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 carpets, 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 ad
mired 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 had preserved its fine contour,
and its expression of solidity and
thoughtfulness. Little, however, else was
there left, that could be called pleasing in
her aspect—large, keen, black eyes, piereing
and cold as ice, 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 waved 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
every thing 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 visiter, 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 wrong—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 ridiculous, 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 detained
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 he had begun to entertain
against her future peace of mind.
Then turning toward 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 Beverly. 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 toward 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 unpunctual 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 grand staircase, 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
any thing so disgraceful, or speak of it in
so coarse a manner, my dear lady?”

“Yes, price, my lord marquis, I said
price! Every thing 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 any thing 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,
Beverly?”

“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 apostacy! 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 consciousness
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 every
thing 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 iniquitous 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
Beverly 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 very 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 us
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 Tom-foolery;
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 crestfallen,
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 ought
not to have supposed it possible, marquis—
possible, that business of real instancy 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!”