror starting from his forehead. — " The Madame de St. Chamond, I am afraid we must call her, if the name convey pre-eminence in notoriety and vice. — But I refer you to Mr. Barrington upon the subject. — He will convince you with stronger demonstration than / can, that Lady Mortayne's unfortunate mother is still one of the most remarkable — features must I call it? — of the licentious orgies of Paris." — Though the groan which escaped the lips of Mortayne at this intimation , was only precit^ely what she expected , — like the burst of agony which a surgeon is prepared to hear from the lips of his patient during some agonizing operation, — Lady Alicia felt a little alarmed on seeing him rise suddenly and stagger across the room to Hildyard and Bowbridge ; then, leaning on the arm of the latter, quit the spot. She was afraid lest, in the height of his anguish, he might betray himself, — and with himself /i(?r; — for to what other person could he ascribe the information he had received? She began to repent, t"0, having referred him to her husband. What would be the exasperation of Mr. Barrington, if appealed to for confirmation of a fact so injurious to the credit and interests of his idolized Eleanor ! — At all events, it was indispensable to be beforehand with the possibility of such an evil ; and when, the following day, Charles Barrington was going through his quotidian ceremony oi' inquir- ing their engagements, with the best intention of breaking as many as decency would allow of those they had to fulfil together, THE DfiBUTANTE. 271 — Lady Alicia expressed a wish to go the following evening to the French Play, solely as a pretext to add, — "I want to see the new actress,— Madame do Saint-Felix— Saint-Marc — Sa/nt-Chcunond, — what is her name? — All those sort of people add a Sa/'nf. to their name, — as Lord Mortayne'^vas observing to me last night." " }Vhai wasMortayne observing to you last night?" — demanded her husband, assuming one of those straighil'orvvard attitudes that ensure an explicit reply. " Simply what I just now stated : — that in Paris, women of disreputable character are apt to call themselves Saint-something, as a nom de guore." Her husband looked into her lace as steadily as though striving to penelrale the inmost recesses of her brain. " You are not altogether ingenuous with me," — said he, at the close of his investigation. — " But with you. Lady Alicia, it is ne- cessary I should be candid. It is not often I interfere with your purposes or pleasures; nor have 1 a sincerer desire than that you should enjoy to the utmost such satisfactions as my fortune can procure you. But in return, when I do express a wish, 1 expect it to be attended to." Nervous and conscience-stricken, Lady Alicia uttered not a syllable. — Her genius for retort was overmastered. " 1 suspect," resumed her husband, "that by some means or other, you have obtained possession of a secret, which it is import- ant to the happiness of more than one person in whom 1 am in- terested, should be preserved inviolate ; — especially as regards Moriayne. If he should obtain knowledge of a circumstance Avhich 7J0U perhaps regard only as a subject for tittle-latlle, it must lead to such results as would make the discloser curse the day he was born." From the conscious air of his wife, Charles Barrington enter- tained little doubt that the mischief was done. "Understand, therefore, once for all, Lady Alicia," — said he, preparing to leave the room, — " that 1 make you responsible for whatever evils may ensue from disregard of my request that you will never breathe to Lord Moriayne the smallest intimation of the relationship to which you have alluded." — He might as well have said, " disobedience to my commands," as " disregard of my request," in so peremptory a tone was his intimation conveyed I — For the school of conjugal tyranny in which Charles Barrington had been brought up, had found in him an apt scholar ; — and from the moment Lady Alicia subjected herself to his rebukes by placing herself at Paris so completely in the wrong, he had rigorously maintained his advantage. Whenleft, therefore, to her reflections,— left to the remembrance of her indiscretion, and the apprehension of what might ensue, — 27:2 THE DEBUTANTE, her heart sank within her. An object of personal dislike to her husband, there was no extremity ol' retribution he might not deal upon her; and the prospect of a separation, if not as grievous to her heart as to any other woman in her situation, was unspeakably galling to her pride. — The predictions made six months before by her younger brothers and sisters, (only too familiar with the overbearing nature of her temper,) that " Alice, and the handsome husband so much younger than herself, whom she had chosen to marry, would not live together a year," recurred vexatiously to her memory ; till in her panic of anxiety, she almost doubted whether it might not be better to avow all to her husband, and afford Lady Mortayne a chance of averting whatever evils he foresaw from her rash disclosure. But no ! — bold as she was in some things. Lady Alicia wanted courage to tell the truth. — To make what might appear an apolo- getic confession to Eleanor, was a sacrifice greater than even her fears. CHAPTER XXXL Ivo-ve follows not desert, but accident, We love, because we love .- 1 know no more. 'Tis not great thoughts, nor noble qualities, Nor conduct pure, compel it. These rather challenge Our deep respect than Love. That sweet emotion Owes to our tender hearts is gentle force. And scorns all meaner reason. Pr.OCTOK. While the paths of these favourites of Fortune were perplexed by thorns of their own planting, and tares of their own sowing, there was not a cloud to intercept the sunshine streaming as with the favour of Heaven upon the roof of Hexholm Hall. The active duties awaiting the young heiress on her accession of fortune, had cut short at once those dangerous reveries — the sunken rocks so perilous to the female heart. Thenceforward, she had little leisure to dwell upon the sayings or doings of the cousin to whose fortunes her being seemed attached, as that of the hama- dryad to the oak. — There was Mr. Filzhugh, with his matter-of- fact habits of business, claiming hor serious attention. — There were lawyers to be consulted, — stewards to be communed with, — tradesmen to be instructed, — neighbours to be conciliated, — te- nants to be listened to; — all the thousand duties, in short, in- cumbent on a person succeeding to a considerable fortune, and inexperienced in its care and distribution. To carry out his plans for the restoration of Hexholm, a sum of five-and-twenty thousand pounds had been exempted by Hum- HIE DfeBL! lANTE. 273 phrey Barriugtou Iruin ihc ulterior settlement of his property, ami left to be expended according to the discretion of his executor and taste of his niece. Miss Barrington had, consequently, ample means at her disposal, not alone to complete the I'urnishing and decora- tion of the old mansion, but to sorround herself with the gardens and conservatories she loved so well. In the unworthy hands to which the estate had passed when sold off for the benefit of Mr. Barrington's creditors, every thing had been suffered to go to ruin. — Cattle had been grazing up to the drawing-room windows, and a great portion of the ornamental timber destroyed. To redeem the remainder from injury, was her first object. To clothe the property with new plantations, and fringe the outskirts of her farms with the orchards that constitute the wealth of the French peasant, her second. " I do not desire picturesque cottages or fancy fanrs," said she in reply to the bantering of Mr. and Mrs. Fitzhugh. — " But I want to see those around me comfortable and at their ease. I have a selfish object, moreover, in establishing a nursery-ground at Hexholm to supply these orchards. As I am to spend the spring of the year in the country, I wish to render the landscape as cheerful as possible ; to effect which, what equals the early and successive bloom of the fruit-trees,— That come before the swallow dares, and take The winds of March with beauty :' " It could not, however, be with the view of enlivening Hexholm that Miss Barrington caused to be traced out under the v/indows of the western wing in which she had established her private apart- ments, a certain design of flower-plots sunk in the greensward, with shrubberies branching off fanwiseou either side, so as to leave in the centre a view of the park beyond, which the landscape- gardener employed by Mr. Fitzhugh assured her was of the most exploded fashion : " the sort of thing never seen now-a-dyys, ex- cept at some country parsonage ! " But Maria persisted. — She even gave express and circumstantial orders for the grouping of the shrubs and trees; where the Portugal laurels should be placed, — where the hollies, the ilexes, the mount- ain ashes, the sumachs, the barberry-bushes, and all the other quaint, old-fashioned greeneries, in exchange for which her more fastidious gardener eagerly suggested American plants, magnolias, and carob-trees. It was not necessary to explain to him that the arrangement she required was copied, tree by tree, from the spot she had so long and laboriously cultivated at Easton ; or that, though the carna- tions, auriculas, geraniums and fuchsias she insisted on having brought into bloom for ihe jardinieres of her apartments, had pro- 48 27a THE DfiBUTANTE. bably been superseded for years in horticultural distinction by plants of the same species having blossoms as large as sunflowers or heads of brocoli, and nearly the same vapid or leguminous smell, they were as dear to her as in the days when she used to place them triumphantly on the slopings of the old porch of the Hoo, to welcome her cousin Charles with their fragrance, on his arrival from Eton or Oxford. Much as was done for her, in short, there remained a great deal to be done by herself. Soon after her establishment at Hexholm, and while still engaged in the amusing task of setting in iheir places the splendid articles of furniture and objects oivertu, collected for her uncle by his friend Fitzhugh, there arrived from Madras bales and bales of interesting objects which, for the last twenty years, poor Humphrey Barrington had been gathering together for the embellishment of Hexholm; — panelling from Japan, services from Tchin Tchew, vases of enamelled porcelain and hangings of silk, embroidered with birds and flowers in rarest perfection, — such as the extensive mercantile connexion of thie resident at Madras en- abled him without diSicully to procure. All these Eastern treasures had to be arranged and disposed of , the aviaries and conservatories to be filled, and the family-por- traits redeemed at his brother's sale, by Humphrey's intervention, to be restored to their places. — Every day brought some new oc- cupation, — some pleasant occupation, — some occupation enabling her to unite the duty of submission to the wishes of the dead, with the delight of adorning a spot where the remainder of her days was to elapse in pleasantness and peace. — iNot a week but added some new attraction to the many, both natural and acquired, united within the ring-fence of Hexholm. But there were other, and still more urgent, claims on her time. Thirteen years only had elapsed since the departure of the Bar- ringtons from their family place; — and the friendships and intima- cies of a long-established race had bequeathed permanent traces to the neighbourhood. Several of the county families, nearly con- nected with them by marriage, hailed with the utmost joy an event that served so unexpectedly to reunite the old estate with the an- cient name. A resident family at the venerable mansion was wel- comed as a permanent blessing; — for in counties so remote from the metropolis as that of Durham, the duty of annual London-going is by no means obligatory, and in many of the finest houses of the district, the chimneys might be found smoking all the year round. Among these, the memory of gentle Mrs. Barrington was held in respectful remembrance. — Even her husband had been, in his Hexholm days, a far pleasanter companion than the surly uncle re- cognised by Maria ; and as their difticulties had not been of a nature lo injure others, (every shilling of their liabilities being THE DfiBUTAlNTE. 275 discharged so as lo occasion no person's ruin but their own,) there was no drawback to the pleasure with which the letters of her kind aunt, recommending Miss Bari-ington to their friendship as a beloved and adopted child of her own, were received by those who had never forgotten the warmth of Mrs. Barrington's hospi- talities, or the sweetness of her disposition. — But Maria possessed claims to the goodwill of many, stronger than even these. — Little more than twenty years before, her own lovely mother, — a Maria Barrington of less fortunate destinies, — had crossed the threshold of Hexholm Hall to be united before the altar of Hexholm Church with the handsome young soldier whom, in the generosity of her heart, she preferred to the richest of the golden prebendaries of Durham, as well as to more than one estated squire of the county ; — little surmising in how few years after the solemn rite, her happiness was to be annihilated by the premature sacrifice of Colonel Brenton's life at the storming of Bhurtpoor. Among the elders, therefore, were many who had known and loved her; — among the poor, many whom she had fed and com- forted; and when this second Maria Barrington came among them, looking so like her mother whom they knew to be an angel in Heaven, and so nearly at the age at which she had disappeared from Hexholm, holy illusions seemed to environ her, and a more tender admiration was created in their minds. Under these favouring circumstances, no wonder if the warmest of welcomes awaited the heiress. She came to a place where she appeared to have been long known, — long expected. — There was a thousand times more sympathy with her there than at Easton. Mr. Fitzhugh, who had celebrated her coming of age in her new home, in the month of March, a week or two after her arrival in the North, could scarcely bring himself to believe, when he visited her at Midsummer, that a three months' residence at the place could have sufficed to work such wonders ; not alone in its com- pletion and improvement, but in establishing its youthful mistress in the regard of every one about her. — There was something in her youth, — in her helplessness, — in her candour, — and above all, in the name of Maria Barrington, — that recommended her, at once, to every heart. ''Charming, — charming! — This is, indeed, charming!" cried the gratified guardian, on sealing himself in the fine drawing- room, which, forming an angle of the mansion, commanded, from the Elizabethan windows of its Western aspect, a view of the wooded declivities shelving down to the noble river that leapt, as for joy, among the rocks of the channel it seemed to have cleft for itself through the ochreous earth, — yet opened, on the Southern side, into a lofty conservatory, that served to double its breadth as well as infuse into its atmosphere the spicy fragrance oCorienlal 276 THE DfeBUTANTE. climes. — " If my poor friend could only have enjoyed a glimpse of the paradise he had planned for himself, or, at least, if he could but have known how worthily his place would be filled up after he was gone, and how religiously all his little whims and fancies respected!— Poor Humphrey I— He loved to dream of Hexholm ; butncAcr did he form a conjecture of the place, my dear Miss Bar- ringlon, perfected as it has been by you .'" — Fain would Maria have dispensed with being flattered. She would even have dispensed with being praised. She wanted to hear about London.— A[r. Fitzhugh, whose seat in Parliament placed him in colhsion with all that is eminent in the country, could have told her, had he chosen, so much that she was impatient to hear I — " 1 could not persuade my good woman lo come down with me this time," said he, at last, in answer to one of the indirect ques- tions she ventured to ask concerning the pleasures of the season. "She pretended, forsooth, that railroads are disagreeable travel- ling in hot weather ; and talked of heat, and dust, and hurry, and a thousand things she would never have taken it into her head to remember, but for the fear of missing a couple of Opera nights, an Almack's, and an Ancient Concert !— So it is, my dear Miss Barrington, with even the most reasonable of your sex !— The idea of seeing a garden, while the roses are blooming and the straw- berries ripe, gives a fair lady the shudders I" — "Mrs. Fitzhugh has written me a much better excuse for not accompanying you," said Maria, smiling, "by promising to come in September, with her childi-en ; when the few days you are to give me now, will be converted, I hope, into as many weeks." " Ay, ay ! — I dare say she has made good her story 1" cried the good-humoured husband. " But all the same, if she had chosen to come, we might have perhaps persuaded you to return with us, and take a peep at London, now the season is drawing to an end ; —that you might judge for yourself of the style in which the young Hopeful on whom you have squandered your property, has been pleased to convert his house into a tavern for ' the nobility, gentry, and others!'— Had he placed the Barrington Arms over his door, his calling could not have been more manifest !" " The newspapers, which are so fond of dwelling on such things," replied Maria, (aware that her cousin was regarded with ajealouseyeby the trustee, who, in his own despite, had seen so large aportionofhcr income alienated in Charles's favour,) "have duly informed me of the frequency of my cousin and Lady Alicia's entertainments.— But surely, sir, there is no objection to this, so long as it is done within the limits of their fortune?" " Oi' ijour fortune!" " Theirs I— on that point there can be no question. .\nd I can THE DfeBUTANTE. 277 easily imagine ihal people who are commencing an establishment in London, must lay the foundation of their circle of acquaintance by a little extra hospitality." "I would not give much for friendship that requires to be dinner-bailed I" — rejoined Mr. Fitzhugh. "I said acquaintance, v\oi friendslup,^'' replied Maria, with a reproachful smile.— " But you must have seen my cousin. You must have frequently met him at the House of Commons?" — " Your first word was best, my dear Miss Rarrington,— 1 am in the habit of ' seeing ' him occasionally at the House ; and he takes care that it shall be as rarely as possible, and at the greatest pos- sible distance. 1 suspect he feels ashamed of looking me in the face, from knowing how unworthily he fulfils the great and good purposes which your partiality expected at his hands." — " You have no realhj bad tidings to give me of him, 1 trust?" said Maria, her face crimsoned by sudden alarm. " By reaUy bad tidings, my dear young lady, I dare say you imply such iniquities as robbing a church, or overdrawing a banker, or losing thousands at play, or some other act of the modern des- perado. No !— Mr. Barrington has done nothing of that kind, I fancy. His sins are as decorously committed as those of the burg- lars, who break into a house in female attire. — The unworthiaess with which I charge him, consists in the puerility of his pursuits and luxuriousness of his habits." " Poor Charles is even now but four-and-twenty I" pleaded Maria. " And ymi are three years younger ; — and why should his head and heart, [)ray, be less ripe than your own ?" " Because they have been unschooled by the chastening lessons of adversity !" replied Miss Barrington, more gravely than was her wont. " Ay ! — there I'm afraid you have it I Part of this young man's faults are chargeable upon your own shoulders. If so homely a simile may be pardoned to an old agriculturist like myself, you have heaped rich manure upon soil that wanted rather the plough- share and the harrow ; and your produce has been a crop of weeds! — Good grain had never been sown in that piece of wasteland." " There is time yet!" was Maria's forbearing rejoinder. "I doubt it, my dear young lady, — 1 sadly doubt it. If at four- and-twenty, a man's heart be not open to honourable ambitions, — if at four-and-twenty he be not roused by such noble generosity as yours, to prove himself deserving of your esteem, he will never be worth a pinch of snulfl Rich or poor, young Barrington has always been a vain, selfish, superficial numskull I — His uncle was at much pains to keep watch over him during his youth and boy- hood, and the i-eports were uniformly unfavoural^le. — There was 278 THE DfiBUTANTE. no integrily of character in him, — no solidity of mind, — no cor- diality of heart."' — " When you have quite done abusing him," said Maria, a little relieved by perceiving that her guai'dian was by no means an impartial judge of the conduct of one whom he regarded as a locust, devouring the property of another, — "I will give you some luncheon. But till you have promised not to mention my cousin's name again, do not flatter yourself that you will be allowed to taste the famous Hexholm seedlings, which all the hautbois of all your prize strawberry- growers of the Horticultural never approached." — And as she expected, the threat prevailed; for Mr. Fitzhugh piqued himself on being one of the first horticulturists of the day. " I must indeed beg, borrow, or steal some plants of these for my citizen's box at Roehampton!" said he, a few minutes after- wards, while the strawberries were still melting in his mouth. " And I am fain to admit, that the espaliers of your rose-garden beat me out of the field. I doubt whether even the farfamed gar- dens of Damascus ever produced such v/alls of roses. — But of these, you have no right to be proud. — These, like Rome, were not built in a day." " No, — they were planted by my poor mother; and my uncle's successors were, I believe, too lazy to destroy them. — Do you remember my telling you in London, that one part of the gardens of Hexholm had been so exactly described to me, that I could lead you blindfold to the spot?" — "Ay! and I remember poor Humphrey telling me as much at Madras, — and those unfortunate girls of his offering to put it to the proof by a bet, on their return to England; — that England, poor souls ! which they were fated never to see. — And, by the way, my dear young friend, one of my errands here is to submit to you a design for the monument you have commissioned me to erect in Hexholm Church. I have, as you requested, conditioned with the artist, that, when complete, it shall not be exposed to exhibi- tion ; — a diflicult point I must tell you, — the self-love of the sculptor being almost as hard to convince as the humility of a young lady who shall be nameless." — " Thanks, thanks!" cried Miss B.arrington, pressing his hand. *' I am afraid I must forgive you all your treasons against one por- tion of my family, in consideration of the friendly zeal with which you execute for me every little office that might be painful or per- plexing to myself." " You are the adopted child of the friend of my youth and manhood, and whom I vainly hoped would be the friend of my old age!'" — replied Mr. Filzhugh, with moistened eyes, and fervently returning the almost tilial pressure of her hand. " I am afraid. THE DfiBUTANTE. 279 my dear, you must have fallen among sorry protectors in this world, to think so much of a little goodwill and a few good offices such as mine." " I possess, at least, one friend who, had her means of serving me equalled her will, would never have allowed me to miss the blessing of parental affection !"— rejoined Miss Barrington, feel- ingly. "And as you know my affection for her, and have long learned to respect her through the testimony of my uncle Hum- phrey, I am sure it will give you pleasure to learn that Mr. Bar- rington has at length consented to her paying me a visit at Hexholm." " Ah! so much the better! — 1 was afraid that, in spite of the strawberry beds and espaliers of roses, you might be apt to feel lonesome here, before the long summer days were over ; and I can't afford to let you take up for want of company with some Durham esquire, as a partner for life. But why talk, my dear, as if you had but one friend in the world? 1 can tell you I have been famously cross-questioned in London by folks who call themselves your friends ! If your showy cousin don't care to be seen speaking in the House to a squaretoes of my quizzical cut, there are certain counly members whom 1 could name, who are never belter pleased than when they can get at me, for a bit of chat." "You allude, I dare say, to Lord Clandon," said Maria, with T^eriect sang-froid, — for she would as soon have thought of blushing at an allusion to Sir Hildebrand Chalkneys or old Dr. Forsyth, as to her faithful friend. " Who will not be Lord Clandon long, 1 fancy," rejoined Mr. Filzhugh ; "for my family physician, Avho attends at Heriford House, announces that the old Marquis has not many weeks to live." " Poor old man!— After all, then, he will not enjoy before he dies the grati6calion he so much coveted of holding a grandchild in his arms !— Of all his family Lady Alicia alone has married in his lifetime." " I suspect Lady Alicia's offspring is not exactly the grandchild coveted in the family," replied the man of business ; " and I foresee no chance of wedlock for my young friend the county member I It ought to sit heavy on your conscience, my dear Miss Barrington, that the poor old marquis goes out of the world disappointed I" " You have been hstening, I see, to the London gossips!" — rejoined Maria, endeavouring to smile. " I wonder how, to a grave person like yourself, any one ventured to talk so absurdly. But if Lord Clandon should succeed to his peerage, surely my cousin will be inclined to canvass the county of Bucks?" " I trust, my dear, you are not going to put such an impertinent pretension into his head?" cried Mr. Fitzhugh, in dismay. " You 280 THE DEBUTANTE. don'l suppose that othei- people think of this young whipper- snapi)ei' as you do? — What earthly right has his father's son to represent a county ? — Who ever heard of Barrington of Easton ten miles from his lodge-gate? — if indeed his gate have a lodge to it !" " Charles Barrington belongs to an old county family," persisted Miss Barrington. "He enjoys a good income. If not a man of genius, his abilities are respectable, which 1 have always under- stood to be a sufficient qualification for an unambitious member of Parliament." — " Come, come, come, cornel I don't desire to see you mounted on Eclipse,— but don't be run away with by a donkey!" — cried her guardian, smiling. " We want something a little better than that; and a plaguy deal better than Charles Barrington. Equity, discernment, and steadiness, are indispensable qualifications. A pretty successor, truly, would you give to Lord Clandon, who is une of the most assiduous members in the House, as well as one of its most thoughtful and studious politicians I — If not an eloquent speaker, he is uniformly listened to with deference. The little he says is always to the purpose, — clearing up some obscure point, or adducing some important precedent. I am assured that govern- ment is looking with hope and reliance to Lord Clandon." "lam sincerely glad tohearit," replied the lady of Hexholm, with so absent an air, that it was clear she was quite content to leave him, whether as earl or marquis, to the loving-kindness of govern- ment. — A moment afterwards, she was deep in the discussion of garden allotments with Mr. Fitzhugh ; who, during the few days he was able to steal from London for his inspectory visit to Hexholm, was obliged to dispose of every minute of his four-and- twenty hours, with the governmental order and personal activity of a Louis-Philippe. — Meanwhile, the visit announced by Maria was anticipated by Mrs. Barrington with a degree of interest fully ecjualling her own. During the first few weeks that succeeded the probate of Humphrey Barrington's will, she had despaired of the happiness of ever be- holding her niece again. The rage of her husband at his disin- heritance was so unbounded, that it was only by the most careful vigilance she prevented his making his rabid animosity a subject of jest to the whole county. Not even the unheard-of generosity of Miss Barrington towards her cousin, had the smallest effect in softening his resentment. What profiled it to him'f — Charles, who received nothing from his father, had nothing to restore. — Even the thousand a-year allowed by his son to his wife, was but adding insult to injury. It was in vain Mrs. Barrington assured him that the concession was made nominally through her and her son, only from an appre- hension entertained by Maria that, if offered directly and osten- THE DfiBUTANTE. 281 sibly to himseli; il, would he refused. Like a sullen child or encaged beast of prey, he lay growlingly surveying the object which he was too savage to appropriate and enjoy , nor was it till the long series of emotions she had undergone, and the terror in which she lived, had reduced poor Mrs. Barrington to the brink of the grave, that he was suddenly brought to his senses.— The allowance would die with her! — It was important that she would survive, to secure so large an addition to his income. One of the first tokens of his re- lenting mood, therefore, was his consenting to accept the five-hun- dred pound note she pressed upon him as the first half-yearly instalment remitted by his son ; and promising that, on her conva- lescence, she should proceed for change of air into Durham, and spend part of the autumn with her niece. — It was not to be expected that he should accompany her to a spot so fraught with mortification to his feelings; and quite as little to be desired.— Mrs. Barrington would be doubly welcome to the neighbourhood of Hexholm, by coming alone ; and a thou- sand times as great a source of happiness to her who loved her as a mother. " I shall have quite enough to do at Easton, while you are gone !" said the amiable man, who professed to devote a large portion of the sum forced into his grasping hands, upon the repa- ration-of the old place.—" I shall have the workmen into the house the very day you start ; and I leave you to guess what would be- come of our property here if, under such circumstances, we were both to abandon the premises!" — He was, in short, more than satisfied to stay behind and take care that no depredations were committed on his orchard, or turnip fields, or the precious collection of marine stores in his study. — Parsimony was the delight as well as habit of his life.— The petty routine of extracting the greatest possible amount of produce out of his farm and garden, superseded all other considerations ; and while Mrs. Barrington was reading aloud some charming letter from Hexholm, or reciting from the newspaper the names of the distinguished guests of his son, he would often shuffle out of the room, — not in a fit of petulance,— not because angry that they had risen so far above him,— but because " if he did not go and keep an eye on matters, that rascal Watts would neglect to stick the peas and earth the celery ; or because it was untold what was wasted daily by the men in cutting the luzerne !"— Pountney Hill, divided between its desire to tell Mr. Barrington what it thought, of him, and the dread of offending so near a con- nexion of one whom the public voice still foretold as the marchio- ness who was to reign and rule, at some future moment, at Green- sells, could scarcely restrain the explosion of its amazement, that a man who was father-in-law to such a high-priestess of Brobdignag 282 THE DfiBUTANTE. as Lady Alicia Barrington, should have courage to trot over to Tring, in the open face of day, on such a broken-winded pony, in such a hat and jacket, and such an apology for a pair of boots! — " They confessed that, for their parts, if Ihey were not so well known in the county, they should be ashamed to be seen slopping on the high road to talk to him." — It seemed to be his pride and glory, to make evident to the public that, whatever advantages his son might have derived from his uncle's death, or his own marriage, not so much as a sprinkle of the golden shower had reached his paternal roof. — As, in the last century, the father of the representative of one of our most ancient baronies (through the female line) was pleased to set up a cobler's stall opposite to his lordship's residence, bearing the inscription " Boots and shoes neatly mended by Philip T , father to Lord A ," it was the delight of the soured recluse of Easton to have it said at the Quarter Sessions, " Who would ever take that shabby-looking man for the father-in-law of Lord Heri- ford's daughter!" But from the moment of his wife's departure for the North, neither Tring, nor Pountney Hill, nor even the Quarter Sessions, beheld him again, — An event so trying to his feelings as being forced to admit into \\\^ sanctum sanctorum a legion of plunderers in the shape of masons, carpenters, plasterers, and painters, en- grossed every second of his time. — His narrow soul was absorbed in hods of mortar and pails of whitewash ! The task of placing the old Grange in a state of habitable repair, which he had undertaken solely as a pretext for accepting the thousand a-year profl'ered by his niece and wife, " to be expended," as he said, " on the property settled on Mrs. Barrington," was one which he commenced in haste, to repent at leisure. — Though he was up before the sun, every morning, to take care that not a minute of the labour pur- chased with his money was wasted, — and kept open his Argus eyes after dusk, long after the evening workman had lain down in his lair, — he still entertained peevish misgivings that abuses were car- ried on upon the premises, and plunder carried off. — He wasted as much time in searching after a rusty padlock that was missing from one of the outhouses, as might have carried him into Durham! — But this afforded him the solace of saddling his many grievances upon the shoulders of his wife. — " All was Mrs. Barrington's fault! — Mrs. Barrington had begged of him, at parting, (pretending that it was at the instance of Maria,) the only thing in the shape of a watch-dog he had got about the premises." Miss Barrington had lorwardcd to him, indeed, from London, by way of exchange, a thoroughbred Scotch terrier and a brace of magnilicent pointers, which had " made those of Sir Hildebrand THE DfiBUTANTE. 283 Chalkneys sing rather small.— But what use were all these put together, as guards, compared with poor Bur; who would not let a tramper come within five fields of the house ; and who would have torn half-a-dozen of those rascally workmen in pieces, sooner than let them make away with his master's property by filching the staple and padlock from the wood-house door!" — Little dreamed the poor ragged-coated terrier, in the Elysian fields into which, on his arrival at Hexholm with the traveller, he found himself so strangely translated— even a lambswool rug at the feet of the gentle lady who had so often interposed to save his bones from the knotted holly stick of his savage master,— that he had already come to be regretted by his tyrant! —But Bur was too happy to recur to the misery and meagre fareof Easton Hoo. — By the cheerful voices of Maria and her good aunt, as they sat together conversing, hand-in-hand, he found that nothing— or next to no- thing — was wanting to their perfect contentment. In Mrs. Barrington's reply to her niece's inquiry, whether she had yet visited Arlington Street, " No, my dear,— Charles is too well aware of my inaptitude for the ways of London Ufe, to dream of inviting me,"— there was a slight tone of chagrin. But all was cheerfulness when she added, " Do not let us talk, however, of Arlington Street. You must tell me about yourself, dearest Maria; — all you have been doing, and all you are about to do. — And when you have told me all this, I want to show you the stockings knit by lame Peggy for the kind friend who has secured the comfort of her old days. But, above all, I want to visit, on your arm, the scenes 1 so little expected to see again." — It was clear, even to Bur, that no thought of Easton or its tyrant, disturbed the serenity of the two, so happy in themselves and each other.— But neither the faithful dog nor the good aunt, while ac- companying Miss Barrington to visit the more picturesque spots of her beautiful domain, or the healthful and well-ordered village in which the wise administration of Mr. Fitzhugh had already wrought wonders, could surmise the consolation derived by their young proprietress from the mere aspect of so much beauty and happiness. —Baffled and thwarted as she had been in early life, and perpe- tually grated upon by the niggardliness of her taskmaster, it was something to enjoy, unmolested, even the clear light of day and the flowers sending up their fragrance in the sunshine.— To her, those lovely gardens and that foaming river, were full of compa- nionship.— For her, there needed no gossiping of country neigh- bours to vivify the solitudes of so delightful a spot.— Like Tasso, from her very binh, Her soul was drunk with love, which did pervade Aud mingle with whate'er she saw on earth ; 28^ THE DfiBUTANTi:. Of objects all inanimate she made Idols, and out of wild and lonely flowers, And rocks, whereby they grew, a paradise, Where she did lay her down, within the shade Of waving trees, and dreamed uncounted hours. Though she was chid for wandering. And if all this had been enjoyed among the straitened landscapes of Easton, how much more amid the noble forest and river scenery, and the finely-wooded glades of Hexholm Park I — CHAPTER XXXII. Je fais chaque jour I'experience qu'il est impossible d'ecrire dix lignes sur quelque sujet que ce soil sans comprometlre dix interets particuliers, sans froissei vingt amours-propres. Les reproches, les plaintes , les reclamations m'arrivent de tons cotes ; et. chosi- assez ordinaire , les uns se plaignent de cu dont les autres se louent,— car je re^ois bien, de loin en loin, quelques lettres de remerciments.— Joiv. N0TWITHST.4NDING the latcness of the season, Heriford House was still open ; and though the family was delayed in town by a cause no less afflicting than the decline of the old marquis, to which his physicians predicted a fatal termination, his sons and daughters continued to enjoy, without much compunction, their share of the pleasures of the closing season. — Lord Heriford was a person who fulfilled, with so much dignity and decorum, in all respects, the duties of his station, that he was dying with the same deliberate propriety he had lived, — so quietly and gradually, as to alarm no one's sensibilities and interfere with no one's pursuits. — With the exception of his own man, a confidential valet, only a few years younger than himself, who rendered a daily account to the mar- chioness of the progress of his Lordship's symptoms, not a person in the house heeded the slow sinking of the mercury in the tube, — As an excuse for taking their daily fees, a few harmless potions were suggested by the physicians. But they promised nothing from the result : aware that remedies are not to be found at the druggist's for the fatal malady called fourscore years. — The marchioness, wise in her generation (after the wisdom of this world,) and contemplating life from the corner of her family coach, much as an emmet surveys it from behind a pebble in a gravel walk, was labouring hard to settle lier daughters in life pre- vious to their total eclipse under the shadow of her dowagerhood ; and as Lord Clandon was ever ready and willing, when not engaged in the discharge of his parliamentary duties, to devote the evening THE nftnuTANTt. 285 lo excite the gentle drowsiness insured lo his poor old lather hy hearing the papers n^ad to him, — Lady Heritbrd was at leisure to discharge the duties ol' chaperon, which slic appeared to think of equal moment ; — assuring the kind inquirers after her husband, at \\\(ijeies she Frequented, that " Lord Heriford was going on favour- ably,"— which, as he was going straight to his grave, was an announcement somewhat equivocal. — But how few of those who inquired, were at the pains of even listening to the answer! — People must be sick and die at a very dull moment of the London year, to have much chance of exciting sympathy by their exit! — The beau mondc had other objects of solicitude than the decay of nature of one who, having done nothing in public life and no harm in private, had gone through life untalked of. The county of Buckingham, indeed, took the liberty of wondering a little by whom it should be represented, when Lord Clandon was called to the Upper House. But the county of Buckingham was a bumpkin, whoso wonderment was of small account ; and to the World, pro- perly so called, it was of course a matter of indifference whether Heriford Castle and its dependencies belonged to William, seventh Marquis of Heriford, or Richard, the eighth. — The World had the daily d([jenners of its score of exquisite villas to be scampered after, in barouches and four,— exposing the fairest complexions under the sun to the coolest sun looking down upon the surface of the earth ; — a rash pretence at al fresco pleasures on the part of a land which, if it knew what it was about, would never stir from the fireside,— People were driving down to be rained upon, among the charming cedars and magnolias of Chiswick ; or defying the dust of the Brentford Road, that their cold chicken might be flavoured with a glimpse of the azaleas and kalmias of Sion : while innumerable strawberry-parties at Carapden Hill, or Gunnersbury, or Cashiobury, rendered dancing a necessary precaution against the chilly atmosphere of an English summerday, encountered in the suicidal slightness of muslin or jean. — Among those vernal pastimes of fashionable life, a Greenwich party, made up by the Duchess of Nantwich, was the object of some solicitude : not to the chosen set which it included ; but to the set a degree lower in the scale of exclusivism, whose parties for the same day were spoiled by the embargo laid upon their stars.— Lady Barbara Bernardo, who had as much chance of tole- ration in the Duchess's clique as her husband of obtaining the Golden Fleece, was in despair at finding that Lord Henry do Capell, instead of escorting her by the train to a Cashiobury frisk, had promised to accompany the Bowbridges to the Crown and Sceptre, — several boxes having been engaged at Astlcy's for the Duchess's party, on their way back to town.— Nor was Lady Mortayne less embarrassed, between her desire to join the Greenwich party, 2 86 THE DEBUTANTE. which was an object of general envy, — and annoyance at having to appear there, shorn of her habitual cavalier. — For between the Duchess's set and Lady Alicia Barrington's, there was as clear a line of demarcation as between that of Lady Alicia and Mrs. Vicary Arable. Among the former, the cha- racteristic of whose finery was the absence of all affectation, Lady Alicia was voted pretentieiise and a bore ; and the ceremo- nious civihty with which the self-elected Amphitryon of the corps, diplomatique was treated by Lady Bowbridgo and her Gi'ace, so convinced her that beyond an invitation to their annual mobs their acquaintance was inaccessible, as to have forestalled all attempts, on her part, at nearer intimacy. — Charles Barrington, however, less skilled than his wife in the tactics and impertinence of the great world, entertained an ob- stinate conviction that, being on visiting terms with the Duke and Duchess of Nantwich, there was no reason he should not be invited to their more privileged reunions; and kept throwing himself in their way, for the chance of getting included in the party with which Lady Mortayne was so preoccupied. On such points, women are clearer-sighted than men; and Eleanor was as well aware as Lady Alicia, that those by whom the party was projected would as soon have thoughtof extending their invitations to the jeune premier of the French theatre, as to the Sir Eglamonr whom she found so attractive; and that all thedukes and duchesses of the peerage might dine at his house, without ad- vancing him a step nearer the distinctions he coveted. But if vexed at having for once to appear without the shadow, the constancy of whose attendance served, she fancied, to enhance her magnitude, her anxiety became infinitely greater when, some days before the party took place, the ball at Heriford House was followed by the sudden disappearance of Lord Mortayne! At first, his absence appeared a relief.— But on the third day after his departure. Lady Mortayne saw fit to address a letter to her husband at Brighton, (destined of course never to reach his hands) reminding him of the Greenwich party, and expressing a hope that he would be well enough to return to town in lime for the engagement. " To say the truth," added the fair Eleanor, " I do not yet feel on sufficiently intimate terms with your friends, to join them without you; and 1 trust, therefore, my dear Mortayne, to see you by Friday's early train.— If you are prevented coming, write me a line by return of post." — No line arrived by return of post ; and no counter order was consequently issued for the delicate chapcau en paille de riz garni en clochettes, and the dress of pale green silk trimmed with flounces of Brussels lace, which were in preparation to render THE DfiRUTANTli. 287 Lady Mortayne an object of jealousy a.nd pique to the Duchess and Lady Bowbridge; whose patronage she resented as so insulting, and whose faces, being a dozen years older than her own, she had no great difficulty in eclipsing. — She had been careful to mention her engagement to Lady Barbara, Lady Alicia, and others slill more eager for admittance into the elite set in which she was tole- rated; and when the appointed day arrived, bringing no Morty by the early train, and no letter from Morty by the post, his wife was more annoyed than she had felt since the day of discovering that the attentions of Charles Barrington were transferred to Lord Ileri- ford's daughter! — Not that her mind was disquieted by anxiety concerning his health. She was simply angry — not sorry ; and when, early in the day, Lady Mary de Capell came bounding into her room, to ascer- tain whether there was no possibility of inducing thegood-nalured Lord Bowbridge to get her invited, Lady Mortayne hesitated for a moment about throwing cold water on the project. Any thing rather than drive down a/owe to Greenwich, — bearing her husband's apology, which was no apology at all. — She was too much in awe, however, of the cool, scrutinizing glances of Lord Bowbridge's wife, to hazard the attempt; and having got rid of the importunate girl by assurances that she had herself given up all thoughts of joining the party, would probably have realized her announcement, had not Charles Barrington, when looking in for a minute, at four o'clock on his way to VVhile's, — observed, " As Mortayne has not made his appearance, of course you will not think of joining the parly." The " of course," and the emphasis with which it was pro- nounced, decided her. " On the contrary," said she, " as I have no inclination to dine alone, I shall order the carriage." All that remained for the disappointed man was to take up his hat. — All that remained for the abandoned Ariadne, was to ensconce the paille de riz garni en clocheltes; — and when, from under the shade of her white parasol, she kissed her hand to the indignant Sir Eglamour, on her way towards Westminster Bridge, as he vvas making the best of his along Parliament Street to the House of Com- mons, in spite of his wrath at her perseverance in proceeding where she knew he was not to be found, Charles Barrington could not but admit that never had he seen the face of woman half so lovely. As she approached Greenwich, however. Lady Mortayne felt almost inclined to turn back. Unsupported by " Morty," she did not feel herself one of the set she was about to join. She had no plea to assign for his absence, — she had no plea to assign for her being so cheerful and at ease while he was away. — Slill, confiding 288 THE DfeBUTANTE. in the power of her beauty, she knew thai to one nioicly of the party, at least, her presence would be acceptable. The first person she encountered at Greenwich, lounging near the door of the Crown and Sceptre, with a cigar in his mouth, was Lord Newbury. — " You are hours too late for the match, my dear Lady Mortayne I" cried he, hastening to the carriage-door, the moment it slopped, — on pretence of assisting her out of it, but so as to prevent the possibility of its being opened by her servant, — " By Jove! how well you're looking! — And how tremendously you're got up!" " 11 a.v there a match to-day ?" she inquired, careless how deeply her listlessness on the subject might wound the susceptibility of a constituent of that great maritime force, the Thames Yacht Club.— " Yes, a famous one! — The Mystery, as usual, beat everything to pieces. — Would you like to see my boat? — The greatest beauty between this and the Nore?" — "^ Thank you — I am afraid I am rather late for dinner — ■" Lady Mortayne was beginning, but beginning only to be interrupted by Lord Newbury's eager protestations, that look at it she must and should, — that it was lying at only fifty yards' distance in the river. And so vehement were his gesticulations, and so familiar his atti- tude as he leaned into the barouche looking full into her lace, as to afford some ground for the astonishment with which the pair were contemplated by Sir John Hildyard, who was approaching Love- grove's to join the Duchess's party. — On a signal from Lady Mortayne, the steps were instantly let down; and before Lord Newbury could recover his surprise, she was on the staircase of Lovegrove's, — with the view of entering the room as if escorted by Sir John. — As was to be expected from the lateness of her arrival, the party was already assembled. But both the Duchess and Lady Bowbridge came forward kindly to meet her. — Brilliant with youth and loveliness, she darted into the room like a ray of sunshine ; and as they believed her to be accompanied by Morty, who was probably lingering behind to give orders to the coachman, there was no drawback on the welcome she received. Sealed beside the Duchess, on the shabby sofa which, during the whitebait season, witnesses on a average twenty severe flirtations per week, she was accepting with a smile the compliments of Lord Alfred on the lightness and freshness of her cforhcties, while Sir Alan llarkesley undertook the severe duty of toadying the Duchess, when Sir John Hildyard, somewhat gravely, api^roacliod her. — "In am delighted to see you here, dear Lady Mortayne," said he; " for it puts me at once out of n)y pain respecting Morty. I was afraid be was seriously indisposed." — THE DEBUTANTE. 289 " Lord Mortayne is at Brighton," was her reply, — " I have just been making apologies lor him to the Duchess of Nantwich. — I expected him back, till the last moment; or should have written to beg that his place might be disposed of." — " At Brighton?" — reiterated Sir John, evidently much aston- ished. — " He went down for change of air, the day after the ball at Heriford House," resumed Lady Mortayne. " I am sorry to say, Lord Mortayne still retains his oriental partiality for those per- nicious vapour-baths!— But I was in hopes that two or three days would suffice to set him up." — " He was indeed looking amazingly ill at Heriford House," observed Sir Alan Harkesley, who, with the Duchess, now joined in the conversation. — " At one moment, I vow to Heaven I thought he was going to faint!" — " And no wonder!" — drawled Lord Alfred. — " Whose courage or constitution would bear up against a iete-a-tefe with Lady Ahcia, — when showing him her double row of teeth, like an Otaheitan idol!" — " Are you quite sure that Morty is at Brighton?" inquired Sir John Hildyard, in a significant whisper, of Lady Mortayne. — " Quite sure. — He started on Tuesday by the early train."— " And I, by the evening. On calling in Brook-street that day (so anxious did I feel concerning his indisposition of the preceding night), the servants informed me that his Lordship was gone to Brighton, and alone; on which, being really alarmed about him, I resolved to follow. But 1 can promise you that neither on Tuesday, nor the two following days, did he arrive at Brighton! — 1 returned only this morning. No one had seen or heard of him." — • "Most extraordinary!" cried Lady Mortayne, while the three other persons who overheard the communication of Sir John preserved an ominous silence. But any one might have noticed that there was far more concern in the air of Morty's old friends, than in that of his new wife. — ' ' Morty was always the most eccentric fellow on earth ! " observed Lord Bowbridge, by the time the story reached him. — " He never could do things like other people ! — Don't you remember that day he marched off", af if going to take a walk in the Regent's Park, and never stopped till he got to the Pyramids?" — " You will begin to alarm Lady Mortayne, my dear Bowbridge, if you talk in that manner!"— interrupted Harkesley. — " You forget that, in the days you speak of, he was a Knight of Malta." — " I am not the least uneasy," rejoined Lady Mortayne, who was nevertheless seriously alarmed, — not concerning her husband's health, but concerning what Lady Alicia might have been telhng him. — " There are moments when the atmosphere of London is 19 290 THE DfiBUTANTE. sufficiently oppressive to make any one of us start off by the first train, — no matter whither. — Were it in my power, I should like to be in the Highlands this very night!" — " But not v/iLhout intimating your intentions to the friends you leave behind," argued Sir John Hildyard, apart, to the lady who seemed to take her lord's absence so coolly. — " God forbid I should alarm you. But I really wish, my dear Lady Mortayne, you would institute some inquiry, or aulhorize me to institute some, concerning my friend's destination after leaving home. — He was so strangely overpowered wnen I put him into the carriage at Hcri- ford House, that I could scarcely make him out." — By this time Lady Mortayne was twenty times more genee than she had ever expected to be on joining the party. — She fancied them all eyeing her askance, as a monster who had arrayed herself in clochettes and Brussels lace while her husband, in a demented stale, was wandering about the country, — no one knew where, — no one knew why. — "If you will come to me in Brook-street to-morrow," said she, addressing Sir John, in a tit of desperation that gave her courage, and with the sweetest smile she could assume, — " I think 1 shall be able to satisfy you that you have unnecessarily alarmed your- self."— And though the promise was made at random to avert the awkwardness of the moment, it appeared so plausible to all present, that Lady Mortayne obtained the credit of keepmg her husband's secret, rather than the contempt of his friends for the heartless levity of her proceedings.— By tacit consent, they abstained from all further allusion to Morly. — The party went off as Greenwich parties are apt to go off; every one agreeing that the whitebait was less good than in preceding years, and the wine and attendance execrable; simply because the individuals present were three hundred and sixty-five days older than the last time they were grilled in the same stutfy room, —complaining of the heat of the same setting sun, and the badness of the same quality of champagne.— Sir John Hildyard made two or three detestable puns, which were heartily laughed at ; and said two or three profoundly witty things, which, like the still cham- pagne, were passed over in silence, as platitudes. Sir Alan Harkesley made a butt of Lord Alfred, and Lord Bowbridge of Sir Alan Harkesley; — and by the time a great deal of bad wine had been drunk, and a great deal of nonsense talked, they all got into spirits, and voted that, though the whitebait was less good than usual, it was belter than anything else; and that, though the room was hot and uncomfortable, it was pleasanter than the Trafalgar. — They were, in short, in a fair way to protest, on their return to town, that the dinner had been successful, and the parly delightful. THE DEBUTANTE. 291 There was every chance that Lady Barbara and the Harringtons would pass a miserable night. Unluckily, Lady IMorlayne was placed at table between Sir John Hildyard and Lord Henry de Capcll ; and to secure herself against being cross-examined by the former concerning her husband, afforded sufficient encouragement to the attentions of the latter, to quicken his perception of the fact that his fair cousin was twenty years younger than Lady Bowbridge, as whose cavaliere servente it was his allotted duty Lo officiate. As is frequently the case, the homage paid to Lady Mortaync by Charles Barrington had opened the eyes of others to her altraclions ; and though Lord Henry had seen through the worldliness of Eleanor Mailland sufficiently to resist his mother's desire that he should make her his wife, he was not the man to shrink fiom a flirtation, when occasion offered, with a pretty woman, because she was the wife of one friend and the object of atlachmcnt to another. It was not in the nature of his vanity to conjecture that he was encouraged only to cover the awkwardness of a woman embar- rassee de sa contenance; and his attentions were consequently such as, combined with the forced smiles irradiating the fair face that propitiated ihem, to justify the air ot surprise and chagrin with which Hildyard and Lord Bowbridge, the genuine friends of Morty, contemplated the conduct of his wife. Lady Mortayne had from the first declined joining the party to Astley's, — eager to abridge the embarrassment of her position, and proceed to the Opera, to give so favourable an account of the Greenwich dinner as to excite the envy of her friend Lady Barbara, and drive the already sullen Barringlon into a siill blacker fit of the sulks. But when Sir John Hildyard, on ste|)ping into his brougham to follow the Duke and Duchess of Nantwich to the Circus, saw Lord Henry de Capcll quietly assume the place vacant by the side of his fair cousin in her barouche, he was so far from supposing that, just as she was getting in, de Capell had asked her to " give him a hit," in apparently so off-hand a manner as lo render refusal difficult without an affectation of prudery, — that he entertained little doubt the tete-d-tcie was pre-arranged.— So also thought Lady Bow- bridge, on finding herself left with Sir Alan Harkcslcy pour tout cavalier; and it was scarcely likely that her previous dislike of Morty's wife would be lessened by the desertion of her chosen knight. By these triffing circumstances. Lady Mortayne, in spite of the becoming clochettes and Brussels lace, contrived to render herself obnoxious to the whole party. On setting out from Brook-street, she had reckoned too largely, as a fashionable beauty is apt to do, on the charm of her personal appearance; for it requires the experience of years to understand how small a portion of a woman's 292 THE DfeBUTANTE. attraction resides in the texture of her trimmings, or even in the tincture of her skin. As Httle did the lovely Eleanor comprehend that the motive of Lord Henry de Capell, in contriving to return with her alone to London, was anything but to prolong his enjoyment of her society. While she attributed his empressemenl solely to the influence of the smiles she had recklessly lavished upon him, of her charming toi- lette, and the admiration it had commanded, all he cared for was that the coachman should drive along Pall-mall and up St. James's- street, on their way to Brook-street, for the chance of being seen from the different club windows ! He was prepared, of course, to apprise every soul he met at the Opera, that Lady Mortayne had brought him back to town ( her husband being in the country). But he seemed so well aware of the value set upon his word, as to know that it might be as well to have eye-witnesses to the authenticity of the fact. CHAPTER XXXHL Sweet hopes she gave to every youth apart, With well-taught looks, and a deceitful heart. Pope's Homeu. That night, on returning from the Opera, Lady Mortayne was apprised that my lord had arrived by a late train, and retired to rest in his room on the ground floor. No servant having accom- panied him out of town, it was at present out of her power to obtain further insight into the object of his unaccountable journey ; and as she was anxious to join a dinner-[)arty at Bowbridge House the following day, which she would not have attempted unsupported by Morty, she was rejoiced to hear of his being in town, — espe- cially as he seemed to have divined her wish of establishing terms of unconjugal distance between them. Nevertheless, when she woke on the morrow with the knowledge she was once more under the same roof with the man whose honour she had endangered, not by deeds, indeed, but words, by ♦en- couraging avowals of admiration of a nature to which no maniod woman has a right to listen, — she felt conscious and ashamed; and, as the moment approached for their interview, had scarcely courage to make her appearance in the drawing-room. Since they came to town, their hour of rising being different, she had been in the habit of breakfasting in her own room ; the late hours in which she indulged rendering it impossible to continue the domestic system they had enjoyed together at Mortayne. But long before her dressing hour expired , her husband was usually by THE DfeBUTANTE. 293 her side; and now that he neither came nor sent, she knew that something must be amiss. — Had her affection for him been as it ought, or even had her con- science been clear, she would have been the first to make advances, by hastening down into his dressing-room. As it was, she could only think of the expedient of veiling her uneasiness under an air of haughty reserve. Offended dignity was the safest mask for her fears. The consequence was that poor Morty, who had looked forward to that interview in anguish of spirit far more painful than her shallow cowardice, was relieved at once. Had he found her full of tender reproaches, or pale and sorrowful, the task he had imposed upon himself had been beyond his strength. — But her ill-humour steeled his heart, and almost reconverted him into a man of the world. — " As you doubtless guess, my dear Eleanor, I have been at Mor- tayne! " said he, with assumed sang-froid, when he saw that she did not condescend to question him respecting his movements. "When halfway to Brighton, I reflected that the air of the North was still more bracing than that of the Steyne.— But I did not write to announce my change of plan, partly because intending to return on the morrow, and partly lest you should fancy me bent on inter- fering with the plans you left with Archer, for the new flower- garden." Satisfied in a moment that whatever might have been the real cause of his journey, it was not what she had tremblingly suspected, Lady Mortayne replied in a tone of flighty indifference, — affecting to make as light of his absence as he could desire. " He ought to have written," she said ; "not to herself, indeed, — for his message had i)revented her feeling the least uneasy ; but to the Duchess of Nantwich, to excuse himself from the Greenwich party, where his absence had occasioned the awkwardness of an empty chair." " I admit it, — I ought certainly to have written I " — replied Lord Mortayne, regretting to find her thus placable, — so great would have been the relief to his feelings had she exhibited a degree of resentment affording a pretext for coldness, — for Morty's kind- liness of disposition and natural good breeding rendered, indeed, difficult the ungracious part he had to play. " But I thought, — [ fancied, — that, during my absence, you would naturally excuse us both to the Duchess." " Had I followed my own inclinations," retorted Eleanor, pur- suing what she considered her advantage, " I should have done so. But surely it was better, for the sake of appearances,— for the sake of avoiding a discussion of your strange absence, — not to create a double disappointment? — Having written to Brighton, 59'i THE DfenUFANTE. ( where you gave me your address, ) imploring you to return, I " " And did you imploreme to return?" demanded Lord Mortayne, touched to the soul, and al'.ributing her uneasiness and embarrass- ment to emolions ol'a tenderer nature than she cared to exhibit, " Most carneslly I " rejoined his wife, in a whisper whose soft- ness completed his delusion.— And in a moment he flew to her side, unable to withstand the temptation of taking her slight hand within his own. When lo ! as he approached her, something in the falseness of the smile under which she was endeavouring to disguise her feelings, — something in the expression of the cold blue eyes she turned upon him, (which Henry de CapcU had once aptly com- pared to those of Hcrodias's daughter), something in her whole air, in short, inspired as she was by the unworthy desire of de- ceiving him, — so reminded him of — ho- mother, — that, instead of fulfilling his intentions, he staggered back across the room and sank into a chair It was the first lime he had looked face to face upon Eleanor, since that fatal discovery. — He felt,— he felt that it ought to be the last ! — At that moment, before he had time to recover hin^self, or give a colouring to his strange conduct, Sir John Hildyard was ushered into the room. — Not with the expectation of seeing Morly,— whom he still believed to be absent from town; but in pursuance to his engagement of the preceding day with Lady Mor- tayne, who had promised to afford him an explanation of the pro- ceedings of his friend. On hearing the announcement of his name, Lord Mortayne started up, intending to make his escape through the back drawing- room; for he was in no condition to encounter Hildyard's scruti- nizing eye. — But already, the visitor was in the room. " The truant is returned, then?" — cried Sir John, on catching sight of him. — And as he advanced towards Morty with an ex- tended hand, he was about to overwhelm him with playful re- proaches for the alarm he had occasioned his friends, when the sight of his haggard countenance and hollow eyes suspended the words on his lips. "My dear Morty," said he, gently approaching him, — ''you have been ill I— You have been seriously ill ! " — "HI enough ! " replied Lord Mortayne, endeavouring to rally his spirits and resume his usual tone, so aS to baffle the suspicions his appearance was likely to awaken. — " The hot rooms of London, if you remember, were always fatal to me." "Then why, in Heaven's name, did you risk coming to town this season? — Why not remain at Mortayne ? " — " Human vanity, my dear Hildyard ! " rejoined Morty, — his lips almost refusinof to utter the levities so terribly at variance with the THE D£BUTANTE. SOS feelings he was labouring to repress. " I could not think of shutting up a wife like mine in the country. — I wished, of course, to render myself an object of envy to you and all the world." So slrangc was the discrepancy between this vaunt and the tro- raulous voice in which it was uttered, that Hildyard was fully justified in believing him lo speak ironically. — But at that moment, a glance of Morty's eye towards the window, showed him that the wife of his friend, whom, in his dismay at the ghaslliness of Lord Morlayne's face he had wholly overlooked, was in the room ; and the few minutes that ensued, were rendered a little less awkward by the necessary greetings. " I was afraid you were going to drop my acquaintance alto- gether, in spite of the satisfaction of seeing my predictions realized!" said Eleanor, extending her hand with a gracious smile, by way of propitiation. — "But now that you do condescend to speak and listen to me, let me entreat you, Sir John, to unite with me in per- suading Lord Mortayne to send for Chambers. — You cannot but see how ill he is lookingl — Instead of a few quiet days at Brighton, he has been fatiguing himself to death by a hurried journey to the North, to look after his improvements ; and, in the present state of the weather, all this has been too much for him I" — Thankful to her for taking the explanation, which he found so difficult, into her own hands, and in so plausible a manner. Lord Mortayne overlooked the fact that Sir John had been an eye-witness of the scene at Ileriford House. " At all events, we must take care of him now we have got him back again I" was the kindly rejoinder by which Sir John Hildyard endeavoured to conceal his suspicions, that all was not so smooth between them as both parties wished him to believe, "Do you dine to-day at Bowbridges' ?" continued he. — And the manner in which the husband and wife looked at each other, e\i- dently without having come to an understanding on that or any other point connected with their engagements, convinced him that, in spite of appearances, they were still at issue. — Sir John was not much surprised by Morty's avowal that it was the first he had heard of the invitation. "And what sort of a party had you at Greenwich yesterday?" added his Lordship, twirling the tassels of his dressing-gown, as he rested his arms upon his knees, with an assumption of ease, much resembling that of a passenger pretending to converse on the deck of a steam-packet which is beginning lo roll. " Like all other parlies of the kind !" replied Hildyard ; " more fuss made about it, than it was worth. — One has lo give up plea- sant engagements, and hurry through the dust to dine ill with those with whom it is much easier and plcasanter to dine well at their house in town." — 296 THE DfiBUTANTE. Understanding by this remark that Sir John considered the party fiasco, whereas his observations apphod to Greenwich parties in general, Lady Mortayne thought it duo to her bon ton to express a similar opinion. "She had never been more bored, — she was re- solved never to repeat the experiment I " — And Hildyard, in whose mind's eye there still lingered the ^aft^mzi of Lady Morlayne's grace- ful figure and lovely face, reclining in her barouche, with Lord Newbury leaning in and looking full into her blue eyes under cover of the Mechlin flounce of her parasol, and of Lady Mortayne in the same position, wrapt in her cachemiro as a protection against the night air, with Lord Henry de Capell installed by her side with a cigar in his mouth, starting back to town, — set down the lady who professed herself to have been " bored" as a contemptible hypocrite ! — " Do you remember, my dear Hildyard," said Morty, by way of giving a new turn to the conversation, " that charming Greenwich party we had with the Wessexes, five or six years ago, when the Berlinazzis were in England?" "Five or six years?" interrupted Sir John, "Nine or ten would, 1 fear, be nearer the mark I — There was poor John L , and poor George H , and poor Lady Maryfield, and several others, who, five years ago, alas ! had ceased to exist \" — Lady Mortayne looked stedfastly out of the window ; lest, by meeting their eyes, her looks should betray that she was dying to inquire whether Old Vassal also belonged to this antediluvian coterie. "A charming party, however, it was !" continued Sir John. "Everybody so well suited to each other, as to produce one of the smooth surfaces indispensable to the brilliancy of society. No mistakes, no discrepancies, no breaking up, as yesterday, before the right moment, because the fractions were not judiciously com- bined." "Lord Henry de Capell and Lord Newbury!" interrupted the sonorous voice of the butler, throwing open the drawing-room door, as if expressly to supply an illustration of the arguments of Sir John. And in sauntered two flagrant specimens of a generation, with which Morty and his friend had as little in common as the age of Addison and Swift with that of the l*ickwick School. The very mode of Lord Newbui-y's gathering himself into a chair beside Lady Mortayne, as if about to play at leapfrog, afforded a justifica- tion for the proposal of Hildyard to the master of the house that he would dress and walk down with him to White's; — so oflensive was this forward familiarity in the sight of older men. " How famously you must have been bored, yesterday!" said the young lordling, addressing Lady Mortayne, as soon as the door had closed upon her husband. " You only wanted my governor, THE DfeBUTANTE. 297 to have all the bores in London — " he would have added, but for the presence of Sir John Hildyard. But an expressive glance at the back of his coat, as he stood contemplating a beautiful miniature of Lady Mortayne, by Koss, which lay among the trinkets on the table, sufficiently conveyed his meaning. — " Henry assures me, however," continued his lordship, " that Lady Bowbridge was in one of her mildest humours, and bit nobody to signify, — except one of the waiters, who was instantly removed to the county hospital." " I will thank you not to affix my name to your wretched jokes," said Lord Henry, with an air of languid disgust, "as an innkeeper makes people swallow his bad wine, by placing a false label on the bottle." " Why, you know very well, Henry, you told me at Crock's, last night, after the Opera, that the party was the flattest thing you ever underwent; that listening to the obsolete twaddle of the Duchess's set was like looking over a pack of old almanacks; — and that the only supportable part of the atfair was your moonlight drive home with Lady Mortayne ! Now, don't look as if you felt inclined to eat me, old fellow!" — " Do not alarm yourself," interrupted Lord Henry, with an air of ineffable disdain. " 1 am no cannibal ! Anything 7-aw is beyond my powers of digestion !" ** Is that the reason, pray, that you were trying to do poor Bar- rington brown, last night, by persuading him that Lady Mortayne had given up Astley's for the Opera, at your entreaty?" persisted Newbury, a little nettled. " It was expressly to get rid of our friend Henry, that Charles Barrington took refuge in Lady Coylsfield's box," continued he, turning towards Lady Mortayne. " Lady Coylsfield being one of the ultra-respectables,— a woman who sits through the Opera with ias solemn an air as a judge at the Old Bailey or a bishop at a visitation sermon, — Barrington knew him- self to be safe under the shadow of her skirts from contact with anything of the name of de Capell." " Much you seem to know of Barrington's politics!" rejoined F.ord Henry, shrugging his shoulders. " Lord Coylsfield is his cousin, — the only relation, by the way, he is ever heard to men- tion, hke the one great gun dragged out for saluting on state occa- sions, in some fishing village. Whenever Barrington wants to cram us, at Heriford House, with the idea that he could get forward in public life, if he chose, he makes up to the Coylsfields, as a pretext for endorsing himself by a connexion which, otherwise, would run some risk of escaping people's recollection." " I can scarcely imagine a man in Mr Barrington's independent position wishing to make a slave of himself in official life !" said Lady Mortayne, with difficulty subduing her rising ire. 298 THE DfiBUTANTE. ** Not if Mr. Barrington's independence were likely to increase ■with his family," replied Lord Henry, ironically. — " But my worthy brother-in-law seems to be laying the foundations of a dy- nasty. And by the time there arc a dozen little Barringtonscrying for cake and wine, any noble cousin on the Treasury bench, whether Coylsfield or not, might prove a useful connexion," " A cousin of Mr. Barrington's in request, — when Lady Alicia is likely, a few years hence, to have half the cabinets in Europe in hor pocket?" exclaimed Lady Mortayne, with a smile still more sar- castic. "Surely she would feel indignant at the imputation of requiring the patronage of any Lord Coylsfield in the land." " Ay, but it does not follow that Barrington sees with the eyes of his wife !" retorted the reckless Lord Newbury,— who enter- tained small respect for either persons or things. " On the contrary, I suspect that when it is east by north with the one, it is west by south with the other. — They have lost no time in finding out the grand matrimonial secret of repulsion!" — " The world would be a dull one, if so grand an arcanum re- mained a mystery!"saidLordHenry, with affected gravity. "Ishould look with far more compassion upon the many loving couples exposing themselves to public derision, (such, for instance, as my sister Blanche and Algernon Nebwell,) unless sure that less than six months of matrimony would fully restore them to their senses." Sir John Hildyard, who still stood by, in attentive silence, with every i-eason to conclude from the hollow smiles with which all this flippancy was propitiated by Lady Mortayne, that her visitors spoke under encouragement, took occasion to demonstrate by his cold manner of taking leave, when apprised by Morty's valet that his lordship was dressed and waiting for him in the hall, his utter disapproval of their modes of speech, and her own habits of life. " How can you put up with the grave airs of that old blockhead ! How can you support the company of such a synod of antedilu- vians !" exclaimed Lord Henry, the moment poor Morty's friend had quitted the room. " I was in hopes, my dear coz, when you mar- ried, that your influence would have sufficed to render Mortayne one of us. It never occurred to me that he would dream of trans- porting you back into his own obsolete century." " Lord Mortayne is however some years younger than Lady Bowbridge !" — was the significant retort of the angry Eleanor. " Ton, at least! — Bu( when did you ever see me flirt with Lady Bowbridge, except as an act of expiation after doing some foolish thing or other, — such as losing my moneyat/fln^ywew^'/,— or riding a race,— or presiding at a public charity,— or some abomination equally to be — atoned for?" Lord Henry, who was prolonging his visit by preconcerted ar- THE DfinUTANTE. 290 rangement with Newbury, only till what they believed to be the hour of Charles Barrington's daily visits to Brook-street, began to suspect, from the frequent glances of his fair cousin towards the clock on the chimney-piece, that they had not much longer to wait; when, lo, a very low knock at the street door caused the colour to rise to the root of her wavy hair I — Nor was her confusion diminished by the air of uncontrolled ill-humour with which, a moment afterwards, Sir Eglamour entered the room. Attributing to displeasure at finding Lord Henry lolling so familiarly on her ottoman, and Lord Newbury amusing himself by her side with making spills for which he extracted the materials from her papeierie with as much coolness as he might have done at home, the surly manner in which he received their compliments upon his snow-white waistcoatand nelhcrgarments,(LordNewbury provokiijgly inquiring how long he had been sent home from the blancldsseuse,) she exerted herself lo the utmost to place them on a more agreeable fooling. — But though the nods and becks and wreathed smiles of Eleanor Maitland were lavished without reserve, they were lavished in vain. — Lord Henry and his friend were there for the express purpose of annoying; while Barrington was too seriously annoyed to be placed at his ease by a few playful sallies. On his way to Brook-street he had encountered Lord Mortayne and Sir John Hildyard ; — encountered them, too, at the unlucky moment when Sir John, with the view of probing, for the health's sake of his friend, the secret wound which had produced the sin- gular esclandre at Heriford House, was alluding to Lady Alicia Barrington; — a name that recalled so cruelly to Morly's mind the fatal discovery produced by her gossiping, that, on looking up and chancing to encounter the eyes of her husband, it was impossible not to express by the haughtiness of his bow the secret repugnance of his feelings. Nor was Sir John, who still ascribed to the liaison between the fair Eleanor and the man before him, the unconcealed misery of his friend , much more gracious in his salutation. — It was a greeting, in short, as nearly approaching as might be, to a direct cut; and Barrington, conscious with what hopes and expectations he was proceeding to Brook-street, had some pretext for surmising that his nefarious designs were discovered; and that the strange flight of Lord Morlayne from town was, in some mysterious manner or other, connected with the discovery. That, in his anxiety to communicate his suspicions to Lady Mor- tayne, he should all but insult the two prating boys who were prolonging their visit evidently for the sole jjurpose of thwarting him, was little to be wondered at ; particularly by any one who happened to be aware how black a portion of the temper of the THE DEBUTANTE. tyrant of Easton Hoo was inherent in the fashionable son, whose assumed courtesies of nature were only too superficial. CHAPTER XXXIV. And first I note as a thing most noyous And unto youth a grevous maladie, AmoDgis us called love encombrous, Vexyng alway yonge peple straung^lye. Chaucer. People of the world, especially such as, like Eleanor Lady Mor- tayne, have not yet entered that memorable twenty-first year which is supposed to mark the attainment of discretion, are little apt to stop short in their career of pleasure, for the purpose of weighing in the balance their own conduct, enjoyments, or prospects. ' But so much less than a year had elapsed since the debutante of Heriford House was compelled to examine and decide upon the chances of her destiny, that it was difficult not to recur to the deli- beration and its results. She could not forbear sometimes asking herself what she had gained by her marriage. — The charming companion foretold by Morty's reputation for agreeabihty and wit? — Certainly not I — The puppet purchased under the name of Punch had proved a wooden idol ! — The dis- tinction in fashionable life which she had expected to derive from the position maintained by Alorty in the highest circle of exclu- sivism? — Certainly not! — She had been made pungently to feel that a ticket of admission to such a coterie is not transferable, even between a husband and wife I — The rank of a peeress? — Even that was in some measure deteriorated by the want of fortune that negatived her attempts to figure brilliantly in the Jjeau monde. — As to the charm of domestic intercourse to be anticipated from companionship with a man of Lord IMortayne's intelligent mind, equable temper, and affectionate nature, — the charm which en- deared him to so large a circle of friends, — tliat she had never ambitioned, — that she had never calculated upon; — and disap- pointment on that point was not of course included among the many causes of her mui'murs. But she was forced to admit that the evil she deplored was of her own creation ; that her pique against Charles Barrington had rendered her too precipitate. Overlooking her own heartless co- quetry, it was to him she ascribed her reckless choice. — But for his ambitious marriage, she should have abided the chauces of another season ; and, even if his sudden inlluxof prospe- rity had not determined him to oiler her his hand, should have formed some other brilliant connection. The admiration excited THE DfiBUTANTE. 301 l)y that loveliness of person which, as Lady Mortayne, artists so- licited leave to paint, and poets, without leave or solicitation, hastened to sing, must have secured her adorers among that dis- tinguished class of the youthful aristocracy, ever to be found fre- quenting such classical haunts as the Tennis Courts, the Red House, and Tattersall's. There was no occasion to throw herself away on a superannuated roue. She had been rash, — she had been l)remature. Had a well-ordered home, in which to pass a tranquil and meritorious hfe been the object of her ambition, she might still have created it for herself at Mortayne. But of such a home, she had been sickened at VVolseley Hall. All she desired was a pro- minent place in the firmament of fashion, calculated to create envy on the part of others, and, consequently, contentment on her own. A round of restless pleasures, — the artificial day of lustres and gi- randoles, — the soothing of music, blending with whispers of impassioned admiration, — were essential to her enjoyment; — the same tendencies which impelled her unprincipled mother to desert her home and children, and outrage all the ties and decencies of life inspiring the giddy daughter with aspirations scarcely less dangei-ous. It was the languor and ewmi she had betrayed at Mortayne which first produced the discontents of poor Morty. — It was the failure of her spirits which had caused his own to Hag. But for the weariness of supplying excitement and interest to one who could conceive them only amid the gaudy throngs of fashionable life, he would never have languished after the companionship of his former friends, or hurried back to the easy sociability of his club. Piqued, on her arrival in town, by the want of cordiality exhi- bited towards her by the Nantwich set, which she chose to attribute to their dissatisfaction at seeing their favourite Benedick united to a wife selected beyond the pale of their exclusivism. She had now confirmed the coldness which the most trifling attempt on her own part would have readily overcome. Her unmeaning flirtation with Barrington seemed to justify their disgust ; and their system of tacitly excluding her from their selector parties, demonstrated their opinion that she could not do better than coniine herself to the sphere from which she had been injudiciously extracted, and her predilection for which was as injudiciously apparent. From the day of the dinner-party at Bowbridge House, in short, where the estrangement between herself and Morty became mani- fest to the whole circle of his friends, they seemed to consider themselves exonerated from all further attempts at conciliation. Bachelor dinner-parties were made up for the express purpose of amusing the general favourite, who appeared so dispirited — to some of which, as a plea for the exclusion of "sweethearts and 302 THE DfiBUTANTE. wives," was assigned a political character; — to others, the plea of sportsmanship. The Duchess, Lady Bowbridgc, and the rest of the leaders of the set, made no opposition, Avhen il was confided to them that these unusual efl'orts pur|)orted only to restore to their friend Mortayne the sunshine ormind overclouded by his ill-advised marriage. Of the conspirators by whom these pleasant parties and cheerful expeditions were got up, Sir John Hildyard was the only one who acted on system, jmd with malice prepense. The girlishness of Lady Mortayne's character induced him to hope that she might be one of those who calculate the value of things only on losing them ; and that by seeing less of Morty, and learning how many were dis- posed to dispute with her the enjoyment of his company, she would come to appreciate the blessing of which at present she appeared so careless. But Sir John, though a brilliant wit, and man of discernment, knew little of the sex. A bachelor, and on conviction, he had not studied woman's mind in the more intimate relations of life. His theories were derived from books, or from the less worthy speci- mens of female nature ; and in this, as in many other instances, he was mistaken. A disposition like that of Eleanor required, on the contrary, to perfect its reason, the influence of a superior mind exercised with sufficient authority. Reared in a school of bitterness, the surface of her spirit was corroded by sarcasm. — The taunts of her father and brother had created in iier mind a mean standard of female excellence. From her childhood habituated to mistrust, and accustomed to hear un- worthy motives assigned for the conduct of woman, how was she to suppose that, in other households, an altar was erected to the domestic virtues? — or that chastity, and faith in chastity, consti- tute two of the most powerful bonds of social life ? Prepared to consider those levities of female nature the rule, which are in fact the exception, the mere suspicion that she was mistrusted by her lord and despised by his Iriends, induced her to throw aside even the feeble panoply she had created to herself, of deference to the opinion of the world. " Gone to dine at Alan Harkeslcy's villa at Hampton Court!" ex- claimed Old Vassal!, on learning from her, one night at the French play, the cause of Morty's absence. "Ah! yes, by the way, — I recollect! — Bardonnayc and Odescalchi told me yesterday they were to be of the parly : wiiich accounts, 1 suppose, for our having to wait so long for the sci-ond piece. iMadcmoisclle Lucilewas, of course, en retard, for, even by the rail, the distance is alarming. But what can induce a lair bride like yourself, my dear Lady Mortayne, to grant a conge for these bachelor parlies?— Is it d charge de revanche V — THE DfiBUTANTE. 303 Instead of resenting the impertinent suggestion, Lady Mortayne only smiled her contempt; which the old bean accepted as encou- ragement to launch into one of his chapters (jf reminiscences. "I remember," said he, " when my friend Spilsby first married, Lady Susan used to keep him padlocked and chained hkc a terrier, in a snaffle collar. But before the close of ihc year, either she got tired of the clanking of the chain, or some one or other (my friend Morty I am afraid), persuaded her that the person who held it was as much a prisoner as the animal it conKned; and so, for her own freedom's sake, Spilsby, poor dog, was set at liberty !" — "If you will take the trouble of inquiring, Mr. Vassall," was Eleanor's haughty rejoinder, " you will find that neither chain nor padlock has ever been imposed on Lord Mortayne. The inqui- sition is abolished. — Slavery is abolished. — Why replace them by martyrdom in married life? — Why debar your friend the society of such persons as Sir Alan Harkesley and Mademoiselle Lucilc, since it is clearly that which he prefers? — Would that every one were so fortunate as to be able to choose their own associates, and avoid the companions they dislike!" The air of disgust with which this apostrophe was delivered, sufficed (as she expected) to drive the decrepid busy-body out of her box. But Vassall's departure did not console her for the sup- pressed smile with which her friend Lady Barbara sat biting her lips while listening to his allusions to the bachelor recreations of Lord Mortayne. Taone so vain as Eleanor, the mortification of having her insi- gnificance in her husband's estimation pointed out to the notice of another woman, was more acute, jierhaps, than her own discovery of the fact. The pride she had exhibited in her conquest of the all- conquering Morty, rendered it doubly humiliating that the attrac- tions of her youth and beauty had proved insufficient to retain, for six short months, her command over those versatile affec- tions. Amid the irritations arising from domestic dissensions, or even coolness such as threatened the happiness of the Mortaynes, a conSdant is a dangerous thing; the smallest movement or measure suggested by another, being pretty sure to widen the breach. It is worth no one's while to enter so fully into the circumstances and feelings of the parties, even were such an identification with their interests possible, as to enable them to afford useful advice. And on this account, it was perhaps fortunate that the pride of Eleanor forbad her exposing her griefs and grievances to such counsellors as Lady Barbara or the Ladies de Capell, or any other of her favourite companions as a debutante. But, unluckily, the danger did not stop here. Even the coldest human heart has need of sympathy. Even the proudest nature is 304 THE DEBUTANTE. conscious of moments when its pangs are lessened by confiding them to an attentive ear. In time, the frequent absence of Lord Mortayne from his uninviting home became too plain to one who frequented the house so assiduously as Barrington, to be passed over in silence. At first, he was inclined to render a circumstance so propitious to his projects, a matter o[ persiflage. But the feelings of Morty's wife were too extensively embittered to submit to deri- sion. She required soothing, — she required pity; — and pity and soothing were lavished upon her with such considerate tenderness, that the whole budget of her grievances was laid open, to excite all the indignation she desired, as well as a secret joy that did not enter into her calculations. By degrees, her vexations began to appear almost dear to her; so careful was she to store up every particle of her injuries in the treasury of her heart, to be exhibited at leisure to the sympa- thising friend who made his daily appearance in Brook-street, to listen and to deplore. — Had he failed her, how dreary would have been the remainder of her day ! — Had he failed her, the tears which his kindly counsels enabled her to repress, would have burst forth! — Nature was wreaking her revenge. — The girl who, at the age when love is becoming, had sacrificed the promptings of her heart to the base scheming of ambition, was at length overmas- tered by feelings, subdued for a time only, that, like an impeded current, they might assume redoubled force. — " Chassez le natu- re!,'''' says the adage, " il revient au galop.''' — The imprudent wife was atoning, a thousand-fold, for the hard-heartedness of the debutante I The season had, by this time, progressed into a slow and feeble repetition of its more vivacious strains, resembhng the expiring tunc of a musical box, which no one is at the pains to stop, — satisfied that it will soon wear itself out. — People were growing tired of looking at each other; and tired of listening to each other; unless such well-assorted couples as felt that they could look and listen for ever. — Among these, unhappily, were several to whom looking and listening Avere unlawful ; but who were not the less content to prolong the diversions all'ording a mantle to their in- fatuation. — Even Heriford House at last closed its window shutters. — The marchioness, perceiving that neither crowded ball, nor select de- jeuners, availed to open the eyes of Lady Mary and Lady Blanche to the folly of their flirtation with two portionless younger brothers, obtained a decree from the family physician that her Ijord might porhaj)s derive benefit, ami could sustain no possible harm, from removing to GreeiiscUs; where, thanks to the railroad, medical advice was procurable in an hour from town; and as Lord (llandon was likely to be detained ten days longer by his parliamentary THE DfeBUTANTE. 305 duties, his brother Henry condescended to become his substitute with the invalid. By these changes, the only house in which she was familiar, ceased to be accessible to the imprudent Eleanor; while, by the loss of Henry de CapoU, whose services as an escort were usually at her command, she was left entirely in the hands of his brother- in-law. — And right eagerly did Charles Barrington pursue his ad- vantage ! — Whether riding, walking, or driving, they were con- tinually seen together. — " As the husband of her cousin Lady Alicia, Lady Morlayne na- turally sees more of him than of others," observed Morty, with apparent unconcern, in reply to an observation hazarded by Sir John Hildyard, purporting to modify an intimacy which might become injurious to the honour of his friend. — " Now Lord Henry has left town, she has no one else to give her an arm when I am not at hand. — Clandon, this year, has not so much as shown his face in the world." Too well aware of the proverbial danger of interposing a finger entre Varbre et Vccorce, to persevere where the husband himself seemed disposed to discourage enlightenment, Sir John adverted no further to the delicate subject. — He almost repented his for- bearance, however, when, at the instigation of one of those sudden glows of summer weather which even an English July occasionally calls out of the furnace, the Nantwiches set sail for the coast of Brittany; — carrying with them Morty, whose increasing languor not only caused serious uneasiness to his friends, but who, even by his physician, was ordered change of air. " Try a cruise, Morty, — try a cruise! — Yachting ahvays agreed with you!" had long been the chorus-cry of White's ; and on his stating that " Lady Mortayne disliked sailing," — instead of finding the plea accepted as contrary to the advice given, his friends unanim- ously seconded the opinion of the Duke of Nantwich, that, " in THAT case, there could be no objection to Morty's embarking with him and the Duchess, in their expedition to Cherbourg." The person most eager, however, in seconding the scheme, was Eleanor. ' ' He was looking very ill. London seemed the worst place in the world for him ; and yet, during the touring season, she should be sorry to encounter the annoyance he had so often des- cribed to her from the' incursions of the Vandals visiting the lakes. — If he would consent to accompany his friends the Nantwiches in their comfortable yacht, she would spend the intci-im at Wolseley Hall."— Relieved by this arrangement from all furlher scruples. Lord Mortayne ceded to the entreaties of the Duke ; and before the fe- verish heat of the weather which had improvisated the scheme, 20 306 THE DfiBUTANTE. subsided, the Southampton train conveyed them to their trim Uttle Amphion. " I would not alarm you so long as we were within sight of shore, my dear Morty," said the Duke, as they stood out for the coast of France; " but I mean our cruise to be of three weeks or a month's duration. We shall bo much better off than pottering at Cowes; and I have medical authority for the conviction, that a complete change of air, scene, and society is indispensable to the restoration of your health." — But however sincere Lady Mortayne might have been at the mo- ment, in her announcement of an intention to visit Wolseley Hall, (as she would have undertaken any other disagreeable duty to secure Lord Morlayne's departure from town, and her own relief from the mortification of witnessing the significant smiles of Lady Bar- bara, and the expression of Vassall's astonishment, at seeing her excluded, day after day, from the inner circle of exclusivism into which she boasted of admittance,) no sooner was he fairly off, — no sooner was the sailing of the Amphion announced among the ship news, — than she discovered the absolute necessity of remaining a short time longer in town. '' Her brother was the sort of person on whom it was impossible for even his nearest relations to intrude, uninvited. — Besides, she had promised her old friend. Lady Essendon, to be at her ball which would be the last of the season ; Lady Essendon, whose eldest daughter was to be presented at the first drawing-room of the ensuing year, being desirous to lay the foundations of a dancing acquaintance for her benefit, previous to the important event." — With Charles Barrington constantly at her elbow, to add " Of course I — You could do no otherwise, — Lord Mortayne can have no possible objection to your following your discretion on such a point," — she was not likely to feci irrevocably condemned to the corvee of Wolseley Hall. — The beautiful barb was still, therefore, in constant request ; and the name of Lady Mortayne cited, twice a-week, by the newspapers, in the list of fashionables present at the Opera. Nay, she was tempted to join more than one Greenwich party, the ease and gaiety of which fully compensated for the dulness of her first expe- riment. — " What a world it is, and what a system of things we are coming to!" said Sir Alan Harkesley, confidentially to Lord Alfred, while waiting for a tumbler of Hock and iced Seltzer-water, one night at White's, after escaping from a ball-room where people were dancing as furiously as though that morning the thermometer had not stood at eighty-eight degrees in the shade. " So long as 1 can remember, fools were to he found who would dance in the dog-days I"— was his lordship's philosophic THh DEBUTANTE. .'{07 Feply, filling himseit a glass of the Seltzeivwater witlioui Uio ap- pendix. " Let them dance, and welcome ! But you can't say you remem- ber many instances in which people, only six months' married, went on at the rate of the beau Barringtou and Morty's wile. By Jove, I never saw such a barefaced llirtation I I am not a ball- man ; — but I am told it is only ditto repeated of last year. And what was there then to prevent their marrying? Barrington has more than twice the income of poor Morty; Lady Mortayne four times the fortune of Lady Alicia. Is it possible that the mere vulgar love of title could influence them to make themselves and two other persons wretched and discreditable for life?" "Hardly, I should think!" rejoined his companion, calmly setting down his glass. " They probably did not like each other well enough to marry. But there is a wondrous charm in poach- ing. Another man's preserves always seem to afford better shoot- ing than one's own manor." Fortunately, perhaps, for those whose honour was most con- cerned, this modern moral sentiment was overheard by Lord Esher; who, chancing to meet Sir Wolseley Maitland at a dog- fancier's out of whose kennel he was providing himself for the shooting season, inquired with so much significance whether his friend had seen Lady Mortayne since he came to town, that it was impossible for even the most careless of brothers not to inquire further. " I called yesterday," said he, " within an hour or two of my arrival; but Nelly was out. I expected to hear from her this morning. I dare say I shall find a note from her or iMortayne on my return to my hotel." " From. Mortayne, my dear fellow? — Why he is gone sailing to the Mediterranean!"— cried the astonished Lord Esher. "The Brook-street servants said nothing of it yesterday," observed Wolseley, almost equally surprised. " They might not think it necessary to mention a fact which the newspapers have published to all the world." '• How was I to know anything about it? — I never read what is called the fashionable intelligence.— But how long has he been gone, pray ; and ivliy, — and with ivhum?" — " With Nantwich, one of his oldest friends, who sailed ten days ago.— The wfnj, I am afraid, must remain matter of conjecture.' " And what do you conjecture, then, on the subject I" " That the weather in Brook-street has proved too squally, of late, for a man so fond of a quiet life as Mortayne !" " Do you mean, my dear Esher, that he and Nelly disagree?"— inquired Sir Wolseley, more earnestly. 308 THE D6BUTANTE. "It is the only deduction one can draw from the facts of the case.' " I always foresaw and predicted that no good would come of her marrying a fellow of such dissolute habits as Mortayne!" cried Maitland, beginning to fire up. " But Nelly would not listen,— Nelly would not be warned !"— " No, hang it,— one can't say that Mortayne is wholly to blame in the present instance !" retorted Lord Esher. " Not when he goes roaming about with hia old friends, leaving his young wife alone in London?" " Are you quite sure that his young wife was not the means of driving him away?" persisted Esher. " For God Almighty's sake, speak out," cried Maitland, losing all patience. " You will drive me distracted by all these hints and implications." "Nay, there is no immediate cause that I know offer distrac- tion," was the cool rejoinder of the interfering friend. " Only it is certainly as well you should know that people think poor Morty is made less of at home than he has been accustomed to else- where ; and that Charley Barrington is seen much too often in his place." " ' People,' — 'people!' — why not say tvho, at once!" cried Maitland, excited by this time into a fury of rage. " If any one has anything to advance against my sister's conduct, why not put his name to his opinion, and address it to some person entitled, like myself, to take notice of the scandal I" " Because, my dear fellow, nobody is particularly anxious to get shot for what is not his affair; as would infallibly be the case, in your present mood and temper ! Buf I tell you, Maitland, because 1 feel it the bounden duty of a friend to run some risk, both for you and from you, that the coolness between the Mortaynes is notorious in London ; and that the sooner you create a coolness between your sister and Charley Barrington, the better." "I always considered Barrington a sneaking, pitiful puppy I" was Sir Wolseley's not very apposite rejoinder. "1 should have called him to account for the outrageous manner in which he flirted with my sistei- without offering her his hand, when she was going about with Lady Heriford last season, but from knowing that my consent to the match would be wanting, even if Nelly ac- cepted him! There was always something temporizing and under- hand in his conduct, that seemed to call for e"splanation." " There is nothing, at all events, underhand in it 7iow !" observed Lord Ksher, who, never favourably disposed towards the sister of his sporting chum, seemed little inclined to become a peace- maker. " Nothing more barefaced than the way in which his THE DfiBUTANTE. 309 attentions aro olfered, except, indeed, the way in which they arc received!" " I will go to Brook-sreet this very moment I" cried Sir.Wolse- ley, beckoning a cab from the stand at Hyde-Park-corner, which they were leisurely approaching. " Soflly, softly, my dear fellow I Detection is a better thing than accusation," quietly interposed Lord Esher. " By finding the de- hnquent on the spot, you place yourself at once in the right, in any altercation you may have with Lady Mortayne." " And when am I likely to find him on the spot?"— " Certainly not at this hour, when he is enjoying his first sleep, after the black-hole-of-Calcutta atmosphere of Lady Essendon's ball! But I will not afford you better information, my dear Mait- land, unless you give me your word of honoiu' that you will not do so stupid a thing as get into a quarrel with Charley Barrington ?" " That T readily promise ; — for it would aftbrd him too great an advantage over me, as well as confirm whatever misunderstanding may exist between Nelly and her husband. No, no ! it is my sister f shall attack. Having once satisfied myself that your surmise is just of undue intimacy between her and Barrington, 1 shall exer- cise all the influence and authority in my power, without violence or even unkindness, to bring her to a better way of feeling. In these cases, as the first step to folly is always taken by the woman, it is but fair to give her a chance of the first step towards repent- ance !" "If such be your intentions,'" rejoined Lord Esher, "■ call in Brook-street to-day, about three o'clock. You will find Bar- rington's cab waiting in Park Lane ; and its master — " " Enough,— enough!" — interrupted Sir Wolseley, not choosing to hear, even from the lips of his friend, disparaging allusions to his sister. " My duty lies plain before me." CHAPTER XXXV. Praise her hut for ibis, tier wilhout-door form, (Which, on my faitii, deserves high speech,) and straight Tlie shrug, the hum, or ha; those petty l)iands That calumny doth use :— I am out, That mercy does : — for cahirany will sear Virtue itself. SlIAKSPEAr.E. When, at the hour agreed upon, Sir Wolseley Maitland turned the head of his hack from Grosvenor Square into Brook-street, he descried, driving from his sister's door, a cab which he had little difficultv in recognising as that of Barrington. — Another moment, 310 THE DfiBtJTANte. and it passed him.-^Auothel" moment, and their eyes had met. — And though an exchange of bows ensued, as between ordinary ac- quaintances, an ejaculation of thankfulness escaped the lips of Maitland, that their encounter had not chanced in the drawing- room of Lady Morlayne; — conscious that, had the face of Barring- ton assumed there the same impertinent smile of triumph it was wearing as he dashed along the street, it might have been beyond his own command of temper to refrain from knocking him down. The consequence of this incident was that, instead of entering the house in Brook-street with the composure he had premedi- tated, every nerve in his frame was thrilling, and every vein inflated with suppressed ire.— Charles Barrington's daily visit had probably occurred earlier than usual.— Expecting her brother, Lady iMor- tayne had so accurately calculated his time forgoing out, as to avoid the chance of a collision , for on knocking at her door, Sir Wol- seley was admitted without so much as a question asked. Had he been aware of the portentous paleness with which anger had overspread his face, he might have hesitated to present him- self in his sister's presence. But his whole thoughts were absorbed in the man he had just seen, — so smiling, and so vain-glorious ; and, on reaching the drawing-room, the blinds of which were drawn down to create the demi-jour essential to the aspect of beauty at that glowing season of the year, and finding his young and lovely sister arrayed in all the costly elegance of her station, and the coquetry which, at that moment, was loathsome in his sight, Sir Wolseley held the hand she extended towards him grasped for more than a minute within his own, while silently measuring her from head to foot, with a scrutinizing and scornful survey that made her shrink into herself. When at length he released it from his grasp, it was with an abruptness of gesture that caused her almost to fall back upon the sofa from which she had risen to welcome him. As yet, not a word had escaped his lips. — But the whiteness of his features and fixedness of his gaze spoke a thousand accusations. " 1 am afraid you are ill, my dear Wolseley?" faltered his sister, alarmed by indications of emotions so unusual. — " Not////" " The bringer of bad tidings, then?" persisted Lady Mortayne, struck with sudden apprehension that he might be the bearer of some horrible intelligence relating to her husband. " I know not what you are likely to call bad tidings!" rejoined her brother, his countenance assuming a sarcastic expression, which at once relieved her fears. " Whom do you care for snfti- ciently in this world, Nelly, to tremble at the thought of evil having overtaken them? — Neither husband , I fear, nor brother, nor friend I — The only object of your solicitude that / am acquainted THE D6BUTANTE. SI 4 with, has too recently left your presence to admit of feeling uneasiness on his account ! "■ — " Yoii are the first person with whom I have spoken to-day," replied Lady Morlayne, resuming her composure, and thanking her stars for the prudence which had determined her to decline Charles Barrington's visit that day, by a note delivered to him at the door,— acquainting him that she was expecting her brother, and could not see him till that night at the Opera. " Do you mean to say that Harrington has not this moment left you? "—cried Sir Wolseley,— indignant at what appeared the most audacious hypocrisy. " I mean to repeat what I said before, that I have received no visitor of any sort or kind. As soon as I was up this morning, I desired to be denied to every one, that I might not be interrupted in case of a visit from yourself. " — Sir Wolseley, who could have almost sworn to seeing Charles Barrington emerge from his sister's house, and who entertained but little faith in woman's word, from a duchess to a chambermaid, was rash enough to resolve on putting his suspicions to the proof, by ringing the bell. During the pause that ensued, Lady Mortayne sat silent and shame-faced. For, mistrusting her brother's purpose of interroga- tion, she was by no means sure that his inquiries might not elicit the fact that Barrington's visits were of such daily occurrence, as, even that morning, to require her to excuse herself, by a note, from receiving him. But Sir Wolseley was too deeply moved to be circumstantial. When the bell was answered by the butler, he simply inquired,— so as not to commit Lady Mortayne in presence of her servants in case she had told the truth,—" Pray, did I not meet Mr. Charles Barrington driving from the door just now? " — " Yes, Sir Wolseley." " Did he leave no message? " interposed Lady Mortayne, in order to forestall further cross-examination. " Only his compliments, my lady."^ — " Should any other person call," added her Ladyship, resuming her tone of authority, " you will follow the orders I sent down this morning by Mrs Page, and say that I am not at home." — The servant had scarcely withdrawn, when Sir Wolseley hurried towards his sister with an extended hand, which she was wise enough to accept as frankly as it was offered. " I beg your pardon, Nelly," said he, " I sincerely beg your pardon !- This is an ill-natured world ; and Mortayne's unaccount- able absence has given rise to rumours and conclusions, which involve your reputation more extensively than you suppose." " So long as those rumours do not injure me with my friends, •'12 THE DfiBUTANTE. 1 care very little about the matter," replied his sister proudly. "As to Lord Mortayne's absence, surely there is nothing very mysterious in his having accompanied his old friends, the Nan- twiches, yachting, for change of air, because (as no one knows bet- ter than yourself) his wife is too bad a sailor to join the party ?" — "A married couple in their first year of matrimony, usually contrive to change the air and enjoy their diversions together," retorted her brother. — "And so would you and your husband, Nelly, had you not made so unsuitable a match. I warned you, — you cannot have forgotten it,— against marrying a man, whose connexions, pursuits, and tastes were too thoroughly established to admit of becoming secondary to your own." — " You warned me,— but it does not follow that I have suffered from the verification of your prophecy," rejoined Lady Mortayne. — "My husband has opposed no wish or inclination of mine,— The moment he saw me desirous to spend the season in town, this bouse was engaged for me. — I see whom I like, — I go where I like, — I decline all invitations that are disagreeable to me, " " Perhaps so,— perhaps so I — I don't say that you have not vour own way. But had you married a man of your own age, — a man to whom the world was as new as to yourself, there would have been such unanimity of occupations between you as would have prevented the possibility of undue intimacy with a forward jacka- napes, like Charles Barrington; and, consequently, the false im- portance ascribed to it, at this moment, by the world." — " Say rather, my dear Wolseley, ascribed to it by a few idle gossips belonging to a few idle clubs, — for the world knows better!" " The world can only form its conclusions from what it sees. — As Miss Maitland, Charles Barrington was your avowed admirer, — as Lady Mortayne, the same familiarity continues. — Are not people justified in attributing the same cause to the same effect?" " Certainly not ! — Mr. Barrington and myself have, in the interim, accepted partners for life. His wife was as much the object of his free choice, as Lord Mortayne of my own." " So was my father the choice of our most unfortunate mother I '' cried Sir Wolseley, with some acrimony, " which did not prevent her dishonouring him, and disgracing and deserting her chil- dren!" — "The allusion, brother, is scarcely gracious, — scarcely /o/r .' " Lady Mortayne was beginning. " But " " It is fair, — it is fair, — it is even necessary!" interrupted Sii" Wolseley. " Such a family as ours, Nelly, is regarded by the woi-ld with a jaundiced eye. In the blood of the children of a licentious mother vice is supposed to be inherent. Do you think I have never THE DtBUTANTE. 315 smarted under the shame of hearing opprobrious epithets applied to women who have outraged the decencies of their sex? Do you imagine that no mental voice whispered to me, all the while, ' such, even such, is the mother whom, by the laws of God, you are bound to honour?' 1 swear to you, sister, there have been moments when my life was not worth a rush to me, after hearing my father indulge, as he used, in those coarse allusions to his miserable wife, which kept ever cankering in my mind the memory of lohom and ivhat I was the son," ' ' All this is painfully, too painfully true I " replied Lady Mortayne, in the soothing tone his excitement seemed to require. " But I see no reason why it should influence your opinion of my conduct?" "It does ??o;; influence my opinion of your conduct! It merely satisfies me, that your conduct ought to he twice as circumspect as that of any other woman, to defy the unjust conclusions of society. When I call to mind the misery of my childhood, —the sneers of the servants, — the airs of compassionate superiority of the tenants' wives, the perpetual irritation of my father, (which your tenderer years prevented from falling so harshly upon yourself, ) I swear I would sooner see a woman in whom I was interested lying dead in her coffin, than incurring herself and entailing upon others, the imprecations earned by a wife untrue to her marriage-bed ! " — Impossible to listen, without emotion, to adjurations so solemnly and earnestly made. Even the frivolous Eleanor heard and trembled. At that moment, indeed, she felt grateful to God, that she still retained the right of looking her agitated brother honestly in the face. She had been imprudent, but not guilty. It was not even yet too late to secure herself, and those to whom her honour was dear, from the heavy retribution glanced at so feelingly by Sir Wolseley. The first evidence of her penitence consisted in an unpreme- ditated avowal that she ought, at that very moment, to have been at Wolseley Hall. " To own the truth," said she, " I was afraid of encroaching on your engagements, by letting you know that, at Mortayne's de- parture, I had promised him to pass with yon the interim of his absence." " To come down to me at the Hall?— By .love, that accounts for what puzzled me so the other day, when my steward wrote word that there were several foreign letters addressed to you, lying at Wolseley, which I instantly ordered him to forward hither. But it was hardiy fair of you, Nelly, either towards me or your husband, not to realize what you had promised. Better late, however, than never I There appears little probability of Mortayne's immediate return. Leave town, therefore, with me this evening,— to-morrpw morning, — when you will I My carriage shall be at the door to take you to the rail, and save you all possible trouble, at any hour of 8ia THE DfiBUTANTE. any day you will choose to appoint. I will either accompany or meet you at Wolseley, as you like best." Unwilling to own how little she saw that was palatable in either arrangement, his sister rontentcd herself with ceremoniously ex- pressing her sense of his kindness. " On Monday, however, at the furthest, I must be there ! " added he, without much heed to her idle compliments ; " for, as you may, perhaps, remember, 1 am steward of the Hartstonge Races this year, which fall on the second of August." "Yes, — Lady Essendon, and one or two other persons told me they were going down for them," replied Eleanor. — And it afforded some slight hope of modification to the habitual duiness of Wolseley Hall, to know that races were forthcoming in the neighbourhood, as a pretext for bringing people together. As long as she could remember, Eleanor had heard wonders from their country neighbours of this county solemnity ; and having been away from home, as a guest at Greensells, the preceding year, when, as a debutante, she was entitled to become an ornament of the gay assemblage, her curiosity and interest were excited by the prospect afforded. "1 have, unluckily, invited Esher and a fcAv other friends," said her brother. — "Had I entertained the slightest hope, Nelly, of having you for my guest, I would, of course, have asked no one without previously consulting you. — Butl need not tell you that, while officiating as mistress of the house, you will be your own ; and see as much or as little of my guests as you think proper." — Though sadly afraid that Sir Wolseley's visitors might be of an order to render the latter alternative peculiarly acceptable. Lady Mortayne was not sorry to seize upon so plausible a pretext for her precipitate departure from London. To preside over her brother's party at county races of which he was the steward, sounded almost like the discharge of a duty ; nor could Lady Bar- bara pretend to fancy she was obeying some peremptory matri- monial manifesto, forwarded from Cherbourg ; or Charles Barring- ton suppose that she had taken flight from town, in mistrust of herself. "You mean, I hope, to prove to the natives that, however fine a lady you may have become, you have not altogether forgotten that you write yourself nee Maitland I " said Sir Wolseley, more cheerfully, after receiving her promise to meet him at the Hall on the 31st of July.—" I trust you will go through the whole corvee, my dear Nelly ,"— ball included ? — Lord Essendon and I , as stewards, shall be right proud of the countenance of a London belle like the fashionable Lady Mortayne ! " On this hint, amidst all her flurry of spirits and struggles of con- science, the vain and giddy Eleanor found time to issue orders that THE DEBUTANTE. 315 purported to render her irresistible. New dresses were hastily ordered, and the family diamonds presented to her by her brother, instead of being deposited with the banker, became the com- panions of her journey. With the petty ambition of a narrow mind, she had always pro- jected to return at some future moment as a guest to the house of her fathers, and overwhelm the country neighbours to whom, even as a girl, she had felt herself so superior, with her consequence as a peeress. But, above all, by her consequence as the worshipped wife of the popular and fashionable Morty; a position which, af the moment of her marriage, she valued far more than the mere precedence of rank; and, had her mind been of a reflective nature, it might have afforded food for painful meditation that, after so short a period of wedlock, she was approaching Wolseley Hall, shorn of the importance to be derived from her husband's presence and support. But it did not seem to occur to her that the wives of the neigh- bouring baronets and squires would be less easily satisfied than the magnates of Grosvenor Square, with such a pretext for Lord Morlayne's absence as, that " he was yachting off the French coast with his friend the Duke of Nantwich ; ' — or that one or two of the kindlier-hearted, who remembered her from a child, and had grieved over her deserted infancy, would whisper to each other, with tears in their eyes,—" Poor thing,— poor ijoung thing !— To be so soon neglected !— Pray God that, thus left to herself, she may not be inveigled into the same evil courses as her mother !"— If, indeed, she noticed that they were occupied in discussing her, it was to surmise that their attention was attracted by the splendours of her bridal lace and the grace of her deportment ; fancying her hardened self-possession a wonderful improvement on the blushing inexperience of the damsel of the chintz terrace- room. On being placed once more in possession of the said terrace- room, by the way, she was a little moved by the feeling manner in which her brother observed,—" You will find that nothing has been touched here, Nelly, since you quitted it. I had several large parlies staying with me last winter ; but, not choosing that a finger should be laid on any thing that had been yours, this room, and your old bed-room and dressing-room, were locked up all the time; in order that, if ever you thought proper to come and take possession of them again, all might be still to your liking." Howbeit, at that moment coldly revolving in her mind on what pretext to make her appearance in her own carriage at the races, instead of as a hanger-on upon her brother, she was forced to offer thanks, that sounded affectionate, for his thoughtfulness. Impos- sible not to admit that, on some points, in spite of his abruptness, 316 THE DfeRUTANTE. Sir Wolseley was considerate and kind ; nor was it for her to phi- losophize on the fact that he would probably have been uniformly kind and considerate, had not the better qualities of his nature been nipped and blighted for want of the fosterage of parental love ; or that his principles had been undermined by the perpetual scorn and bitterness heaped by his father on a sex which, after the Su- preme Being, a good man is bound to hold sacred. When the race party came to assemble, however, unblinded by sisterly partiality, Lady Mortayne recognised with regret in her brother's selection of acquaintance, grievous proofs of the bad taste sure to result from an unfair estimation of womankind. As in the exhausted receiver of an air-pump a guinea and a feather have equal weight, the judgment of Sir Wolseley admitted no difference between woman and woman, save that between beauty and ugli- ness, or the good or ill humour rendering even beauty of secondary account. Provided a girl were pretty or a woman agreeable, he took little heed of those minor distinctions of conduct or caste, which occasionally condemn to ostracism women both handsome, clever, and entitled to a good position in the world. The conse- quence was, that the parties of which he had spoken to his sister, consisted chiefly of persons who for some discreditable reason or other found it worth while to toady him; — ^jewels, far from flaw- less, in the shape of damsels who pretended, at any cost, to be Lady Maitland, after vainly endeavouring, season after season, to become Lady Anything-else ; — or flirting married women, whose names had been coupled with those of a series of admirers, having thousands a-year and Wolseley Halls at their disposition. Lady Essendon, who like most of Lady Mortayne's former ac- quaintance, had found herself all but overlooked by her in town, as of too humdrum a showing for one ambitious to shine in the Bowbridge and Nantwich set, was not a little astonished by the empressement suddenly evinced in the race-stand at Hartstonge by her Ladyship, to assume a place by her side : the motherly Countess being wholly unqualified to understand with what disgust the fas- tidious Eleanor found herself presiding over a party including such flagrant luminaries of second-rate fashion, as Lady Caroline Dor- mer, Mrs. Stratton Stretton, and the pretty, witty, pity-that-she's- so-talked-about beauty of a dozen seasons, — Flora Dyrham. — The invisible fence irreverently dividing such people from the brilliant throng with which, to Lady Essendon's unpractised eye, they ap- peared to be closely amalgamated, (because occasionally admitted on toleration into the mobs of the beau monde, and seen night after night at public places of fashionable resort,) was as plain as an iron grating to one so lately schooled as Eleanur in the persi)icacities of e\clusi\ ism. Though too iiidilVeront to the happiness of her brother to entertain I he anxiety that might have been only natural, lest the JHE DERUTANTE. 317 brilliant Flora should entrap him into matrimony, — or Mrs. Slratton Strelton endanger his peace of mind by her unprincipled coque- tries, — she was keenly alive to the disadvantages that must accrue to herself should women of such questionable reputation fasten themselves upon her as intimates. She did not resent her brother's allusions to her own levities of conduct; — she was prepared to forgive him that and every thing else, except his callousness to her fair fame in exposing her to contact with persons of such decidedly mauvais ton ! — Had her pretensions to the curule chair of exclusivism been sup- ported by the presence of her husband, the reputation ofMorty both as a wit and an elegant might have enabled her to stand her ground, both against the aborigines, and Sir Wolseley's ecjuivocal visitors. But as there was every appearance that the brilliant man of the world was leaving her to amuse herself as best she might amongst her country connexions, while he diverted himself among more relined associates, — the guests at Wolseley, of whom she was at such little pains to disguise her disdain, affected in their turn to regard her in the light of Miss Maitland, rather than as the star of a higher sphere to which it behoved them to be thankful for deigning to shine upon their rusticity. Lord Esher, and certain other of Sir Wolseley's wild compa- nions, who were of the party, sided, of course, with the fair ones who were at the trouble to contribute their quota to the general entertainment ; and the fastidious Eleanor having made it appa- rent to the whole neighbourhood, at the second day's races, that she was scarcely on speaking terms with Lady Caroline Dormer, and discountenanced Flora Dyrham's indiscret sallies by fixing upon her the most uncomprehending looks of amazement whenever she hazarded an observation, — a cabal was formed against her, in return, such as rendered it expedient to suffer, during dinner- time, from a severe headache, as a pretext for retiring immediately afterwards to her own room. " I would not have accepted Sir Wolseley's invitation, had I known Lady Mortayne was to be here I" observed Mrs. Stratton Stretton, almost audibly, the moment she quitted the saloon, — already provoked by having been forced to place in comparison with the delicate complexion of the still girlish Eleanor all that cosmetics and a dozen seasons of hot rooms had left extant of her own, — " Lady Mortayne fancies herself so very great a personage from having been permitted to leave the print of her foot in a circle where she had only to show herself to be voted below par, and dismissed without a character, that it is insupportable to find one- self placed at the mercy of her impertinence." "Don't call it impertinence, my dear Mrs. Strati" — rejoined Lord Esher, to whom her observations were addressed. — "Wo- 3i§ THE D£BUTAI«TE. men, 1 notice, seldom give each other credit for their virtues ; whereas with us, if a man be a good shot, or a capital jockey, we know better than to dispute his merits. — You ought rather to ho- nour the constancy of Lady Mortayne ; who submits to get abused for finery and affectation, for boldly shamming a headache as an excuse for getting out of our way in order to indite to her beloved Charley Harrington an account of the fiasco of the crack race to-day, in time for to-morrow's early-post I" On the hint of scandal thus afforded, it was not difficult for the three slighted ladies to embroider with ingenuity. Each, in her turn, communicated by the " early-post," to some London co)iJi- dante, that "the Wolseley party had been spoiled by Lady Mor- tayne's wretched spirits, because divided by eighty miles from dear London, and all that it contained bearing the name of Bar- rington." The unkindest cut of all, however, was devised by Lady Caroline Dormer; — who, when Eleanor coldly declined accompanying the party to the race-ball without assigning the smallest reason for absenting herself, — (by which, at the risk of offending her brother, she chose to mark her sense of superiority to the whole affair,) explained in an audible whisper to Lord Esher, that it was not to be expected Lady Mortayne should appear at a public /e/e, when the morning papers announced Lord Heriford to be on his death- bed.— "But Maitland is as nearly related to the Marquis as his sister?" remonstrated Lord Esher; "and my friend Woll is wise enough not to trouble his head about the matter!" — " You forget the peculiarly delicate circumstances of the case, as regards Lady Mortayne!" was Lady Caroline's preconcerted rejoinder. — " She, you know, was brought up as a sister with the Ladies de Capell; and as regards Lady Alicia, — is still an insepa- rable confidante and friend ! — Yes! strange as it may seem, — it would be impossible for her to go to the ball! — The claims of friendship and Lady Alicia are sacred !" — Attacked a coup d'epinyles on all sides, exposed to suspicion by the absence of Morty, and reduced to comparative insignificance by the loss of that devoted homage to which she was becoming only too well accustomed, Lady Mortayne began to discover that, hate- ful as the old Hall had formerly appeared, it was doubly distasteful now that other women had the controlling voice in its arrange- ments; now that parties were planned on the Lake for the diver- sion of the sentimental LaiJy Caroline, or equestrian expeditions in the woods, at the instigation of the knowing Mrs. Stratton; and above all, now that Sir Wolseley had taken to walking by moon- light on the Terrace with Flora Dyrham, and quarrelling with all who, like Lprd Esher, took the liberty of smiling at their proceed- THE DfiBUTANTli. 819 ings, and prophesying that "poor WoU might, perhaps, find him- self in for it, after all.'' Humble as was the kingdom taken from her, she could not bear to find herself lapsed into a secondary object where she had reigned supreme. No one now looked to her for orders, — no one oven pro- fited by her instigations. — There, as elsewhere, she had bound no single soul to her service by personal attachment, because unsus- ceptible of personal attachment in return. — Neither love nor re- gard are to be won by seeming ; —and those who go through the world endeavouring to create interests for themselves out of the mere gratifications of vanity, find in the end that they have set themselves the wizard's task of twisting ropes of the loose sea sand. The three showy belles whom Sir Wolseley had invited with the view of creating a sensation at the Hartstongc races, if not without speck or blemish, or rather if belonging to a class the an- nouncement of whose names creates either a profound sigh or a significant smile, possessed at least sufficient esprit de corps to unite in opposition to the scornful lady who chose to fancy that, " be- cause 5/ie was virtuous, there were to be no more cakes and ale;" and their powers of mischief being as three to one, they contrived to render her thoroughly uncomfortable, by suddenly stopping short in their conversation whenever she entered the room; or, on resuming in the moment they were able to re-unite into a group, in some opposite corner, contriving that, amid their whispers, the name of Barrington should be audible. — It was in short as clear from their deportment as though the word had been expressly pronounced, that they had no patience with an assumption of pru- dery on the part of the daughter of a Lady Maitland, or of the idol of Lady Alicia's husband. But that Eleanor was aware of needing all her brother's indul- gence, — aware that every morning she received a letter from Charles Barrington, affecting indeed only to supply her in her rus- tic retreat with the London news ; but, in reality, conveying that nevvs in terms which, by persons of limited capacity, might have been easily mistaken for terms of endearment, — she would pro- bably have remonstrated with him on the bad style of society with which he was surrounded ; and warned him against the danger of a flirtation with a girl so slippery as Flora Dyrham, — whose three tall brothers were on the watch to nail to the wall, by way of atone- ment, the first kite they found stooping towards a bird whose feathers had been so often made to fly. — But she was afraid of provoking a retort. Sir Wolseley was no longer influenced by the lender mood in which he addressed her on his visit to Brook-street. He was not only provoked by her airs towards his friends, but enlightened by the revengeful sarcasms of 320 THE DfeBUTANTE. those friends as to the extent of her flirtation. Convinced that she had deceived him, — convinced that she was still deceiving her husband, — he was by no means disposed to mercy. It was consequently a relief to all parties when, after glancing over a few lines of the pompous half-column of the morning paper that announced the demise of " The Marquis of Heriford, Lord Lieutenant and Gustos Rotulorum of the county of ," no matter what, — the lady of the yachting lord announced her immediate return to town. " She must lose no time in placing herself in mourning; in order to demonstrate her gratitude towards the family from which she had received so much kindness, by testifying all the respect in her power to the memory of the dead." " 1 should have thought, Nelly, your mantua-maker and milliner were capable of relieving you from the trouble of a journey of nearly a hundred miles !" observed Sir Wolseley, coldly,— readily attributing her abrupt departure to the ill-will subsisting between his sister and his friends. " It strikes me, indeed, that you had better have awaited here the return of your husband. But you un- derstand your own affairs best." " I fear you will find London quite deserted," added Mrs, Strat- ton Stretton, affecting a smile of compassion. " From Goodwood, every one proceeded to the Brighton races ! " " I have little fear of finding a few friends remaining," replied Lady Mortayne,— longing to reply that her notions of society were not limited within the circle of the sporting world. " Of course! — The Barringtons, 1 believe, are to be in town till after Lady Alicia's confinement; — and it will be so kind of you to be at hand to comfort her just now, under her severe family bereavement ! " rejoined Lady Caroline, too delighted at the prospect of getting rid of one who was so great a restraint upon their di- versions, to heed what offence she might give. " Poor Lady Alicia!" — added she, as the becoronetted travel- ling carriage drove from the hall-door—" Since the days of Henry Bolingbroke, never was cousinly treachery so grossly practised as against her by Lady Mortayne ! " THE DtuurANTt:. 321 CHAPTER XXXVI. Nothing like the reality of death to recall the frivolous classes of mankind to a sense of the realities of life. SWIIT. As the newspapers, with their wonted Doddransacking industry, had duly cited among the noble families placed in mourning by the demise of the Marquis of Heriford, that of Lord Mortayne, it excited no surprise, that her Ladyship should abandon a party assembled on so festive a pretence as county-races, to return no the nearly abandoned metropolis. The baronet, her brother, indeed, though equally a cousin, having been passed over in the list of mourners as too small for mention, Sir Wolseley pursued unmolested his hospitalities to such outsiders of the world of cere- mony as the Dormers and Stratton Strettons. — But from the wife of an ancient baron, stricter propriety was to be expected. — The London, found by Lady Mortayne on her return, little resembled, however, the London she had left behind. — A hollow sound prevailed in the now deserted streets; and from the closely- shuttered windows of the noble mansion facing her dreary, dusty home, hung long, seedy, yellow streamers, of sickly and scentless mignionette; — while a solitary housemaid, sole denizen of the dwelling lately so brilliant, looked out in helpless idleness all day from her attic window, as if for company sake ; or like sister Anne, to ascertain whether any one was coming, and to descry nothing but a cloud of dust. Ashamed to proceed in quest of air and sunshine to the Park or Kensington-gardens, where none but the Mrs. Stratton-Slretton class of the community fag out the last days of the season on the parched herbage, under a shade scarcely less seared and withered, — Lady Mortayne sat gasping for breath in her dull drawing-room ; pondering within herself how far she might venture to resent the conduct of Lady Alicia, to whom — knowing her husband to have joined at Greensells the family assembled for the marquis's funeral, — she had addressed an affectionate note, offering to sit with her, or make herself useful in any manner in her power; — to which, a verbal answer returned of " Lady Alicia Harrington's compliments. — At present she sees no company." — SatisHed, from long knowledge of her character, that filial affection had little share in her self-seclusion, Lady Mortayne regarded this message almost in the light of a declaration of war. The open strife she had long foreseen as imminent, was, perhaps, about to commence I Lady Alicia had thrown the first stone. — 322 THE DfiBUTANTE. That the angry Eleanor knew herself to be in the wrong was evident from the pains she took in self-vindication. " However justified," was her secret argument with herself, "in resenting the preference which her husband is at no pains to conceal, at least she cannot be blind to the fact that I was the original object of his love; and that she left no means untried to disgust me with Charles as a suitor, by representing him as a needy impositor, only that the coolness created by her treachery might provoke him into oifering her his hand. — Not once did Lady Hcri- ford officiate as my chaperon, but Alicia took occasion to spoil my evening's pleasures, by rendering Charles's attentions the object of her ridicule! — And if, as an inexperienced debutante in life, 1 was weak enough to fall into the snare, it is but just that she should pay the penalty of having marred tv/o happy destinies by her own heartless manoeuvres." — " I suppose you 've heard of Henry de Capell's luck, my dear Lady Mor lay ne ?" cried Lord Newbury, stopping her carriage in Regent-street, the day after her return to town, as she was wend- ing her solitary way to Howell and James's, for the purchase of jet ornameuts and other items of the luxury of woe. — " No, indeed," she replied, tolerating Lord Newbury's familiarity for the sake of his news. " Is he already returned to town? — I fancied Lord Heriford's funeral had not yet taken place?" — " Not till Saturday. But I heard this morning from Henry. — Henry, who is curious in pocket-handkerchiefs^ wrote to beg I would look out for some mourning ones for him. Lord Heriford having left to each of his younger children twenty thousand pounds, instead of the ten they expected, Henry seems to think that such a governor is entitled to the broadest ot hems!" — " The Marquis was a very prudent, as well as a very prosperous man." " A trump, — a regular brick !" returned Lord Newbury, with enthusiasm. " Fellows who, hke me, have had a father, grand- father, and great grandfather on the turf, understand the value of being the offspring of a worthy snob, like old Heriford, who fatted cattle instead of breeding racers ; whose notions of a horse were limited to the broad-backed brutes that drew his family coach, — and of play, to a Christmas pool at commerce I — A man who never dined without roast beef, or slept without family prayers I — Just such a squaretoes, in short, as there is the making of in Clandon — I beg his pardon, in the present Marquis of Heriford. Do you remember. Lady Mortaync, what horrid slow work we had of it, last Christmas at Heriford Castle, between Clandon's Tommy Two-Shoes airs of propriety, and the prison discipline of grand- mamma?" — " 1 remember only a very pleasant party," she replied — wishing THE DfiBUTANlE. 3 '2 3 to put an end to a Ictc-a-lete, wliich, in the nearly deserted stieets where hackney coaches had now the crown of the causeway, was beginning to attract attention. " Oh! you can't have forgotten grandmamma, — for I remember you were one of her victims!" retorted the philandering lordling. " You and I were objects of her especial detestation. — Even her grandchildren were no great favourites, — with the exception of Lady Sophia, who, as I suppose you know, she has adopted as her heir. Much better if she had left her money to Henry !-~Henry would have made it spin. And where's the use of fortune to an ugly girl like that, — whom, in spite of her seventy thousand pounds, (but not in spite of her teeth,) a man would as soon think of mar- rying, as of proposing to the effigy of Queen Anne." — Seventy thousand pounds! — After all, then, Lord Mortayne had missed in the charming woman so much attached to hnn, an excellent match, as well as the best assorted wife ! The conscious Eleanor could now understand the drift of an audible whisper between Lady Caroline Dormer, and Flora Dyrham, which she had overheard at Wolseley Hall, and which was probably intended to meet her ear, — expressive of compassion for some man (in whom she did not a that time recognise her husband,) who, by snatching at a shadow in the water, had let slip a treasure ! " Sir Alan Harkesley, Lord Bowbridge, and the rest, persuaded him that he could not afford to marry a woman with ten thousand pounds," was Flora Dyrham's observation,— affecting to speak in a mysterious tone. * ' But he has found a fortune four times as large a much less profitable speculation; and after all, his lofty love has become a capital parf/ .' " A cloud of chagrin overspread the ivory brow of Eleanor as she reflected on how many sides an advantage had been recently ob- tained over her. " I suppose you are going to-night to the Opera?" added Lord Newbury, gathering up his reins as if about to wish her good bye, and ride off; " though, as it is the last night, tliere will be no one there but the artistes .'" — " 1 have no thoughts of going. I permitted Lady Barbara before she went toCowes, to give away the box for the remainder of the season." "Ah, by the way,— I forgot that you had been out of town,*' replied Newbury. '' Rawdon was sayingjust now, at White's, that he saw you the other day at Hartstonge races, with the angeli- ferous Dormer, Mrs. Strat, and two or three more of that clique ; —looking like Gulliver at Lilliput,— or, rather, as if you were shockingly afraid of catching the bumpkin fever ! — But he brought far worse news of your brother. — " 32a THE DfeBUTANTE. " Indeed !" exclaimed Eleanor, a little alarmed, two days having elapsed since she quitted Wolseley Hall. " Rawdon declares that, after being singed by Lady Caroline and fleeced by Mrs. Strat, Sir Wolseley had stooped to folly so far as to propose to Flora Dyrham !— a thing which no man of sane mind would have ventured, any time within the last fifteen years!" " 1 am not much afraid of having her for a sister-in-law!"— said Lady Mortayne, touching the check-string at the same time, as a signal to the coachman to proceed, and reUeve her from all this fooling. And, with a smiling nod. Lord Newbury gallopped off. But though thus professing tranquillity, she could not disguise from herself that a man who fancied himself so knowing as Sir Wolseley, was only too likely to be taken in ; and such a Lady Maitland established in her old home, amounted almost to exclu- sion of herself. And alas ! she could not afford to lose either her brother or Wolseley Hall.— Tf, already in her married life, there had been moments when the support of the one and shelter of the other appeared desirable, how likely that there might come a time when the protection of her brother would prove essential to her peace ! — If he really thought of marrying Flora Dyrham, there was an end of all intimate intercourse between them, — an end of all hold upon the old terrace-room ! Yet, however vexatious the mere sup- position of such a match, the harassed Eleanor admitted the impos- sibility of remonstrance. — She had not the smallest influence over his mind. She had done nothing to cultivate the affections which even the coating of selfishness wherein he was enveloped by an in- jurious education, had been insuflicient to extinguish. Disgusted, onhcr (Irbut in life, by his reckless expression of a wish that she should marry and release him from his responsibilities, instead of accomplishing the mission of her sex and inspiring him with kinder thoughts and feelings by her own warmth of sisterly affection, she had met coldness with coldness, — harshness with scorn ; till the trees that should have extended their branches towards each other, to form a friendly and inseparable shade, creating support for themselves, and comfort for others who were to succeed them, stood isolated and apart in the landscape of life, as if severed by the thunder-stroke of a storm. — And the influence of a storm it was, that thus divided them! The fatal consequences of their mother's fault was likely to pursue them to the grave. — According to the fiat of Divine law, the sins of the parents were visited upon the children. — But however Lady Mortayne might have neglected to cultivate the instincts of fraternal afTection, she felt bitterly that the estran- gement of the only human being on whom, saving her already estranged husband, she had a claim for attachment, would be an (!vil i)ast reparation. — THE DEBUTANTE. 325 She had already learned from the solitude of her house since her return to town, that, while encouraging the daily visits of Bar- rington, she had suffered her popularity to decline. If admired and followed in a ball-room, she was not skilled to endear herself in the ordinary relations of life. She had not supplied by friendly intimacies, the want of family connexions. — Her comings and goings were not, as with many women, a signal of joy or regret to an extensive circle. There was nothing genial in her feelings, as there was nothing genuine in her manners, to beget that cordiality which overlooks a thousand faults. A sudden chill seemed to oppress her spirits, amid the cheerless- ness of the empty streets and deserted houses of which the inhabit- ants were gone to be happy and beloved elsewhere, — at the idea that at her early age, — but little past the epoch of girlhood, — she must depend henceforward upon the power of her beauty to create an interest in her favour ! Like most people who discover that their destiny is manquee, the blame was laid wholly upon others. The wilfulness with which she had thrown herself into the wrong path on overstepping the threshold of life, was left out of the balance. Unluckily, the momentary compunction produced by apprehen- sion of her brother's marriage, was soon converted into irritation, by a chance encounter Avith Sir John Hildyard at Andrews's door, whither she was driven in search of the last resource of the last ennuijee wearying out her listlessness in towui, — a new novel. " In London, my dear Lady Mortayne?" — cried ho, in undis- guised amazement. — " Have you been here long? — in Ibat case, I have a thousand apologies to offer for not having called in Brook- street. But Morty wrote to me a week ago, from la Rochelle, mentioning that you were passing a month at Wolseley Hall; — and I am at this moment on my way to execute a commission for him, in consequence of a letter received this morning, in which he apologizes for employing me, on the express grounds of your ab- sence from tOAvnl" " 1 returned sooner than I intended, m consequence of Lord He- riford's death." " Ay, true I — I forgot the relationship," — said Sir John, glancmg at her black dress, — " the parly is probably broken up. But, of course, you arc not going to stay in town in this infernal weather? — One is shrivelled up like a leaf, by merely looking at the pave- ment ! — But let me hasten to ask your orders for Morty. Bowbridge and I start for Dover this very night, to sail to-morrow for Bor- deaux, to join the iNantwiches. — The benefit derived by your hus- band from change of air, has determined the duke to extend his tour ; and we have promised (as perhaps you are aware,) to 326 THE DfenOTANTE. meet them at Bayonne, and make a little excursion in the Py- rennees." " I have not heard from Lord Mortayne since ho left Cherbourg," said Eleanor, endravouring to look unmoved under the mortifica- tion of learning all these particulars from a stranger. — " I wrote to him at la RochcUe, entreating him to prolong a tour from which ho seemed to derive so much benefit; and which my dis- qualifications as a sailor prevented my enjoying in his company." " In that case," replied Sir John, as if somewhat relieved, " I fear it is useless to endeavour to persuade you to join him, with Bowbridge and myself, in the Water Nymph? — The fastest, and best got up thing in the squadron! — If the present wind holds, we shall be at Bordeaux on Sunday." " A thousand thanks. I must not offer such an affront to the Amphion as to change my mind," replied Lady Mortayne. " I will not even trouble you with letters; for with the chances of wind and tide against you, they would probably reach Bordeaux sooner by the post." " I must content myself, then, with conveying to him the agreeable intelligence that I never saw you looking more blooming, and that your natal air has repaired all the ravages of the season !" — retorted Sir John, with the complimentary flourish usually as- sumed by a man of a certain age towards a woman for whom he feels nothing. And Lady Mortayne, however keen her appetite for flattery, felt so conscious that the flush upon her cheek was the result solely of suppressed anger, that she could not but consider his compliment as ironical. After receiving the three fresh-looking marble-covered volumes, smelling of paste, that purported to supply excitement to her listless hours, from the hands of a deferential young gentleman who stood patiently with the title-page invitingly open, till the colloquy between the belle of the season and the fashionable roue leaning into her carriage was at an end, — she drove away, sadder, if not wiser, than before. In spite of all her gifts of youth and beauty, — rank and fortune, — in spile of having compassed what, amid the turmoil of her vain ambition as Sl debutante she held as the nee plus ultra of human happiness — her prospects were at that moment so uninviting, that, had even a woman on whom she relied as little as Lady Barbara Bernardo been in town, there was some danger of her being driven, by a craving after sympathy, into the folly of entrusting the secrets of her destiny to a worthless confidante. A still more dangerous alternative suggested itself. A few hours would suin(;e to convey to Charles Barrington her complaints of the incivility of his wife, — the disregard of even the common courtesies of life evinced by Lord Mortayne, — and her suspicions that the want of empressement betrayed towards her by the world, THE DfiBUTANTE. S27 arose from the unkind construction placed upon their inti- macy. But of this indiscretion, she fortunately stopped short. Though aware that such a letter would be welcomed on bended knees, as by a devotee some sacred relic, instincts of common decency bad her refrain from addressing her admirer amid the solemnities of a house of (Jeath ! And well that she did so. For though the impassioned feelings with which Charles Barrington saw her depart for Wolseley Hall only a fortnight before, were far from diminished,— though her countenance remained perpetually hovering in his memory as the controlling influence of his destinies,— his mind had undergone a considerable revolution, under the influence of his mournful sojourn at Greensells. A mere return to the spot which had instigated an union with Lady Alicia de Capell as a step that was to secure his prosperity in life, could not fail to remind him that the transfer of his homage from the debutante to Lord Heriford's daughter, was his spon- taneous act and deed ; and that his courtship had been as eager as if inspired by nobler motives. But, independent of the estimate of his own conduct forced upon his recognition, there was something in the solemn aspect of the noble mansion, under whose roof the coffined clay ol the owner lay an object of reverence more complete than had ever awaited the poor marquis in his life-time, which induced serious reflection. There was nothing great, nothing imposing, in the character of the deceased. He was not a man of genius; he was not a man of in- fluence. The general sadness that prevailed throughout his house- hold and estates arose solely from the regularity of his life, and the punctual discharge of his duties. He owed no man any thing. He had disregarded no one's claims. His old servants, after leading a cheerful life under'his sway, were liberally provided for by his will; and his tenants and dependents were prepared to follow him to the grave with the respect of well-earned loyalty. A good husband,— a good father,— a good master, — the conscientious order of his life, in all its relations, bad created for him a pedestal more solid than men of transcendant talents or brilliant personal accomplishments are often fated to establish. The profound reverence manifested towards the chamber where his remains lay enshrouded, impressed even the thoughtless young man who had hitherto regarded personal respect as a tribute to great actions or heroic deeds, rather than to moral worth or kindliness of nature. The whole family was to follow its chief to the grave. The ve- nerable mother of the marchioness had brought her beloved grand- child to take her part in the sad assemblage ; and Lord and Lady 328 THE DfiBUTANTE. Kilsythe were there, for the first time since the wedding of Lady Alicia, so as to constitute a formidable family phalanx of those entitled to resent his unkind neglect of bis absent wife. Aware that reluctance to expose to observation the estrangement between them, and not the adduced cause of her situation, had alone pre- vented Lady Alicia from joining the family reunion at which she had requested him to be her representative, his severity' towards her appeared in a more heinous light than he had ever yet regarded it. For, after all, she was as much sinned against, as sinning. Whichever might be the first offender, he could not conceal from himself that the charm of his adored Eleanor's azure eyes was the true origin of his implacability. It was the first time in his life that Charles Barrington had ever come in contact with the aspect of death ; and the influence of that awestriking spectacle was not lost. His heart was heavy within him. Amid the reverential hush of the house, — the muffled tread of the servants, — the whispering voices of the family,— and the pomp of sables on every side, any recurrence to the vanities of the metropolis, or the vices that spring to life in that hot-bed of cor- ruption, would have revolted his "better part of man."' When Lady Sophia, unsuspicious ot the coldness existing between him and her sister questioned him with the tenderest solicitude concerning the event which was about to afford her new interest in life, he felt ashamed of having scarcely yet given it a thought. — The attention of grandmamma was luckily engrossed by those more solid items of family prosperity which it was not in her na- ture to overlook, — the income of the new marquis, — the jointure of her daughter,— and portions of her grandchildren. — For had her peremptory voice interfered, his good resolutions might have been nipped in the bud. But the mild tenderness of Lady Sophia disarmed him. Thei-e was something in her true, pure, rational, yet ever-feminine nature, that made him reluctant to shock or offend such a sister-in-law. But for these newly-awakened sentiments of decency, Charles Barrington must have been roused to the bitterest self-upbraiding by the terms of the following letter : — " The papers inform us, my dear Charles," wrote his cousin Maria, " that you are at (ireensells, with the rest of the late Lord Heriford's family ; and I seize the occasion to write to you in a spot which I shall always consider the closing scene of our childhood's intimacy.— From the period of our visit there, new interests in- terposed to disunite us. But 1 do not feel the less privileged by ties of blood to address you with the frankness of a sister. " That your mother has been some weeks my inmate, 1 need not inform you; nor need 1 attest the happiness caused by ber visit. ilow often we talk of you and yours, you will also readily imagine. THE DfiBUTANTE. 329 But you should not, — no, indeed, dearest Charles, you should not, — leave us to learn from chance, or the intelHgence of the public journals, so much that concerns your happiness. In de- scribing Lord Heriford's death, the newspapers inform us that 'his lordship's family is assembled at Greensells, to attend his remains to the grave, with the exception of Lady Alicia Barrington, who remains in town, awaiting her accouchement. ' " Cannot you fancy, dear cousin, the emotion experienced by my poor aunt at this announcement? Cannot you fancy how fondly she is disposed to love a child of yours, and how proud we should all feel of your son ? Since the paper conveying the news reached Hexholm, we have talked and thought of nothing else!— All our wishes are realized I — Henceforward, your household happiness is complete. — You will have something of your own to care for — something of your own to live for.— 1 shall have no need to wish you less deeply involved in the vortex of fashion, that I may have the better chance of hearing your name pronounced with honour among those of the benefactors of your country. It is whispered that, at present, you are an idle member of the House ! — No matter I Noiv, you will have motives for exertion. " Shall you think me very, very presuming, or do you think Lady Alicia will take it amiss, if I ask leave, should the expected babe be a girl, to officiate as one of its godmothers? — If a boy, the post will be a solitary one; — bespoken, no doubt, by Lady Heriford; or, if not, due to'yourown dear mother; — and, in that case, I must wait for your second child. But should all be as I wish, do not, — do not refuse me! — " And now, dearest Charles, farewell. — We unite in a thousand good wishes.— To your father I need not allude ; for, near as you are to him at Greensells, you have doubtless visited Easlon Hoo." But that he had promised Lord Henry to accompany him to town immediately after the funeral the following day, upon this hint, ( from one whom he reverenced nearly as much as he was boimd to reverence her,)— Charles Barrington icoiUd, perhaps, have made his way to Easton ; not, as he at first intended, to see the improvements that were going on ; but as a token of respect to his father. For, under the example of the present Marquis of Heriford, filial piety was beginning to assume, in his sight, the goodly form of virtue. He had, however made his arrangements; and Henry, who was in low spirits, would be annoyed at having to perform his journey alone. Moreover,— but this argument he. did not adduce to himself as a motive — the papers of the day announced the return of Lady Mortayne to Brook-street. And though resolved to recede by imperceptible degrees from the liaison springing up between them. 830 THE DfeBUTANTC and endavour to re-knit the broken ties of his domestic happiness, it was necessary that they should meet, — it was necessary that he should place before poor Eleanor some explanation of his con- duct. — Besides, she had an account to render of her own. — What reason would she give, he should like to know, for having broken her promise of writing to him from Wolseley? — Did she, too, regret and repent the past? CHAPTER XXXVII. thou weed Who art so lovely fair, and smell'st so sweet. That the eenso aches at thee, — Would thou hadst ne'er been born ! Shakspeare. By the time Charles Barrington approached London, some por- tion of the good resolutions bequeathed by Consideration, (after coming, according to Shakspearc's simile, like an angel, and whipping the offending Adam out of him,) had melted into air. His brother-in-law. Lord Henry, was one on whom impressions, however strong at the moment, were as transient as on the scliift- ing sand ; and, as with every succeeding mile, the sadness produced by the gloomy scene from which they were emerging gave place, progressively, to his ordinary mood of mind, his railleries and boasting, empty as they were, had in some degree the effect of rendering less urgent in the eyes of his companion, the wise system of reform he was contemplating. " Yes ! I think T see you and Alice settled at some quiet place in the country I " cried his lordship, in answer to Barringlon's disclo- sure of his projects for the autumn, — " I agree with you that people with a family ought to have apied-d-tcrre. —But, hang it, unless a place in the country be one's own, one passes one's life in trenching another man's vineyard ! — And you do not, you say, mean to pur- chase ? " — " I have not sufiicient ready money at my command to establish myself at once as I would wish," replied Barrington ; " and in the event of my father's death, my mother would be quite ready to give up Easton ; which, shocked as you may be by the avowal, I still consider an improvable place." "As a shooting-box.— Ay ! I grant you that you might make it liveable enough, as a shooting-box ! " — " And the vicinity to Greensells would, of course, recommend the place to Lady Alicia," added his brother-in-law. — '* Entre nous, I doubt whether Alicia's family-attection be strong enough to reconcile her to the loss of so much as half a dozen feet THE DfeDUTANTE. 331 square in the proportions of her drawing-room ! '' — retorted Henry. " However, if Clan make up his mind to spend part of the year in his fishy dominions, 1 suppose it will be less disagreeable to her to be a minnow in waters of which the triton is of her own kith and kin !— But I'll tell what you must do, Charley.— You must persuade that dove-eyed cousin of yours to relcni in my brother's favour— (for I will be hanged iu chains if ever he marries any one else ! ) and that would create a neighbourhood for you, at once. — For the life and soul of me, I can't fancy Alice settled in the country wilhou t a good c/^e/'and salle a inanger de cinquante converts, within easy reach of her taudis." A sigh escaped poor Charles while he listened to an announce- ment that augured so ill for the domestic happiness he was vaguely contemplating ; and right glad was he that, for the rest of their journey, Lord Henry's talk was of French actresses, and the in- iquity of railway interdictions against cigars; — for there was something corrosive in the words of his lips when they touched upon sacred subjects. It was agreed between them, that Henry should proceed with his companion to Arlington Street, to dine without ceremony with his sister. Lady Alicia must have a thousand inquiries to satisfy, concerning her father's last moments ; and Lord Henry saw little that was inviting, at that moment, in his bachelor aijartmcnts at poor, dreary Heriford House with the achievement newly affixed over its portal, to interfere with his acquiescence m the plan. — His mother and sisters were already on their way to Warleigh ; the marchioness having been persuaded by Lady Kilsylhe that, after their long attendance on the deceased marquis, the searching breezes of the Dorsetshire coast would prove an invaluable resto- rative. The two brothers-in-law stepped, Ihereiore, into the same cab, at the terminus, leaving their servants and baggage to follow ; and it was between seven and eight o'clock when they reached the West-end, — the hour at which the stragglers of the beau monda wend clubward or homeward to their dinner. " After all," observed Lord Henry, as they approached Arlington Street, "notwithstanding the rubbish one talks about the ever- ready comfort of White's, and the warm welcome of an hotel, as the old Duke of Marlborough said of Blenheim, ' home is home, be it ever so homely ! ' And right glad shall I be of a corner of Alice's sofa, and a dish of Pointd'ail's cutlets." Even his companion sympathized warmly in the sentiment. After the sadness of the scene they had left behind, Charles Bar- rington admitted that it would be soothing to enter a cheerful ha- bitation; nor, since the day he started with his bride from Heriford Castle, had his feelings been so kindly disposed towards her. 332 THL DEBUTANTE. On arriving at his own door, he was a Httle surprised to find the shutters closed. " What the deuce is the meaning; ol" this?" cried Lord Henry, jumping frona the cab. " Do yuii keep such early hours, Barrington, as to shut up shop by daylight ? " — In another moment, the door was opened by Lady Alicia's own man, and the mystery explained. " My lady is out of town, Sir," said the footman whose arms had scarcely found time to shuffle themselves into his new black livery. — " We were not expecting you till Monday." "Out of town?" reiterated the indignant brother; — "a pretty dodge, upon my^ word!" — But the indignant husband seemed to look for further explanations. " Lady Coylsfield called yesterday afternoon. Sir," resumed the servant, in reply to his mute interrogation, " and finding my lady rather low, persuaded her Ladyship to accompany her to Harestield. — Lady Ahcia left word, in case you should arrive, that she should return on Monday morning." " Kind and considerate enough of the Coylsfieldsl" — observed Barrington, turning to Lord Henry. — " Lady Coylsfield doubtless felt that, Alicia's whole family being out of town, it would be too great a trial for her to be left (juite alone on the day of the fu- neral." — And while echoing, as was expected, the exclamation of " kind and considerate enough," — Lord Henry took it for granted that his brother-in-law, or Mrs. Barrington, had written to secure for Lady Alicia the good offices of their somewhat frigid cousins. " This is not exactly what we expected, my dear fellow," said Barrington, shrugging his shoulders with an air of self-commisera- tion at the close of the explanation, — " but no matter! every thing will be set to rights for us, in a minute or two. — Throw open the drawing-room windows, Robert, towards the Park ; and let Poiiit- d'ail know that Lord Henry dines with me, that he may get dinnei- ready as soon as possible." — The shutters were opened in a moment, to admit the melan- choly gleam of the evening sun ; but having completed the opera- lion, Robert approached with a mysterious whisper towards his master. " I am sorry io say, Sir, that Poiutd'ail is not athome ; — my lady being absent, and you. Sir, not expected before Monday, he is gone to prepare a cabinet dinner at Lord Pegwell's." " The deuce he is!— My dear Henry, this is indeed an unlucky look out!— But 1 promise you that Poinld'ail has found an apt scholar in the kitchen-maid, who dressed an admiral^ie dinner for us, one day when the fellow was ilL" — '' I aiM extremely sorry. Sir," again interposed Robert, " but THK Dfil?U'lANTE. 333 Mary has stepped to Chelsea to see her mother.— Wc all under- stood, Sir, from her Ladyship, that you were not to be at home before Monday." " You seem to have done an amazingly impertinent thing, Charley, in making your appearance in your own house before you were looked for!" "cried Lord Henry, vexed at such a series of eontre-te.mps'. " If the thing had happened on any other occasion,"— pettishly retorted Charles, " I could have sworn that it was a trick inten- tionally played by Lady Alicia.— But I will not suspect her of a vexatious act on a day as this I" — " We have but one resource," said Lord Henry. " Dusty and tired as we are, I am not quite up to White's.— Let us go and dine quietly, and incofj. at the University, — where we shall not meet a soul of our acquaintance." " To say the truth, I am so cut up by my journey, that I would rather dine on a mutton-chop, or a crust of bread, at home," — said Barringlon,— whose quick eye had already detected in the bundle of letters and notes placed in his hand by Robert, one, of a nature that inclined him strongly to get rid of his brother-in-law.— " ^^i revanche, my dear fellow, you must dine here on 'Monday, when Lady Alicia will be at home." — ""And Pointd'ail at home— which is ten times more to the pur- pose!"— retorted Henry de Capell. " On Monday, 1 shall be better up to the thing; and as our cab is still wailing, it may as well carry me at once to my destination." — And before the vehicle conveying the affectionate brother-in- laAV to whom the offer of a mutton-chop dinner sounded very much like a threat of arsenic, turned the corner of Arlington Street, Barrington had hastily run his eye over a note, the hand- writing of which, however tremulonsy traced, was not to be mistaken for any other than that of Lady Mortayne.— " Come, come, dear C, the moment— the very moment— you arrive in town!" wrote the guilty Eleanor, who appealed to have suddenly laid aside all fear, and all restraint,—" I must see you without delay." Willingly would her astonished correspondent have complied, dinnerlcss, with the commandslaid upon him.— But, as he had not refreshed himself since he attended the remains of his father-in- law to the family vault, a change of dress was indispensable ;— and more than an hour elapsed, and night was come, and the lamps were lighted, before he made his appearance in Brook-stieet. — . After the dreariness of the deserted house he had quitted, how cheerful appeared its lights— its flower.s— its alert attendance!— What a soothing atmosphere, and what a welcome to shake his good resolutions, and place him, where he had found himself before 33'i THE DEBUTANTE. in the same fatal spot, at the feet of the lovely mistress of a home too attractive! Announced at once by the servants as though he were an expected guest, nothing unusual startled him in the ap- pearance of Eleanor, unless the dazzling whiteness of skin produced by contrast with the deep mourning she wore. But no sooner had the butler retired, than, on fixing his eyes upon the lovely face which had never before struck him as half so lovely, he saw at once that something was grievously amiss — that her frame and counte- nance were convulsed by some secret emotion. The woman usually so self-possessed, was for some minutes incapable of uttering a syllable. "My dear Lady Mortayne, — my dearest, dearest Eleanor, — for God's sake, what is the matter? — What — what has happened?"— cried he, — almost as much disturbed as herself. Still, instead of replying, she struggled with her tears ; and the expression of any real emotion in that ever-smiling face, seemed to impart new charms to its feminine delicacy of feature. At length, suddenly extricating from his grasp one of the hands that were fondly and pleadingly pressed within his own, she drew from her bosom a letter, — as if it purported to afford him the ex- planations she.had not breath to utter. "From Mortayne I" — cried he, glancing at the superscription, ere he tore it open, and saw that it was dated from la Rochelle, the preceding week. " Having ceded ta the wishes of my friends the Nantwiches," wrote poor Morty— " that 1 should accompany them to the Pyren- nees, 1 feel that some explanation is necessary of an absence you will probably resent, — Resent it!— It is my ivish that you should do so ! Steeped as I am, to the very lips, in bitterness and misery, — bitterness and misery to which I shall not, either now or at any future time, more explicitly advert, — I would fain have you under- stand, without further explanation on my part, that our union must be henceforward as that of mere acquaintance. " 1 am fully sensible of the seeming harshness of this announce- ment, — But it is as wholly without remedy, as my mind is without comfort, and my heart without hope ! — Better, perhaps, were we to part altogether; — for the i)art I have to play may prove too trying to my forbearance. But so young, — so lovely, — {ovyou, Eleanor, I dread the results of such a step, — both as regards your own hap- piness and the honour of the name you bear. — Resolve therefore, I entreat you, to meet rne on my return with the guarded feelings and deportment which can alone enable us to reside under the same roof. " Would — would — that 1 had gone to my grave unenlightened I " — wrote the miserable husband, insensibly relaxing, as he pro- ceeded, from the severe tone he had imposed upon himself. — THE OfiBUTAl^ili. 355 "Would that I could have been spared the anguish now gnawing into my heart. But the malice of that hateful woman, Lady Alicia — (provoked, perhaps, by what she considers my ill-usage of her sister,) has avenged itself in the form of a fatal — a maddening re- velation.— And oh! may curses light upon her for the deed which has rendered life a burthen to me! — " One line addressed to me at Bayonne, to satisfy me that you have received this ; or how shall I find courage to return to England, — to my miserable, — my desecrated home ! " " He knows all, then!" — faltered Charles Barrington, — crumpling up the letter with a movement of rage, that would fain have ex- pended itself on the writer, instead of on that senseless paper, — " and probably more than all ! That accursed woman, who, from first to last, my poor injured Eleanor ! has been the bane of our happiness, has, doubtless, created in his mind suspicions far beyong the truth ! " — " But for the conviction of my guilt, Mortayne w^ould not, I am convinced, have written thus ! " replied, Lady Mortayne with quivering lips and streaming eyes. — " And what have you done? — Have you written to him as he desires ! " — "Not a word!" " But you will write ? "— " No ! — since he chooses to asperse me unjustly, — be it so !" — "But unless you attempt some self-vindication, — as Heaven knows you are entitled to do, — the breach between you will become irreparable ! " — " And do you suppose that I wish it otherwise? — What argu- ments could I use to my husband to prove myself innocent? — Am I innocent ? — Can I deny my preference for another ?— can I deny that I have listened to protestations, from that other, of the fondest attachment?" — " Heaven be thanked, — you can not I" — replied her enamoured companion. "But for both oursakes, Eleanor, is it wise to provoke further the wrath of this man? The feelings excited by Lady Ali- cia's envious misrepresentations, might still be tranquillized, and his whole confidence restored. — Your influence, if you chose it, might obliterate every vestige of suspicion from his mind ! " — " My influence? — As if I would condescend to exercise it for a purpose so base ! — No ! Charles, no ! — The worst which 1 have risked, I will abide. Lady Alicia has accomplished what I had always had reason to suppose her purpose, — my utter — utter ruin." " U was, doubtless, the cowardly consciousness of what she has done," cried the enraged husband, " that drove her out of town, in the expectation of my arrival. — The sudden empressement of the 336 THE DEBUTAME. Coylsfields, seemed a Utile extraordinary. — 1 see, now, that she was cunning enough to secure herself a refuge with those whom, of all others, she knew to have the strongest claim on my deference. Lady Alicia was aware that I should hesitate about an exposure of this unhappy business before them I — But the danger is not over. — In a day or two, at furthest, she must return home ; — and f/ien — " " And then, dear Charles, her situation must exonerate her from the reproaches and punishment she deserves!" — pleaded Lady Mortayne. A cruel imprecation burst from the Rps of Harrington at this al- lusion to her claims on his forbearance. — '' And what, then, are your views and wishes? "whispered he, in an altered tone, turning, after a moment's pause, to address the weeping woman by his side. "From the tenor or Mortayne's letter, it is clear that he only waits to hear from you, to return to England. — This letter is dated a week back; — and, at this time of year, a couple of days would bring them across." — " Yes, — I am aware that his arrival may be hourly expected," replied Lady Mortayne. " And my retreat to Wolseley Hall is now, alas I cut off. This evening's paper announces my brother's rash marriage with that odious Flora Dyrham ! " " Surely, however, you will not remain here to meet your hus- band?" — pleaded Barrington. — " All that passes in London, how- ever secretly, is sure to find an echo. — The whole affair would soon get whispered about. Nay, perpetually surrounded by his intimates, Mortayne could scarcely fail to coniide his domestic troubles to one or other of them." — " He has most likely already done so! " — replied Eleanor, in a tone of calm desperation. " In this letter, which is so unlike him- self, I discern the promptings of the Duke of Nantwich ; who, through life, has dealt so remorselessly by his wife I " " Confound both him and his advisers I " — was the involuntary ejaculation of one who, however proud to figure in the eyes of the world as the favoured admirer of the lovely Eleanor, had no mind to abide the penalty of his happiness. For the vision of a quiet home and honourable position in society, which had lately begun to find favour in his sight, had not yet forfeited its charm under the influence of the touching looks fixed upon him, or the tendril- like hair that floated on his shoulder. — " But in that case," resumed he, after a short reverie, far from advantageous to the cause of the woman who was watcliing with secret emotion every turn of his countenance, — " in that case, there is double reason for desiring that your meeting should take place in the country. .\t Mortayne, he would be left entirely to the •J HE nfiBUTANTli. 337 influence of your eloquence, — of those words and looks which no living mortal could resist ! " " Ay, at Mortayne, unrestrained by fear of the reproaches of the world, he would not only forgive the past, but take me to his arms again as his wife. — And this is what you wish I — And this is what you counsel ! " — cried she, with a frantic laugh, clasping her hands together with impassioned energy, at the detection of what she considered as his cold-blooded egotism. — " You, — yov, who have made me what I am I — so wretched — so degraded — would have me live a life of falsehood ;— swearing with plausible hypocrisy to love and honour the man 1 have betrayed, and whom you have taught me to regard with loathing I " — " It is for your sake I would fain suggest temporizing Pleasures," — her deeply-moved companion was beginning. " No, no, Charles! — Do not deceive yourself!" — cried she, in- terrupting him. — " It is for your own, — only for your own ! — You dread the consequences of the storm of guilt and misery you have conjured up.' — You are afraid of what the world will say, — of what Lady Alicia and the de Capell family will urge to your discredit, should you openly support my defiance of the rights and authority of Lord Mortayne! "— "Compose yourself, Eleanor!" — remonstrated he, — more shocked than touched by her violence. — " 1 am afraid oi nothing, unless to see you wantonly compromise your happiness and honour." " Look at the nature of the happiness you accuse me of compro- mising! — Consider for a moment my unfortunate destinies ! " — re- sumed Lady Mortayne, a little subdued by the tenderness with which he endeavoured to soothe her, by again taking her hand. — " Inexperienced in the forms and usages of society. Lady Heriford, — with what views, she best can tell, — undertook to supply towards me, on my entrance into the world, the place of a mother; — and, at that time, Lady Alicia, with all the consummate art of her na- ture, aflected to treat me with the affectionate frankness of a sister. And what was the consequence ? — That, noting the preference with which, from our first interview, you inspired me, — she made you the object of her unceasing derision I — Every defect she could detect in your person, — manners, — dress, — position, — was en- larged upon with the bitterest exaggeration. — Not content with the mockery lavished upon yourself, — your family, — your residence, — your condition, — she seized upon my own innocent affection for you, to be made the subject of her epigrams and caricatures; till, by incessant sarcasm, she taught me to blush for the strength of my attachment, — pretending to have learnt from ear-witnesses, your boast that my fortune alone attracted you, and determined you to obtain my hand." — 338 THE DEBUTANTE. "Liar! " — interrupted Charles Barrington, in a transport of rage, which ho was unable to repress. — " May God forgive her iniquity !— Lady Alicia, and every member of her family, knew only loo well from Henry, (who then pretended to be my friend,) that my poverty alone prevenled my hazarding a proposal !" "And thus, by degrees, she weaned me from you,"— added Lady Mortaync, almost intimidated by his fury. — " By degrees she persuaded me that you regarded me only in the light of a match to bo secured; and that, in conversation with hersell' and others, not one of my girlish faults and weaknesses escaped your irony. What appeared to be ample confirmation of her assertions was not want- ing. No sooner did I endeavour to ascertain the real nature of your feelings towards me, by affecting to encourHge the attentions of my cousins, Clandon and Henry, than you openly devoted your addresses to Alicia ! " — " Could you only conceive the duplicity with which her two- fold treachery was carried on ! " — " 1 can conceive it, — for experience has enlightened me, to my cost!" — retorted Lady Mortayne. — " 1 know her now; — I know with what heartless self-possession she can inflict torture upon those whose hands are clasped affectionately in her own ! — But at that time, Charles, I was not so much as entitled to reproach her. With dexterous cunning, she had made me commit myself in presence of her family by seeming acquiescence in mockeries of her own suggestion, such as appeared to express indifference on my part that justified fickleness on your own. — What art — what artifice prevailed against me! — What a complication of treachery sealed the misery of my life! — Deserted and humiliated, I was thankful to Lord Mortayne for the homage which at such a crisis served to raise me in my own estimation. In a rash moment of gratitude, 1 accepted his proposals,' — in a rash moment of despe- ration, gave him my hand! " — " And jlo you imagine," argued Charles Barrington, deeply moved by her avowals,'" that 1 was less a victim than yourself? — The same manoeuvres, so sucessful in your case, were not less so in mine. My memory, thank God, does not serve me to repeat the sneering sarcasms cited by Lady Alicia, as the result of your visit to Easton Hoo. — From her I learned that you regarded me as a mere fortune-hunter, — a designing adventurer. —And curses upon the mean credulity of human nature, that induced me to lend a too ready ear to her mischiefs, without appealing at once to your- self for an honest avowal of your feelings!" — " But why do we recur to all this?" cried Eleanor, starling from her scat, and impetuously pacing the room. — " The evil is now irremediable. — From her first act of injury to her last, Lady Alicia has only been too successful,. The husband forced upon me by her THE DfiBDTANTE. 339 arts, has, at length, by her arts, been converted into an enemy.-^ And wilh that enemy, Charles, I am to pass the remainder of my days! — Young as I am, what a prospect lies before me! — the seclusion of Mortayne Manor, in company wilh an irritated and peevish tyrant! — But, on this point, I have made up my mind. Await the return of Lord Mortayne, I neither can nor will. — The life I have hitherto led with him disgusts and maddens me; and how much more bitter will it become, when the galling superiority with which he regards and teaches others to regard me, is justified by what he has lately learned ! " ♦* My dearest Eleanor, — ill as it may become me to preach patience to you," said Charles, — " It does, indeed, ill become you!" interrupted Lady Mor- tayne; — " for to you is owing my whole amount of wrclchedness! Had you at first been candid with me, — had you But why, why do I reproach you ? " cried she, flinging herself once more distractedly on the sofa by his side, on perceiving how profound and sincere was his sympathy. " I see, — I see that you are scarcely less miserable than myself; — and every pang you feel, doubles the anguish of my own." — A violent burst of tears relieved the oppression of her heart. — But this ebullition of feeling served only to increase the storm of passion raging in that of her companion. — Regarding her as a victim to her affection for him as well as to the treachery and malice of Lady Alicia,— how was he to contemplate wilh less than that indulgence towards youth and beauty inherent in the bosom of every man, the lovely woman so helplessly submitted to her misplaced attachment? " And what would you have me do, Eleanor?" — whispered he, at length, after having vainly endeavoured to tranquillize her grow- ing perturbation. — " Any thing, rather than bid me return to the arms of the man I fear and loathe !— Rather would I be lying senseless on the stones under yonder window," continued she, in a tone of exasperation, —pointing to one still open to admit the night breezes from the adjacent park, which gently waved the draperies of the musHn curtain. " Rather seek peace in an untimely grave, tlian degrade myself by mean submission, and hourly hypocrisy !" — " You have resolved, then, to rend asunder at once the ties that bind you to your husband and society?" — " 1 have!— Mortayne has generously left me the alternative. — He suggests measures which I firmly decline. I will not live with him on the terms he proposes!— My whole soul revolts against such a system of imposture. By his express desire, my fortune was placed by our marriage settlements at my own disposal ; nor is he the man to interfere, or wish to interfere, with such An arrange- 3 no THE DfiBUTANTE. ment. I am rich, therefore; — in any other country than England, rich enough to command the utmost comforts of my station. I will go abroad. — I will seek tranquillity in countries where the paltry disthictions of prudish England, — that slave oi cliques and coteries, — exercise no control I" At that moment, it was impossible for the harassed and bewild- ered man she was addressing, not to revert to the wayward cul- pabilities of the mother of the misguided being before him, — exiled through life, by her own misconduct, from the decencies of her native land ; who, on finding in him the husband of a de Capell, had addressed to him at Paris that touching letter of sup- plication, which, by nearly falling into the hands of Lady Alicia, had accidentally become the source of so many evils; — though purporting only to obtain information concerning the destinies and dispositions of the son and daughter, known to her but by name ; — and imploring him never to reveal to them the identity of the mother they had been taught to believe in the grave, with the profligate and notorious Comtesse de St. Chamond. — Was there, indeed, a bhghl upon the nature and happiness of the family? — Was this younger and fairer offshoot of a time- honoured line also predestined to pollution? — " But do not imagine," resumed Eleanor, unable to interpret the mournful reverie into which he had fallen, — " that I wish you, the origin of all this misery, — to become the partner of my flight I To your enjoyment of existence, the fine world, with its senseless ceremonies and empty pretensions, is indispensable. — That lesson, at least, you have learned from Lady Alicia!— In that ambition, your tastes are henceforward identified. — Remain, therefore, Charles I — remain to derive what happiness you may from the pompous pleasures of London life. — Number over your lordly guests ; — and, hand in hand with the woman who has so basely irampled upon me, devote yourself to domestic felicity with a partner to whom your origin is contemptible, and your person indifferent! — Forget that you ever thought me worthy your wooing! — Forget the fond affection which, in spite of my better reason, 1 am still unable to withhold!" — " No, — Eleanor! — again and again, no!" cried Charles Barring- ton, seizing her hand, and pressing it wildly to his brows, — his eyes, — his lips. " Since so fearful a step is to be taken, we must take it together. — If you quit the country, worse than death would be my portion, were I to remain. — Let Lady Alicia content herself with the pity and approval of the world ! On her no blame will rest. — To her no harm can come. A powerful family is on the spot to atford her support. — It is not with her as with thee, my poor, helpless Eleanor! I will secure to her, not only her own fortune, but more than half my own ; — how gladly sacrificed, for the pri- THE DfeBUTANTE. ' 341 vilege of enjoying, far from her and her hateful community, the love and peace of which she has worked so hard to deprivt- me!"— But why attempt to unravel the sophistry by which two persons, devoid of principle, endeavoured to blind each other to the hein- ousness of their projects ! Suffice it, that before that memorable evening closed, their plans were definitively formed ; — not delibe- rately, indeed, — but with the impetuosity characteristic of those, who, having overleapt the barriers of decency, proceed as though they could not rush too blindly and wilfully on their destruction I — Thfv met in madness, but in guilt they parted ! only, however, to meet on the morrow with every preparation completed to quit for ever a spot where their intimacy had com- menced amid the levities of a ball-room, to lead them by slow degrees, characterised at every step by vain and heartless selfish- ness, to a conclusion bringing shame on all belonging to them ; and to themselves, a double portion of misery and repentance! CHAPTER XXXVIII. ■ A graver, mightier, and more solemn sense Of all that hallows woman's holiest tie, .Woke in the woman's soul. Sir E. Bulwer Lytton " Let us hasten to London, — I entreat you, let us hasten to London : — it is only on the spot we can ascertain the exact truth of this grievous business I" — exclaimed Maria to the heart-broken mother of Charles Harrington, to whom her son despatched a few lines, on the eve of quitting England, beseeching her to break to his cousin the wretched climax of his misfortunes ; and entreating that both would place the most merciful construction in their power upon the heinousness of his fault, "Do not," — added Maria, with all the warmth of her womanly nature, — " do not withhold your countenance from his poor deserted wife !" — "Lady Alicia has hosts of friends, — Lady Alicia belongs to a powerful and numerous family !" — replied Mrs. Barrington. — "She needs, my dear Maria, no consolation from us ! — What has hitherto been a source of grief to me, is now my comfort, — that no real attachment ever united her to my son." — " Not when she married him, perhaps ; I grant you that she did not care for him fhm. — But remember how long they have lived together !— She inust love him now,— wom- that she is about to be- come the mother of his child ; — and think what must be the trial of ^V-^ THE Df:BUTANTE. finding herself abandoned at such a niumentl — Oh, aunt, — dear aunt,— let us go to her I — Let us learn all she has to disclose. — Let us palliate all she has to complain of.' — You see what Charles says in his postscript : — ' Maria is the only human being, except yourself, who will hold a kindly feeling in reserve to welcome my unfortunate child.'" " Well, then, — let us go," — replied Mr^. Barrington, in a hoarse and broken voice : — " If we do not comfort hsr, we shall at legist comfort ourselves." Lady Alicia was, however, far more than they dreamed of, an object of pity. — On her arrival in Arlington Street, from Haresfield, full of the anxieties produced by a disclosure of the liaison formerly exisling between Lord Mortayne and the Comtesse de St. Chamond, accidentally made to her, some days before, by one of her foreign acquaintance, (who cited it in proof of Morty's roueism, in utter ignorance of the relationship between the Maitlands and one of the most worthless of her sex,) she was apprised by the servants, who saw nothing to be concealed in the occurrence, that their master had left town the preceding evening. — Even when they placed in her hands the brief and cruel letter of farewell addressed to her by her husband, intimating that she was to see him no more, bow were they to sijrnaise the nature of its overwhelming contents? — A long, long fit of insensibility fortunately relieved her from the acuteness of the pang produced by her full perception of the truth. — Conscious that there existed some justification of her hus- band's bitter assertion that all which was befalling her was decreed by the rctributory justice of Heaven, she looked around, and vainly, for some friend into whose bosom she could pour the story of her griefs. Mother, — sisters, — brothers, — all were absent from town. —Even Lady Coylsfield, on parting from her that morning, had proceeded to the Isle of Wight; and her foreign attendants, terri- fied by the excess of her affliction, had not courage to utter a word. There was not one, — not one, — to say — " where is your pain?'* or " whom shall we send for to exhort you to courage under your sufferings '" — Before night, however, the case beqapie too urgent for demur, — It was a nurse, — it was a medical attendant, rather than her friends, whose services were in request. — Till morning, the un- fortunate lady languished and sufTered. Throughout the following day, the hands of menials wiped the cold dews of agony from her brow ; and when, towards evening, she was informed that she was the mother ofa son, no one was present to hailwith a kiss of welcome the babe that struggled so (ricndlessly into a world of woe ! — The jihysicians, to whom the absence of Mr, Barrington from town was represented by the servants as accidental, thought it THE DfiBUTANTE. 343 right to inquire of their noble patient, as soon as her strength and composure were sufficiently restored, whether her husband was likely to return on the morrow, or whether it might be desirable to communicate the event that had taken place. — But the mere allu- sion to his name produced symptoms so unsatisfactory, that it was judged belter to leave all to chance. Lady Alicia's numerous friends would, doubtless, undertake the announcement. The upper servants, on the other hand, took it for granted that, by her ladyship's desire, Dr. L would communicate to the family at Warleigh the news of her safety; for almost the first words uttered by Lady Alicia after the event, consisted in an ex- press interdiction against announcing in the newspapers the birth of her son and heir. She did not choose that the fugitives should learn it through such a channel. But to choose at all, at such a moment, was a perilous exertion, — The whirl of emotion which, even had no unusual stress of na- ture existed, might have sufficed to produce indisposition, in- creased to a fatal degree, in Lady Alicia's present weak state, the burning fever in her veins. The thought of her little son, — the son for whom it behoved her to live, — the son for whom, even in her premature widowhood she might still form projects of happiness or ambition, — ceased to convey definite ideas to her mind. — • Before the close of tho third day, delirium, succeeding to stupor, released her from further anguish. Alarmed at their master's prolonged absence, and ignorant where to address him, the servants, anxious to be relieved from their responsibility, suggested to their lady's medical attendants that a letter should be instantly despatched to Grccnsells, to the Mar- chioness of Heriford, acquainting her with Lady Alicia's dangerous condition. —But even this failed to secure the prompt attendance of her family. — Another day must elapse, before the communi- cation, duly forwarded, could reach Warleigh. "When, therefore, the gentle mother and cousin of Charles Bar- rington approached the house in Arlington Street, which, in its more brilliant days they would have hesitated to enter, their arrival was hailed with joy by the terrified household, who had begun to fear that their lady would breathe her last, unsolaccd in her dying moments by a kindred hand or heart; — and though the new comers were strangers among them, the mildness of their lady- like deportment commanded confidence and respect. So alarming, on the other hand, was the account rendered to the travellers of the state of the invalid, that even Maria scarcely allowed herself a momentary glance at the beautiful infant placed by the nurse in her arms, to be sanctified by the first kiss of affection imprinted on its htlle cheek I — Not a moment was to be lost in gaining the sick chamber. 344 THE DEBUTANTE. On entering the darkened room whei-e lay the unhappy object of their solicitude, a low moaning sound alone proclaimed that the unfortunate Lady Alicia yet breathed and suffered; exhaustion having succeeded to the paroxysms of frenzy. — She was not, however, yet, fully sensible. — Her faint, but incessant whispers were as incoherent as, before, her passionate upbraidings; and when she murmured the names of Eleanor and her husband, it was with the same wild accusations of treachery and deceit. — " I knew not that it was her mother ! " faltered she. "No, Charles, — as Heaven is my judge, — I knew not that it was her mother! Forgive me, forgive me; — I am not wholly to blame.— You were too peremptory. You should have confided more in me. — Am I not your wife? — Was I not entitled to know all? — Charles, you should have trusted me, — you should have trusted me! — and then, your child would not have been born fatherless, — an outcast on the face of this bitter, bitter earth ! " — Though unable to affix rational interpretation to the words of the sufferer. Miss Barrington felt convinced that some sad mystery existed ; — some mystery which she trusted might assign some slight exoneration to her cousin, — since the dying Lady Alicia claimed forgiveness, and admitted herself to be also in fault. Having instantly dismissed their carriage and announced their intention of passing the night beside the sufferer, Maria and the horror-stricken Mrs. Barrington devoted themselves, without he- sitation, to attend upon that haughty being who, in her pride of health, had never accosted them with a kindly word ; and who was now dying, neglected by her fashionable friends, and forgotten by all!— Towards morning, after a short cessation of her moans which inclined the watchful Maria to hope that she was asleep, the words of the invalid, though fainter, became more rational. — Recrimina- tion upon others, gave place to self-accusation. " I have lived without God in the world ! " was one of her terrible avowals. " Neither faith nor gratitude were in my heart; and now, in my day of trouble. He lends me no helping hand! — I have pur- sued shadows, and they fly from my grasp. — The real — the true — the holy — which I despised, are far, oh ! far from me noiv .'" The dreary hours passed on; — hours without rest or hope for those who saw that her strength was ebbing fast; — and, as the cords of life were loosed, her thoughts became less intent upon herself. — She alluded no more to the cruelty of her husband. — Solicitude for the child she was leaving, seemed to take possession of her mind. — " There will be none to train him up ; — none to redeem his little feet from the same parched dreary desert of worldliness which has made me what i am ! " — murmured the dying woman. THE DfiBUTANTE. 3^1 5 " Yps — yes" — interposed the faithful Maria, bending over her, and taking soothingly into her own, the burning, trembling hands of the invalid, — "Those who bear his name will love and cherish, and watch over him, for his unhappy father's sake." "God be thanked that you are here I" faltered the sinking woman, instantly recognising the gentle voice of Maria, so indica- tive of her gentle nature. — "Let the helpless little creature be brought this moment, that I may solemnly entrust him to your care I — And should it ever be given him to see his father's face, tell him, Maria,^ — tell the cousin of whom you have been the truest friend, that in my last moments I forgave him, — forgave him as I trust to be forgiven, — because conscious, (oh I belt not too late I) of my unworthiness of pardon or peace. — And plead with him — plead earnestly, Maria, — as none have ever pleaded with myself, — that he be not wholly engrossed by the things of this world I— Let not his dying bed, like mine, be one of anguish and remorse." Tenderer words proceeded from her lips, and tenderer thoughts melted in her heart, when, a moment afterwards, the babe was brought at her command, and placed for the first and last time in her arms ; to be baptized in the tears of a dying mother, and consecrated to God by lips already convulsed by the approach of death. Mrs. Barrington, utterly overcome, and lying in a fainting state in the adjoining room, was spared the terrors of a death-bed to which the son whose faults of nature she had long recognised as the fruit of her pernicious indulgence, had contributed so cruel a share. But before Maria received back into her arms, from those of its expiring mother, the babe towards whom she was fervently engaging herself to supply a mother's place, two other persons had glided through the glimmering light into the room, and fallen on their knees in silence by the bedside, — dreading to shake the few last sands in the glass, by agitating the feelings of Lady Alicia. Some instinct of nature, however, apprised her that they were there. — "Thanks, dear brother and sister I" said she, in a somewhat stronger voice, — extending her hands to Lord Heriford and Lady Sophia, who had travelled all night, preceding the rest of the family, after receiving the tardy summons of the physician. — " You are come to close my eyes ! — You are come to promise that, to my poor child, you will not be as callous and careless as I, alas I have been to you. The life and prosperity with which I have dealt so unworlhily, are taken from me, my poor Sophy. You sometimes warned me, and I scoft'ed at your warnings : but spare them, oh! spare them not to my son!— For his father's sake, the kind friend by your side has adopted him as her own. — Maria, — clearest brother! — give me your hands, and promise me to unite 3/lG THE DfeRUTANTE. for ever in this sacred trust. — Worthy as you are of each other, I should die content, if comforted by the certainty that your union secured happiness to each other and a lasting home to my orphan boy !" The fervour with which the hands thus united, and not with- drawn by Maria, were pressed to her lips, was the last effort of expiring nature.— Another moment, and nothing was heard in that darkened chamber but the wail of a feeble infant, and the stifled sobs of the mourners for the dead I More than a year has elapsed since the afflicting scene, which the world, so apt to estimate the morality of events by their results, regarded as a frightful aggravation of the guilt of Charles Har- rington and the reckless partner of his flight. — When the news of Lady Alicia's death transpired, their case was decided by the wisdom of the clubs to be the most infamous on record ;— the treachery of Eleanor towards her cousin, and the ingratitude of Barrington towards the patrician family which had stooped to re- ceive him into its arms, being duly thrown into the balance. Into the remoter origin of the misconduct of both, no one, of course, was at the pains to inquire ; nor, as the adopted son of the new Marquis and Marchioness of Horiford is tolerably secure from the evil influence of the same worldly and superficial education, is it desirable, perhaps, that the evil should be traced too accurately to its source. Even Maria, when adverting to the future destinies of little Charles with the husband to whom, though tardily, she has warmly and strongly attached herself, abstains, by tacit consent with her lord, from all allusion to the past.— But not even the prospect of a child of her own has, in the slightest degree, diminished her ma- ternal devotion to the lovely boy so solemnly bequeathed to her care; in whom poor Mrs. Barrington, while fondly sharing the duties of her niece, already traces, though more in grief than triumph, the features of her absent son. From Italy, where the fugitives have established themselves, enjoying the sort of semi-distinction which, in the cities of the continent least frequented by English people, is secured by the lavish expenditure of a handsome income, brief and peevish letters occasionally reach Easton Hoo.— The graceless Charles invariably describes himself as an exile, pining after the domestic comfort of his native country, as though his banishment, and the disgrace of his companion, were not the work of theirown reckless protligacy. — The repentance of both, though unavowed, is manifest in iho unceasing murmurs of his discontent! — It is clear that neither of them have strength of mind to endure the slights occasionally shown them by their fellow-countrymen on their travels. THE l)]feBl]TA^TE. 8^7 To his father, rather than his gentle mother, are those letters usually addressed.— A gradual degeneration of nature is begetting some sympathy between him and that sorry parent who, on learn- ing the act of madness into which Charles had suffered himself to bo betrayed, was chiefly solicitous concerning the amount of damages likely to be entailed on his deliqueucy by the rigour of the law ; — and who, on learning that Lord iMortayne did not intend to prosecute, and that the guilty Eleanor retained the enjoyment of her income, readily reconciled himself to the decease of Lady Alicia, whom he had always detested as a useless fine lady,— more particularly since her ladyship's death-bed wisdom secured him against being encumbered with the rearing of his little grandson. " I can see the child whenever I choose to go and spend a day or two at Greensells !" was his reply to SirHildebrand and Lady Chalk- neys' expressions of amazement that he should not have claimed the care of the only child of his only son.. — " As to my wife, she i$ oftener with Lady Heriford than at home." — The name of Lady Heriford sealed their lips! — For though tho (Selfish curmudgeon of the Hoo has become more than ever an object of contempt to his country neighbours, they are compelled to some forbearance towards the near kinsman of that young and lovely marchioness, who imparts as much lustre to her private station, as her lord to the eminent political position he has lately assumed in the country. Even grandmamma admits without reserve that not a fault is to be found with either , and Ihat the administration of the last representa- tives of the family has been improved upon by the present; and a$ soon as her lady-daughler shall have sufficiently recovered her vexation at the improvident mairiages of Lady Blanche Nebwell and Lady Mary Rubric, she will probably see cause to echo the verdict of the shrewd old dowager. — The Vicary Arables, the Iron- sides, and a few other notables of the county, indeed, are a littlo surprised to find no public days announced at Greensells, — But they still trust that the eclipse of their robes of lilac satin and pink gauze may not be permanent: and that the roar of county hospitality will recommence, as soon as the achievement of the late marquis is taken down, and the birth of a son and heir commemorated at the fine old seat. Of Lord Mortayne, it is difficult and painful to write. — The fashionable world asserts him to be once more a wanderer in the East. But those to whom the happiness of Morty is too dear to admit of trusting to rumour on such a point, are aware that for the last twelve months, he has never quitted the secluded precincts of the Manor. His friend. Sir John Hildyard, the only person admitted as a guest describes him as broken in health and decrepit in ap- pearance, — with the untimely snows of sorrow sprinkled on his 3 '4 8 THE DfiBUTANTE. head ! But to his confidence, not even Hildyard has been admitted. On one occasion, when Sir John was inadvertently betrayed into invectives against the perversity of nature betrayed by one so young, so lovely, so seemingly innocent as Eleanor Maitland, a restraining hand was laid upon his arm by Morty ; — and the gTave adjuration of — " Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all ! " silenced the words upon his lips. By a strange chance, it happened that, on Lord Mortayne's return from his yachting expedition, when, on the strength of the hints supplied by his servants, he instantly rushed to Arlington Street for an explanation of his wife's absence, the person by whom his visit was received was — Lady Sophia de Capell I Apprehensive that, in the exasperation of mind to be appre- hended from a husband so injured, he might expose to the utmost publicity the extent of his wrongs, Lady Sophia, though overcome by grief and consternation, resolved to see and to entreat him. " Grievously as you are suffering, dear Lord Mortayne," pleaded the amiable woman whose destinies he had so wantonly marred, — " believe me you are not the greatest sufferer. — My poor sister is lying yonder, in her coffin I — Take pity on her, — take pity on us; — and do not, I beseech you, pursue with too unrelenting a viru- lence, those whose disgrace must recoil alas! upon yourself and upon us all ! " — It was not difficult to satisfy one in whom forbearance was a distinguishing virtue, that his object was to spare rather than to avenge. He spoke of Eleanor with pity. — He took upon himself the larger share of blame. — It was not necessary to particularize the terrible motives of his mercy : but a few stringent words sufficed to reassure the discerning Lady Sophia, — so mild, so dignified in her sisterly sorrow, — that he had no thought of appealing to the tribunals of the land, or provoking newspaper exposure. Already his resolve was taken, to bear his humiliation in silence, as meted out by Justice Divine. Among those who have profited least by the catastrophe in the de Capell family, is Lord Henry ; who is still waiting and providen- tially enough will probably have long to wait, for his accession to the Kilsythe barony and estates. For though the amount of his post obits will be considerably increased by the suspense, his experience will be proportionably augmented. In the decline and fall of the popular Morty, he has witnessed a striking example of tlie career of a mere man of the world, — shrivelled into premature old age, — with health, and heart, and fortune hopelessly broken by a too lawless indulgence in the pleasures of fashionable life. '' Had he married Sophy de Capell, what a first-rate fellow THE D£B[)TANTE. 349 would he have turned out!" exclaimed Bowbridge, one day at White's, to Sir Alan Harkesley, when, in a fit of disgust at the slang and antics of Lord Newbury, and the pompous priggism of the newly-created Sir Meschech Bernardo, he was tempted to revert to Morty as ^ the noblest Roman of them all." " Ay, ay ! — We should all turn out wonderful tine things, if something had happened which was never likely to happen ! " — retorted Newbury, flippantly breaking into the conversation. "But don't take to preaching on an empty claret butt, my dear Bowbridge, in the midst of the jaunts and jollities of the London season ; — with the Derby week before us, and the birthday close behind I — And, by the way, Bow, guess who was the beauty of the said birthday? — The Durham bride, — the rustic Marchioness of Heri- fordl" " Who, entre nous, never approached the critical angle of Hyde- Park-corner," retorted Harkesley, " till she turned it in her bridal chariot, under the safe convoy of our friend Clan!" — " So much the better for them both ! " — rejoined Sir John Hildyard, raising his eyes a moment from his newspaper. — '' The best possible conscience-keeper for a woman is her lord and master ; and had I a daughter " "Hear! hear! hear! hear! " — interrupted Lords Bowbridge and Newbury, amid shouts of laughter from Sir Alan Harkesley and the rest. "Had I a daughter," gravely persisted Hildyard, undismayed by their sneers, "a daughter destined to move in the slippery paths of the great world, — it is only under the protection of a man authorized to control and defend her, that, as our London season is at present constituted, 1 should care to see her — a Debutante! y^ A6i' RETURN TO-^ MAIN CIRCULATION ALL BOOKS ARE SUBJECT TO RECALL RENEW BOOKS BY CALLING 642-3405 DUE AS STAMPED BELOW APR111356 RECEIVF n JUN 0/t1£ 96 CIRCULATIOrsI I >EPT^ iJTTT r^CULAr;C; i L: AUG 2 11997 ♦ FORM NO. DD6 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY BERKELEY, CA 94720 U C BERKELEY LIBRARIES CDM77^^Dflb