University of Virginia Library

3. CHAPTER III.

In the room adjoining the library where
the Earl of Asterly—now Earl, or Asterly,
no longer—and his ministerial guest had
been carrying on their political machinations,
two ladies were seated at a breakfast
table, which, for the benefit of the
pleasant air of the sweet May morning,
had been drawn up to a large open window
of the French fashion; giving access
to a balcony full of the rarest exotics cultivated
at that day.

The room was sumptuously furnished in
the gorgeous style of the period, with
cabinets of buhl and marquetry, tables inlaid
with the most precious Indian woods,
armed chairs and sofas cushioned with
Genoa velvet, curtains of flowered brocade,
Persian or Turkey carpects, several
fine pictures by Sir Peter Lely and Vandyke,
and two or three well executed
marble statues, copies from the antique,
the taste for which articles of virtu had
just begun to be considered fashionable in
England, when it was checked for awhile
by the rude and ignorant barbarism of
the Puritan iconoclasts, not to revive
again until the kingdom returned to the
rule of its legitimate hereditary monarchs.

The ladies were very different both in
age and appearance—more different, indeed,
in appearance, than the difference
in age would seem to justify in relations so
near as a mother and her daughter. The
elder lady was a small, slight, meagre person,

considerably below the middle size;
and, though she had been praised and admired
in the zenith of her womanhood for
the sylph-like and graceful symmetry of
her proportions, her figure was now angular
and emaciated, and almost disagreeable
to look upon. Her face, and features, too,
had in her younger days been called handsome,
and to this hour her high and intellectual
forehead bad preserved its fiue contour,
and its expressiou of solidity and
thoughtfulness. Little, however, else was
there left, that could be called pleasing in
her aspect—large, keen, black eyes, piercing
and cold as iee, placed very near together,
gave an air of craft and shrewd
half-malignant cunning to features which
would otherwise have been bold and commanding;
her nose was almost Roman,
thin, high, and nearly fleshless; her mouth
compressed and characteristic of both energy
and resolution. It was impossible to
look at her even for a moment without
perceiving that she must be a person of
exceedingly superior mental faculties, of
capabilities more stern and sustained, and
of an intellect more massive and imposing
than are natural to her sex; and at the
same time it was almost equally impossible
not to believe that she must be as deficiently
endowed with the qualities of the
heart, as she was pre-eminently furnished
with those of the head.

There was, indeed, something more than
mere craft, and coldness, and inflexibility
of purpose written upon her keen polished
lineaments; for never stranger looked
upon her without a vague feeling of dislike
and apprehension; a sort of intuitive
sense, that here was one of those few
beings to whom the sufferings of their fellows
are not only wholly unimportant,
when ministering to their own advancement,
but are actually subjects of curiosity
and interest, and of a kind of pleasurable
excitement.

The other was an extremely beautiful
girl of about eighteen or nineteen years,
in every respect the very opposite of the
lady I have described; for she was rather
tall, and though her waist was symmetrical
and round, her figure and bust were
unusually developed and voluptuous. She
was a blonde, too, as decidedly as her mother
was a brunette, with a profusion of
luxuriant light brown hair, scarcely restrained
about her temples by a broad
blue ribbon bandeau, and falling down her
neck and over her shoulders in heavy
silken masses of waving ringlets. Her
eyes were of the very darkest blue, almost
violet colored, with eyebrows slightly
curved, and long lashes, dark as night,
giving an air of character and decision to
her face, which is usually wanting in very
fair beauties.

The expression, too, was very-fine and
prepossessing; there was mind enough
visible in every lineament to counteract
everything voluptuous or sensual; while
there was not too much to be perfectly
compatible with that softness, that predominance
of the affectionate and tender
feelings, that superiority of the imaginative
to the reasoning faculties, which we
desire to see in a woman. She looked,
in short, such as Wordsworth has so beautifully
painted the ideal of her sex—

The breakfast table at which they were
still seated, although they had finished
their slender meal, was very differently
arranged from the modest breakfasts of
these degenerate days; for although there
were chocolate and coffee, and dry toast,
and bread in many forms, there were
flasks of red and white wine also, and
highly seasoned ragouts, and roast wildfowl,
and fruits, and pastry in abundance.
And not these only, for on a second table
were displayed a huge sirloin of beef, a
boar's head from the black forest, and an
enormous venison pasty, flanked by their
regular companion, a vast silver tankard
mantling with toast and ale. None of
these, however, had they partaken of,
limiting themselves to the fresh fruit, and
dry toast, and frothing chocolate; and
they were now loitering at the board,
waiting for the appearance of the master
of the house, who had been thus unwontedly
detained.

At last the sound of the front door,
clapping heavily after the visitor, showed
them that the detention was at an end, and
at the next moment Sir Henry Davenant
walked past the window, and seeing the
ladies, raised his hat and bowed very low.

The blood rushed to the fair face of the
younger lady and she said at once, with
the ingenuous frankness which was one
of her most remarkable characteristics—

“Oh! I declare it is that odious man,
Sir Henry Davenant. I am sorry that he
has been here, for he always leaves my
father restless and ill at ease. I suppose

it is very wrong of me,” she added, laughing,
“but I do really almost hate the
man.”

“Aye! indeed it is very wrpng, and,
what is worse, very ridiculous, and even
childish. He is the ablest and most rising
young man of his party, and exceedingly
clever, well-read, and witty. There is not
a man more courted by society, or one
more sure to achieve greatness,” replied
her mother. “But I have long given up
all hopes of ever seeing you rational or
like the rest of the world, with your perpetual
whims and prejudices.”

“I know all that you say, madam,” answered
the girl; “and it is all quite true;
he is very clever, and witty, and wise too,
I dare say, and sometimes he entertains
me in spite of myself, and I almost begin
to like him. And then most likely he
commences some odious tirade against
the existence of honesty or honor among
men, and of faith or affection among women,
and looks at me with that strange
fascinating eye, as if he were reading
every thought in my bosom, and that
dark sneering smile which makes every
word he utters, how seriously and solemnly
soever, seem like a sarcasm or a
mockery. It is as if he were always ridiculing
one!”

“Most likely he is,” replied her mother;
“most likely he is always ridiculing you;
for indeed, my dear Fanny, you are most
thoroughly ridieulous, with your romantic
and Utopian fancies, I do wish I
could see you growing a little rational—a
little practical—but I grow sick of wishing.”

“Well, mother mine,” replied the girl
laughing, “I am very sorry for it; but I
cannot help it, I do assure you. I cannot
like the society, or listen patiently to the
conversation of men whose every action,
every word, proves so clearly that they
are altogether heartless and hollow.”

“Heartless!”—cried the elder lady with
a harsh and bitter sneer—“heartless!
what, prithee, dost thou know about
hearts, minion? But here comes my lord,
take care that you anger him not with
your nonsense, Fanny.”

But of this there was little danger, for
to do him justice he was at all times a
good-natured man, and especially a kind
father; and now he wore his face dressed
in its brightest garb of smiles, and was
evidently in one of his most complacent
moods.

“We waited breakfast for you awhile,
my lord,” said the unconscious marchioness,
“but your good friend Sir Henry de
tained you so long that we were forced to
begin for very hunger. But Fanny will
ring for hot chocolate in a moment.”

“Sir Henry brought you good news, I
am sure, dear father,” cried Lady Fanny,
speaking in the same breath with her
mother, and springing forward to meet
her favorite parent—for if he were pompous
and a dullard, he was affectionate
nevertheless, and kind hearted, and proud
of his children. “What is it? what is it,
dear father?”

“Nothing that makes much difference
to thee, Fan,” he replied with a tender
smile, as the beautiful girl threw her arms
about his neck—“though it will to thy
brother!”—and for a moment his heart
smote him for the thought lie had begun
to entertain against her future peace of
mind. Then turning towards his wife he
added—

“Yes. Davenant did bring me pleasant
tidings. His majesty has been pleased in
the most gracious manner, quite unsolicited
moreover, to revive in my person the
dormant Marquisate of Beverley. There
will be a levee and a drawing room on
Wednesday of next week, at which you
will of course be present to kiss hands.”

“A marquis—a marquis!—are you indeed,
father? I am so glad—so glad!—
because I know you wish it”—exclaimed
the lively beauty, clasping her hands together—“and
then dear Arthur will be an
earl; will he not? and have a seat in the
Peers, during your lifetime; and he is sure
to distinguish himself, he is so clever.”

“I don't know about that, Fan,” replied
the marquis; “the title he will have of
course, by courtesy at least—but whether
he will be called to the Peerage is more
doubtful.”

And as he spoke, he sat down and
helped himself largely to a salmi of teal,
which had been kept smoking hot over a
silver chafing dish, and to a large goblet
of Bordeaux wine. But gratified although
his wife was by the announcement,
whose spirit was no less ambitious
and far-reaching than it was shrewd and
piercing, she looked at him steadily, as
he applied himself to the good things
which he so sincerely loved, and became
certain as she gazed, that there was something
yet behind. She turned towards her
daughter then, and said in the most natural
and unconstrained voice in the world,

“Frances, my dear, I thought you had
promised to visit your cousin, Lady Serena
Fortescue, this morning! You can
have my chair if you wish it, and Meredith
can follow you with two of the running

footmen; I cannot endure, child, that
you should suffer these unpuactual habits
to grow upon you.”

“I will go, then, immediately,” said the
fair girl, tripping lightly across the room;
but as she reached the door which opened
on the gland stairease, she nodded her
head, and smiled, saying to herself, “A
gentle hint once again, that I am de trop!
and rather a transparent hint too, for my
lady, who generally laps such things up
pretty thoroughly. Just as if she cared a
rush whether I go to Serena's at twelve of
the clock, or earlier. But I will go to her
—I will go—for she is a good girl, and I
love her dearly. Heigho! I wonder why
I feel so sad this lovely morning. A sudden
chill seemed to run through my very
heart, when I saw that cold-blooded serpent
Davenant sneer as he passed the
window. I hope it was not ominous—
but no! no! I am not superstitious!”

The moment she left the breakfast room,
the marchioness looked full into her husband's
face, and said, “Well, my lord—
well! what else—what more have you
got to tell me? and what is the price of
this?”

“Why, is not this enough! is not this
more, Adeliza, than we could hope for, or
expect, under a ministry who have not
hitherto seemed very friendly?”

“That is not what I asked you,” answered
the lady very sharply, “I asked
you what more you expected, and what
price you had paid for this?”

“Price! price! my lady!” replied the
new marquis, in his most dignified and
stately manner, “how can you think of
anything so disgraceful, or speak of it in
so coarse a manner, my dear lady?”

“Yes, price, my lord marquis, I said
price! Everything has its name; and
the name of the pledge, or promise, or
vote, or concession, or whatever else you
gave the ministry for this title, is its price!
Now, then, I saw just now in your eye
that you wished to consult me about
something or other. I dare say it is not
of the slightest consequence! and if that
is the case, or if you have changed your
mind, I will go my way, and get my tatting—but
if you mean to speak, speak
plainly—for you are not exactly a sphinx,
to propound riddles; nor do I desire to be
the Œdipus to unravel yours, which I
think would be rather unperspicuous than
otherwise.”

The cruel sarcasm of her tone and manner,
even had her words been less bitter,
would have been enough to hinder any
but the weakest of men, and most domineered
of husbands from replying; but it
had no such effect on the marquis, long
used to hear and obey the imperious mandates
of his wife, whose superior intellect
he could not but acknowledge. He
answered, therefore, and at last to the
point.

“Of course I gave the ministers a written
pledge of my adherence to their party,
and support of their measures; but no one
can presume, except you, my dear Adeliza,
who may do anything with impunity,
to speak of my title as the price of this,
since it was granted before my adhesion.”

“And did you know that it was granted,
Beverley?”

“Why, not exactly, not entirely—Davenant
did not—that is to say, my lady—”

“That is to say, my lord, `not one
word about it?'—of course you did
not; for if you had, you would not
have promised entire adherence to a
party, some of whose measures you almost
stand pledged to oppose. But now
comes my second question—what more
do you expect to gain from them, as the
price of your abandoning the Protestant
interests?”

“The vacant stall—the garter! marchioness!”
he answered, even more pompously
than his wont, though he had
writhed visibly as she gave his conduct
its true appellation.

“The garter, indeed! the garter!” she
said, a flush of exultation beaming across
her pallid and sallow face. “That is indeed
worth playing for—that is indeed
worth an apostasy! But how is this? I
thought Lauderdale was to have had it?”

“He does aspire to it, my lady. But it
will be mine notwithstanding; or I am
much mistaken.”

“You generally are very much mistaken,”
said she quietly, and then resumed,
“But what is to be the price of this—
what new iniquity?”

“Upon my soul, my lady!” answered
the marquis, writhing under the conseiousness
that all the harsh words she used
were richly merited, and at the same time
losing temper at her taunts—“you are a
most extraordinary personage; one would
think you were vexed or angry at the
very things which you constantly urge
and encourage me to do. I should like
monstrously to know whose wish it was
that I should sue for the marquisate!—it
is too provoking! quite too provoking!”

The lady arched up her eyebrows as he
spoke, and smiled, as was her wont, and
then answered very meekly,

“Oh! never mind, my dear lord, what
sort of a personage I am. I should think

you must know that pretty well, by this
time; and pray do not fancy that I am
vexed, for on the contrary I am prodigiously
delighted. Still I like calling
everything by its right name, and you
know quite as well as I do—for, though
by no means clever, you do not lack a
certain sort of plodding common sense,
which is capable of discerning right from
wrong! You know, I say, quite as well
as I do, that it is miquitous for a politician
to desert his party, and vote against his
conscience, which you are going to do,
you know, on the Irish Bill; that is to
say, so far as you have got a conscience!
Oh yes! it is certainly very iniquitous!
though at the same time it may be, and
is very expedient; and much more creditable
to you as a convenient husband, and
provident father, than as a public man or
a patriot; which, after all, you never
were, nor will be! But come, you have
not told me what you are to do for the
garter.”

“Well then, if you will have it in plain
English—”

“To be sure—to be sure—that is the
only way—”

“If you will have it, I am to bring Lord
Henry St. Maur over to our side; and
persuade him to vote the Irish Bill, which
will carry it for the ministers by a majority
of two. It is a tie now—St. Maur
voting in the opposition.”

“Excellent! excellent!—” exclaimed
the lady, clapping her hands joyfully together,
and now appearing to be really
delighted—“which you can do very
easily, by breaking off Fan's match with
Sir Edward Hale, and promising her hand
to the other—that will buy him!—of
course that will buy him!—and though
Fanny can't endure him, and loves Hale
with all her heart, that can't be helped,
you know! Girls can't expect that their
whims should be gratified, when the advancement
of their families stands directly
in the way.”

It is perfectly true that the Marquis of
Beverley had resolved in his own heart to
do exactly as his wife stated—that he
knew the complete and unquestionable
truth of every word she uttered, touching
his daughter's hatred to St. Maur, and love
for Sir Edward Hale—in both of which
feelings he had hitherto given her his full
sanction; for, where his base and grovelling
ambition stood not in the way of his
paternal feelings, he was a kind and indulgent
father. It is true, likewise, that
he knew St. Maur to be worthy of the
hatred, and Hale to merit all the love—
and, having well considered all these
things, he meant to sacrifice poor Fanny's
happiness without a moment's hesitation.
Still, as his wife suggested it in her barefaced
sarcastic manner, he positively
shuddered—stung to the quick by the malicious
ingenuity with which she probed
his very soul, and held up his every vice
and meanness clearly and visibly before
his eyes. And yet she was no paradox,
that artful bitter woman. She had deliberately,
when a young, beautiful, clever,
and much admired girl, married the gross
and dullard earl, at the promptings of her
ambition. Almost hating herself, when
she found that the world had penetrated
and branded her motives with their right
name; and hating him to a degree that
can hardly be imagined—a degree increasing
day by day with the mortifications
which his pompous stupidity day
by day heaped upon her, she avenged
herself to the utmost of her powers—perpetually
driving him on to the commission
of fresh meannesses, so as to gratify that
ambition, which she now only lived for;
and constantly tormenting him by exhibiting
those meannesses to himself in the
most odious light. Having herself
smothered down and stifled in her bosom
a sincere and honorable passion for a
young man who, though poor and of
small pretension when she abandoned
him for his dull titled rival, had since
risen, by dint of worth and talents only,
to high rank and power, she could not
even think of prosperous and happy love
without disgust and fury. Disliking her
own daughter, because she felt her to be
equal to herself in intellectual parts, and
superior in all other qualities—jealous of
her, because she perceived how popular
she was in all society—fearful of her, because
she felt that her own baser essence
must naturally be revealed by the test of
her purer spirit, as Satan's at the touch of
Ithuriel's lance—this bad and unnatural
wife and mother almost rejoiced that,
while advancing her own narrow and
morbid ambition, she was torturing the
guilty conscience of her lord, and breaking
the heart of her too virtuous and
charming daughter.

The marquis, I say, positively shuddered,
as she revealed to him his own future
intentions and their consequence; and he
was silent a minute or two before he answered—

“Poor Fan! I am afraid it will grieve
her a little while at first; but young ladies'
love-smarts are not generally very
lasting. And St. Maur is young and handsome,

and has far greater wealth than
Hale, and title also—I daresay she will be
very happy.”

“I daresay,” answered his wife, with
another sneer. “Fanny's mind is just of
the sort most likely to be captivated by
money, which she calls dross—and title
which you have often heard her style tinsel!
Do not you think so? And then as
St. Maur never keeps less than three or
four mistresses, and is the most confirmed
gambler in London, and drinks, they say,
frightfully, and has a most infernal temper
—he shot his favorite horse in the park the
other day, with his servant's pistol, because
it shied from a passing carriage!
On all these accounts, I say, he is very
likely, I think, to make her happy. But
as it must be done, there is no use in
troubling ourselves about it. How do you
purpose to proceed?”

“I thought of writing to St. Maur to inform
him that we have thought better of
the addresses he paid to Lady Frances
Asterly, and that were it not for his unfortunate
opposition to my party, especially
on the Irish Bill, we should rejoice to receive
him as our son-in-law!”

“Upon my word, Marquis, you improve—you
grow quite diplomatic. Yes,
that will do very well, for as Henry is not
scrupulous, and is very much in love with
Fan's pretty figure, and has not an iota of
principle, he will doubtless chop about
like a weathercock, in less time than it
takes to talk about it. But how will you
get on with Fanny?”

“I shall merely tell her that I have
changed my mind, and that she must
marry St. Maur.”

“Then she will merely tell you that she
will do nothing of the kind, and she will
keep her word, too, as she always does.
That will never do, my lord—never—
never!”

“How then? I do not see how else it
can be managed.”

“She must be made to think Edward
Hale faithless to her—told of some evil
and dishonorable deeds of his, artfully
simulated, and if not true, at least, truth-like.
Hold—where is St. Maur now?”

“Staying with Hale at Arrington—Davenant
told me so just now.”

“Yes! yes! I recollect he told me himself
he was going down thither to celebrate
a birth-day, or some such Tomfoolery;
and Percy Harbottle is to be there
too, and that notorious pendable Captain
Spencer. Let me see—let me see—I will
write myself to St. Maur and to Spencer
also to-day. They can surely either invent
something that will do the business
with Fan; or, what would be much better
still, lead Edward in reality to commit
some disgraceful action—to cheat at cards
—or rather, for he is incapable of that, to
get drunk and play, so that they could lay
the imputation on him, or to carry off some
country wench or other. Lord! it will be
as easy, as they say, as lying, marquis!
But I forgot—I beg your pardon—I forgot
that you do not like to hear the names of
the things you do every day. There,
there—do not stay to answer me now;
but go away and write your letter to St.
Maur; and write it as short as you can,
do you hear, and as much to the point—
and none of your honorable and virtuous
rhodomontades, I beseech of you—which
are always ridiculous, and impose on nobody,
you know; because nobody in the
world believes in such things as honor or
virtue; and which would be doubly out
of place here, because St. Maur, I am sure,
would not know the meaning of the
words. There, now; why don't you go
away and do it?”

“Because I want to know what I shall
do with the letter, after I have written it,
my lady,” answered her lord, quite crest-fallen,
and stripped of all his peacock
plumes of self-complacency and pompousness.

“Bring it to me, that I may read it, first
of all, and see how many absurdities you
can contrive to squeeze into six lines, and
then enclose it in a long letter of my own
to this young hopeful. You must send a
man off with it post to-day; he can reach
Arrington to-night, and return to-morrow
morning. Benedict, the newly hired man
will do, and he must wear plain clothes,
and take care that he drop no hint whose
man he is, or whence he comes; but I
will tutor him.”

“And then—” began the marquis, in an
inquiring tone.

“And then,” she answered, with a
sneering accent, “you can go and order
the coronets on the carriages and harnesses
to be altered, and choose new buttons
at the button-maker's and new liveries
at the tailor's—business just suited to
your calibre.”

“I have sent Anderson to do all that
two hours ago at least. Do you suppose
it possible—”

“I crave your pardon,” replied the
lady, with an air of affected blandness, “I
onght not to have supposed it possible,
marquis—possible, that business of real
instance or moment could banish from
your mind those nice frivolities and frivolous
niceties which are so thoroughly congenial
to natures as comprehensive and

politic as your own. And then, since you
have done all this, I would go, were I you,
to Master Child's, and order a new service
of gilt plate, with the proper supporters
and coronets, marquis. That will be an
amusement for you; and the old plate is
getting rather out of date. I believe it
was as old as the creation in your grandfather's
time, who was, I think, a Lincolnshire
grazier! But go—do go, and write
the letter!”