[PART II]

My last volume, I believe, terminated at the ringing of the Duchess’s bell; which bell, acting like a charm on the dramatis personae of the narrative, all at once sealed their lips and sent the curtain rolling down ‘like midnight loosed at noon’⁹⁵ over her Grace’s ante-room. This, no doubt, was a providential interference; for, if my readers recollect, an angry parle was then in progress which, from the pitch at which it had arrived, seemed likely to terminate in nothing less than a duello between the Premier of Angria and one of his lease-holders’ daughters. W. H. Warner Esqre. had just ordered Miss Hastings to stop, and Miss Hastings was just asking herself what right any living creature had to give her any orders whatever, and in dim perspective was making up her mind to leave Verdopolis instanter, committing herself and her fortunes to the first Angrian coach which should be ready to start, to return to Zamorna and there doggedly to wait whatever luck should befall her martyr brother, then to sit down with a consolatory and lasting hate at her heart towards all and sundry, the judge, jury, king, court and country, who had tried, condemned and suffered the execution of that notorious and ineffable saint; such, I say, was the tenor of Miss Hastings’ embryo resolves, when that bell from within rung its short call, when the inner door opened and, in spite of herself, the young woman found that she was compelled to finish the adventure she had commenced.

How quietly and deferentially, with what a studied look of awe, she would, under other circumstances, have crossed that hallowed threshold! She would have considered only how best to prove her deep, innate sense of her own inferiority and of the transcendent supremacy of the royal lady she was about to petition. She would have called up all her tact, all her instinctive knowledge of human nature, especially of the human nature of beautiful and titled women. She would have laid by her scorn, shut up out of sight the trifling property of pride which, after all, gave the little woman the power of valuing to their full extent her own acute perceptions and mental gifts. She would have said, ‘Here I am, dust and ashes, and I presume to speak to a Queen.’ But the hazing Mr Warner had very properly administered was still burning at her heart. It had raised her dander, and had quickened in her mind diverse calculations as to the relative value of patrician and plebeian flesh and blood. Now, those calculations it had ever been her wont occasionally to indulge in by her own fireside, but she had never before attempted to solve the problem under the roofs of royalty or even of aristocracy. The effort, consequently, threw her into some agitation, and when she stepped into the imperial breakfast-room the tears were so hot and blinding in her eyes she could scarcely discern into what a region of delicate splendour her foot had intruded.

She saw, however, a table before her, and at the table there was a lady seated. When she had cleared the troublesome mist from her vision, she perceived that the lady was engaged with some loose sheets that looked like music and, as she turned them over, conversing with a person who stood behind her chair. That person was Sir William Percy and, when Miss Hastings entered, as his royal sister did not appear to notice her approach, he observed coolly,

‘The young woman is waiting. Will your Grace speak to her?’

Her Grace raised her head; not quickly, as your low persons do when they are told an individual is expecting their attention, but with a calm deliberate movement, as if it was a thing of course that somebody should be waiting the honour of her notice. Her Grace’s eyes were very large and very full. She turned them on Miss Hastings, let them linger a moment over her figure, and then withdrew them again.

‘A sister of Captain Hastings, you say?’ she remarked, addressing her brother.

‘Yes,’ was the answer.

Her Grace turned the leaves of a fresh sheet of music, put it quietly from her, and once more regarded the petitioner. Now, her Royal Highness’s glance was not penetrating – that is, the brown eye had not that quick, arrowy flicker which darts to the heart in a minute – but it seemed to dwell quietly and searchingly. It had the effect of sinking through the countenance to the mind. It was grave, and the darkness of the eye-lashes, the languour of the lids, made it seem pensive. However, Miss Hastings stood that gaze, and her temper was so refractory at the time she could almost have curled her lip in token of defying it. Yet, as she stood opposite the fair princess, she felt by degrees the effect of that beautiful eye, changing her mood, awakening a new feeling, and her heart confessed, as it had a thousand times done before, the dazzling omnipotence of beauty, the degradation of personal insignificance.

‘Come forward,’ said the Duchess.

Miss Hastings barely moved a step. Still she would hardly endure the tone of dictation.

‘Explain to me what you wish in your present circumstances, and I will consider if I can serve you.’

‘I presume,’ returned Miss Hastings, looking down and speaking in a low, quick voice, not at all supplicatory, ‘I presume your Royal Highness is aware of the situation of Captain Hastings. My present circumstances are to be inferred from that situation.’

And so she abruptly stopped.

‘I do not quite comprehend you,’ returned the Duchess. ‘I understand you came as a petitioner.’

‘I do,’ was the answer. ‘But perhaps I have done wrong. Perhaps your Royal Highness would rather not be troubled with my request. I know what seems of importance to private individuals is often trivial to the great.’

‘I assure you, I regard your brother’s case with no unconcerned eye. Perhaps I may have already done all that I can to obtain a remission of his sentence.’

‘In that case, I thank your Grace. But if your Grace has done what you can, it follows that your Grace can do no more, so it would be presumption in me to trouble your Grace further.’

The Duchess seemed rather puzzled. She looked at the little stubborn sight before her with a perplexed air, and then she turned an inquiring glance to Sir William, as good as to say, ‘What does she mean?’

Sir William was stuffing a pocket handkerchief into his mouth, by way of stifling an incipient laugh. He stooped to his sister’s ear, and said in a whisper,

‘She has an odd temper. Something has occurred to ruffle it. Your Grace will excuse it.’

But the Duchess hardly looked as if she would. At any rate she did not condescend to continue the conversation till Miss Hastings should choose to explain. That individual, in the meantime, liable always to quick and strong revulsions of feeling, began to recollect that she was not going the right way to work if she intended to make an impression in favour of her brother.

‘What a fool I am,’ she thought to herself, ‘to have spent the best part of my life in learning how to propitiate the vices and vanity of these aristocrats, and now, when my skill might do me some good, I am on the point of throwing it away for the sake of a pique of offended pride. Come, let me act like myself, or that beautiful woman will order her lackey to show me to the door directly.’

So she came a little nearer to the chair where the Queen of Angria was seated; and, looking up, she said with the emphatic earnestness of tone and manner peculiar to her, ‘Do hear the few words I have to say.’

‘I said before I would hear them,’ was the haughty reply, a reply intended to show Miss Hastings that great people are not to be wantonly trifled with.

‘Then,’ continued the petitioner, ‘I have nothing to urge in extenuation of my brother. His crimes have been proved against him. I have only to ask your Grace to remember what he was before he fell, how warm his heart was towards Angria, how bold his actions were in her cause. It is not necessary that I should tell your Royal Highness of the energy that marks Captain Hastings’ mind, of the powerful and vigorous talent that distinguished him above most of his contemporaries. The country rung with his name once,⁹⁶ and that is proof sufficient.’

‘I know he was a brave and able man,’ interposed the Duchess. ‘But that did not prevent him from being a very dangerous man.’

‘Am I permitted to reply to your Royal Highness?’ asked Miss Hastings. The Duchess signified her permission by a slight indication of the head.

‘Then,’ said Miss Hastings, ‘I will suggest to your Grace that his courage and his talents are the best guarantee against dishonourable meanness, against treachery, and if my brother’s sovereign will condescend to pardon him, he will by that glorious action win back a most efficient subject to his standard.’

‘An efficient subject!’ repeated the Duchess. ‘A man free from treachery! You are aware, young woman, that the King’s life has been endangered by the treasonable attempt of the very man whose cause you are pleading. You know that Captain Hastings went near to become a regicide.’

‘But the attempt failed,’ pleaded she. ‘And it was in distraction and despair that Hastings hazarded it.’

‘Enough!’ said the Duchess. ‘I have heard you now, and I think you can say nothing more to me which can throw fresh light on the subject. I will give you my answer. Captain Hastings’ fate will be regarded by me with regret, but I consider it inevitable. You seem shocked. I know it is natural you should feel, but I cannot see the use of buoying up your expectations with false hopes. To speak candidly, I have already used all the influence I possess in Hastings’ behalf. Reasons were given me why my request should meet with a denial – reasons I could not answer, and therefore I was silent. If I recur to the subject again, it will be with reluctance, because I know that the word passed will not be revoked. However, I promise to try. You need not thank me. You may go.’ And she turned her head quite away from Miss Hastings. The hauteur of her exquisite features expressed that if more was said she did not mean to listen to it.

Her humble subject looked at her a moment. It was difficult to say what language was spoken by her dark glowing eyes. Indignation, disappointment and shame seemed to be the prevailing feelings. She felt that somehow she did not take with⁹⁷ the Duchess of Zamorna, that she had hit on a wrong tack, had made a false impression at first, that she had injured her brother’s cause, rather than benefited it. Above all, she felt that she had failed thus signally before the eyes and in the presence of Sir William Percy. She left the room quite heart-sick.

‘Do you know much of that young woman?’ asked the Duchess, turning to her brother.

‘I’ve seen her a few times,’ was Sir William’s reply.

‘Well, but do you know her? Are you acquainted with her character?’

‘Not much. She’s a warm-hearted girl,’ returned the Baronet, and he smiled with an expression meant to be very inexplicable and mysterious.

‘Where has she lived, and what are her connections?’

‘Till lately, she was a sort of governess in the barrister Moore’s family.’

‘What, the father of Miss Moore? Jane, Julia, or – what is her name?’

‘Just so, the beautiful Angrian, your Grace means.’

‘Aye, well, this Miss Hastings is not very pleasing. I don’t like her.’

‘Why, please your Grace?’

‘She’s odd, abrupt. I would rather not grant another audience. You’ll remember that.’

‘Very well. By the bye, I’m tired of standing. Will it be lèse-majesté to sit down in your Grace’s presence?’

‘No, sir. Draw a chair to the table.’

Sir William left his station behind the royal sofa and took a seat near his sister’s. They looked a rather remarkable pair, and seemed too on rather remarkable terms. Their conversation was short and terse; their looks at each other were quick, not very sentimental, but still such as indicated a sort of mutual understanding. The Duchess did not forget her rank. She addressed her relative with a regal freedom and brusquerie.

‘What have you been about lately?’ she asked, regarding him with a half-frown, half-smile, the random scamp who now rested his elbow on her sofa-arm.

‘Could not justly tell you, madam. Been breathing myself⁹⁸ a trifle after the hard race I ran lately.’

‘But where have you been? I assure you I’ve heard nothing but complaints of your absence from town. The Premier has more than once expressed himself very warmly on the subject.’

‘Retirement is necessary now and then, your Grace knows, to give a man an opportunity for thought. The hurry and bustle of this wicked world is enough to drive him distracted.’

‘Retirement, William! Stuff! Retirement gets you into mischief. I know it does. I wish you’d keep in action.’

‘What, is your Grace going to trouble yourself about my morals?’

‘Don’t sneer, William. Your morals are your own concern, not mine. But tell me what you’ve been doing.’

‘Nothing, Mary. As I’m a Christian, I tell you I’ve been in no mischief whatever. What makes you suspect me so?’

‘Well, keep your confession to yourself then. And now, inform me what you’re going to do. Can I further any of your intentions?’

‘No, thank ye. My work is set for the present. I’m after Montmorency and Simpson.’

‘Have you any idea where they are, William?’

‘Scarcely, but I think they’ve left Paris.’

‘I imagined so, from what I heard last night.’

‘What did you hear?’

‘Why, the Duke and my father were talking about them, and my father said he thought they were nearer home than France.’⁹⁹

‘Was that all?’ asked Sir William, looking at his sister keenly.

‘Yes. I heard nothing more. They stopped talking when I came into the room.’

Do you suppose,’ asked the Baronet, ‘that our respected and illustrious parent has any connection with his old friends now?’

‘Not the least, I should think. He seldom alludes to politics. O William, I do wish he would keep out of them!’

‘O Mary, I don’t care the smallest pearl in that broach of yours whether he does or not. But it’s very blackguardly of him to give his quondam associates the slip in that way.’

‘Come, I’ll have none of Edward’s slang,’ rejoined the Drover’s daughter.¹⁰⁰

‘I’d say the same to his face,’ answered that Drover’s son. ‘I’ve often thought, Mary, that a more peculiarly strange, insane scoundrel than the man who begot me never existed. As to Edward’s coarse abuse, it’s all fudge; and I’ve no irresistible natural impulse to hate our noble sire.’

‘Then be silent, sir!’ broke in Queen Mary.

‘Nay, I’ve a right to speak,’ was the answer. ‘The man’s a monomaniac, I’ll swear to it. God bless me! I’d never marry if

I thought I should inherit the wild delusion of believing that all the male children who might be born to me were devils.’

‘He never said or believed that you and Edward were devils. He’d have been near the truth if he had.’

‘No, the gentleman daren’t say such a thing. It’s too horrible a supposition to be expressed in words. In his hypochondria dread he must darkly have concluded that he himself was not altogether human, but a something with a cross of the fiend¹⁰¹ in it. That’s just the lunatic’s idea; and he thinks his sons take after their demon father, and his daughter is the pure offspring of her pleasant human mother. Pray, Mary, have you any such notions about your children? There would be some sense in it if you had, for no doubt their father is a demon.’

‘William, what a strange, scoffing sneerer you are. I’ve been angry with you once or twice ere now for talk of this kind, but it’s of no use. I’ll dismiss you, sir, and have as little to do with you as I have with Edward.’

‘Do, madam. Deny me an audience once when I ask for it, and I’ll just take revenge by rushing head-foremost into a little scrape I’ve been contemplating for the last two years. A single insult either from you, or the Great Cham, Chi Thaung-Gu, will make me come out onto the stage of publicity and turn out my fool¹⁰² like a good ’un.’

‘Do as you will. I’ll not be threatened,’ answered the Duchess. ‘Your dark hints are all nonsense. You’ve a bad temper, William.’

‘So have you, Mary; and if you’d been married to a decent man like Sir Robert Pelham,¹⁰³ instead of the individual who now blesses you with his faithful love, you’d have shewn it ere now.’

‘Happily, I was not married to Sir Robert Pelham. Let him thank his stars for it,’ answered the Duchess.

‘He does, I have no doubt,’ was the quiet rejoinder.

‘William, you’re exceedingly disagreeable this morning,’ continued her Grace.

‘And you were most encouraging, kind and agreeable to that poor wretch who came to ask a favour of you half an hour since.’

‘Oh, I vexed you, did I? How you smoothed over your anger, till it could explode with the best effect!’

‘That’s a quality natural to our family, a peculiarity derived from our satanic parentage.’

‘William, your character is an odd one. I confess myself sometimes puzzled with it. Sometimes, you will come and sit in my apartment for an hour, stupidly silent, but with a placid smile of satisfaction on your quizzical face, as if you were the gentlest, most contented creature in the world. If the children are here, you’ll play with them, and seem rather fond of them than otherwise. Then again, you’ll walk in when I don’t want you, looking as sour, as cynical, as – nay, I know no figure of speech that will express an adequate comparison. You sit down, and begin a series of taunts and innuendoes whose bitterness would lead me to conclude that you hated and envied me worse than Edward does. How am I to account for this inconsistency? Does it arise from the mere love of wantonly exercising the sort of influence which your relationship gives you? Do you think I am in danger of being too happy, if I am not occasionally reminded of my mortal state by the intrusion of a haughty, capricious brother, who tries to convert himself into a sort of phantasm to haunt me always with secret, gnawing uneasiness?’

‘Why, bless my life! What have I done, what have I said, to call forth all this tirade?’ said Sir William. ‘Secret, gnawing uneasiness!’ he repeated sarcastically. ‘No, no, Mary, the Great Cham spares me the trouble of all that sort of thing. You know his last foible, I suppose?’

‘No, but you may tell it me. I’ll believe it or not as I please.’

‘Oh, of course. You’re too good a wife to believe it, but the town believes it, notwithstanding. He went to a soirée at Clarence House two nights ago, did he not?’

‘Yes. What of that?’

‘Nothing. Only that the lady you mentioned a while since – the beautiful Angrian – was there too.’

‘Go on, William, say your worst.’

‘Nay, I’ve nothing more to say – except that the King and Miss Jane were closeted together for nearly an hour in that little cabinet opening to the drawing-room. You may remember it.’

‘Alone?’ asked the Duchess.

‘Aye, alone – but don’t look so exceedingly concerned. Perhaps there was no harm done after all.’

‘Who told you of it?’

‘I saw it. I was at the soirée, and I used my eyes. I saw Richton take Miss Moore into the cabinet; I heard him tell her that the Duke was there; I noticed how long she stayed, and I observed her come out.’

The Duchess looked at her brother narrowly. His face was pale, and had something very envenomed in its expression.

‘What are you telling me this for, William?’ said she.

‘For a very good reason, madam, and I’ll confess my motive candidly. I rather liked that Miss Moore. I thought her a handsome, good-natured girl; and as I mean to marry before long, I had some faint intention of asking her to be Lady Percy. But when I saw that delectable transaction – saw her allow Richton to lead her behind the curtain of a recess, heard a mock struggle that ensued between them, was aware afterwards of her admittance into the cabinet, and witnessed the heated face and flurried manner with which she left it – I felt such a scunner of disgust, I could have insulted her before the whole party. However, I determined to punish her in a safer and more effectual way. I thought I’d communicate the business quietly to my royal sister, and she might act as she pleased. My advice is – nay, what are you going to do? Stop a moment! Humph, she’s off! Well, I was in a very bad temper this morning, but I feel much easier in my mind now. Mary took fire in the right style. How will she act? Is she gone to attack him instanter? I don’t care whether she does or not. Am I going to cut my throat for disappointed love? No, nor even drop a tear. I find I did not love her, the buxom, hearty, heartless, laughing, brainless jilt. What in the world do I care for her with her snivelling simplicity? But I’ve had my revenge. I’m quite comfortable. Now, let’s drop heroics and go home and take our luncheon. I’ll call on Townshend today, I think, and we’ll flay the world alive.’¹⁰⁴

CHAPTER I

‘Will ye tell Major King¹⁰⁵ I want to speak to him?’ said Lord Hartford, opening his dressing-room door and addressing a housemaid who was dusting the gilded picture frames in the gallery.

‘Yes, my lord.’

And with her brush in her hand the smart housemaid bustled down the great wide staircase as far as the last landing. There she stopped.

‘Wood!’ she called to a man-servant crossing the hall with a tray in his hand on which were some silver egg-cups and some toast. ‘Wood, are the gentlemen at breakfast?’

‘Yes, but they’ll have done soon. What for, Susan?’

‘You’re to tell Major King that my lord wants him, and be sharp.’ The housemaid ran up the staircase to return to her work, and the footman passed on to the breakfast-room.

Major King, Captain Berkley and Lieutenant Jones, being visitors at Hartford Hall, had come down a little after ten o’clock, and were now sitting in a handsome apartment engaged in the discussion of a capital good breakfast.

‘How d’ye feel this morning, Berkley, my cock?’ said Major King. ‘Is that a chicken’s wing you’re picking? Your appetite seems only delicate to-day.’

‘As good as yours, I’ve a notion. I’ve not seen you take anything but a mouthful of dry toast, and there’s Jones is lingering over his coffee as fondly as if it were poison.’

‘I wonder what breakfasts were made for?’ grumbled Jones.

‘You can’t see the use of them, can you?’ inquired Major King. ‘Especially when your head and stomach are in the condition they are just now. Conscientiously, Jones, how many bottles do you think you decanted last night?’

‘I forgot to count after the fourth,’ answered Jones.

‘And where did you sleep, my buck?’

‘I don’t know. I found myself amongst a lot of flowers when I awoke.’

‘A lot of flowers, yes. When you framed¹⁰⁶ to steer out of the dining-room, instead of making for the door like a Christian, you took a grand tack to one side and went crash through the glass of the conservatory. Hartford swore he would make you pay for damages.’

‘If you please, sir, you’re wanted,’ said the footman, addressing Major King.

‘Who wants me, Wood?’

‘My lord. He’s in his dressing-room.’

‘Oh,’ said the Major, rising from the table with a wink, ‘I suppose he’s done – can’t come down this morning. I’ll recommend bleeding, and if the doctor’ll prick him in the jugular, there’s a chance for me. Take away the breakfast, Wood. Captain Berkley and Mr Jones are Roman Catholics, and they mean to fast to-day. Bring the liqueur-case, Wood, and a bottle or two of soda-water, and fetch Mr Jones a box of cigars and a novel from the library, or something light to amuse him.’

‘D—n you, King. I wish you’d order for yourself,’ said Mr Jones.

Major King laughed as he looked askance at the Lieutenant’s sackless face, and while laughing he left the room.

The excellent Major went up the staircase and came with swinging stride along the gallery, looking as little like a rakish raff as any officer of the 19^th could be expected to do on the morning succeeding a deep debauch. Susan, the housemaid mentioned before, was still at her work, still whisking her light brush and duster over the burnished frames of all the dark Salvators and Carracis and Corregios¹⁰⁷ which frowned along that lengthened wall. Major King seemed to have something particular to say to her. He stooped, and was for commencing a conversation, which he would fain have preluded with a salute, but Susan slipped away and took refuge in a neighbouring apartment, of which she bolted the door.

On, then, marched Major King, and at last made a halt before a door at the far end of the gallery. He knocked.

‘Come in, d—n you,’ growled a voice as of one either in the gout or the colic.

Major King sucked in his cheeks and obeyed orders.

Lord Hartford’s dressing-room was somewhat dark, the blinds being down and the curtains half drawn. However, a freer admittance of light was scarcely to be desired, seeing that both the room and its occupant were in what may be called ‘a mess’. The toilet was scattered over with shaving materials, with broaches and rings, a loose miniature shut up in a case and a magnificent gold repeater. A great cheval mirror¹⁰⁸ was standing in the middle of the room, with an arm-chair placed before it and a damask dressing-gown like a mussulman’s robe thrown untidily over the back thereof. The rich carpet was ruffled up, and a footstool lay by the door, as if it had been hurled missive-wise in some access of patrician furor. Full in front of the fire there was a chair, and seated therein was a man of savage, hirsute aspect, unwashed, uncombed, unshaven, with hands plunged to an unknown depth in his pocket and long legs widely sundered so that one morocco-slippered foot rested upon one hob and the other on the corresponding pedestal opposite. He was a charming figure, especially as his eyes were fixed steadfastly on the back of the chimney with a smothered choler of expression rather to be imagined than described.

‘Well, what’s the bulletin for today, Colonel?’ inquired Major King, swaggering up to his superior.

‘Will ye shut the door,’ said Hartford, with as little amenity of tone as is expressed in the growl of a sick tiger.

King walked back and kicked the door to with his foot.

‘Will ye read them documents?’ continued the first gentleman in Angria, at the same time reluctantly drawing one hand from the pocket of his inexcusables¹⁰⁹ and directing his thumb towards a brace of letters which, with their envelopes, lay open on the table. The major obeyed orders.

‘Will ye read up?’ pursued the ornament of the peerage.

King cleared his throat, flourished the letters and, in the tone of a sentinel singing out the watch-word, began as follows:

‘Victoria Square – Verdopolis – March –

‘To Lord Hartford,

‘Colonel of the 19^th regiment of infantry,

‘Judge of the Court-Martial at Zamorna.

‘My lord,

‘I have received His Majesty’s commands to lay before you the following decision, sanctioned by His Majesty in council, concerning the prisoner Hastings, now in your Lordship’s custody in the county jail of Zamorna. It is desired that your Lordship shall proceed forthwith to lay before him the following articles, on agreeing to which the prisoner is to be set at liberty with the reservations hereafter stated.

‘Firstly, he is to make a full confession as to how far he was connected with the other individuals included with himself in the sentence of outlawry.

‘Secondly, he is to state all he knows of the plans and intentions of those individuals.

‘Thirdly, he is to give information where he last saw Hector Mirabeau Montmorency, George Frederick Caversham and Quashia Quamina Kashna; also, where he now supposes them to be; also, how far they were concerned with the late massacre in the east and the disembarkation of French arms at Wilson’s creek; also, whether these persons are connected with any foreign political incendiaries, with Barras, Dupin and Bernadotte;¹¹⁰ also – and this your Lordship will consider an important question – whether the courts of the southern states have maintained any secret correspondence with the Angrian renegades, whether they have given them any encouragement directly or indirectly.

‘Should Hastings consent to give such answers to these questions as His Majesty and the government shall deem satisfactory, his sentence of death will be commuted to degradation from his rank as an officer in the Angrian army, expulsion from the 19^th regiment, and compulsory service as a private soldier in the troops commanded by Colonel Nicholas Belcastro.¹¹¹

‘Should Hastings decline answering all or any of these questions after being allowed half an hour for deliberation, your Lordship will cause his sentence to be executed without reserve. His Majesty particularly requests that your Lordship will not delay complying with his commands on these points, as he thinks it is high time the affair were brought to a conclusion, in order that your Lordship may be relieved from the anxiety of having the whole responsibility of this matter. The Government have given orders that Sir Wm. Percy shall be in attendance at the next sitting of your Lordship’s court.

‘I have the honour to remain

‘Your Lordship’s obedient humble servant,

‘H. F. Etrei,¹¹² Secretary at War, Verdopolis, March 18^th—39.’

Major King, having finished the perusal of this despatch, was about to make his comment on it – he had already begun ‘G—d d—n—n’ – when he was stopped by the stormy uprising of the man in the morocco slippers with the black unshaven beard and the grizzled uncombed head.

‘There,’ roared Hartford, striding down the length of his dressing-room, ‘there, that’s what you may call black bile, that’s something to stink in a man’s nostrils till the day of his eternal death, that’s a court-insult!¹¹³ They’ll pardon the hound, they’ll give him a fair chance – the fellow that should have been shot when caught, as you’d shoot a dirty girning wolf – and all to spite me! And they’ll set their snivelling government agent, their hired spy, their toadie, their loathsome lickspittle, to watch my actions! To relieve me from anxiety, forsooth! To hector and bully the court martial of the 19^th! And I’m to have Sir Wm Percy stuck at my elbow, and I’m to have every look and movement watched by him, and every word reported by his befouled hireling pen! Curse me – curse the globe!’

This last anathema was uttered with a perfect yell, for just then the irate nobleman, happening in his furious promenade to come in contact with the great cheval glass set in the middle of the floor, kicked his foot through it, thereby shivering to atoms the noble reflect it was affording of his own tall, dark, muscular shape and of his swarthy, strong-featured and most choleric physiognomy. Having performed this exploit, his Lordship began calling upon several fiends by their names. As nobody seemed to answer – unless, indeed, Major King might be considered as the representative of the infernal muster-roll – the noble lord at last cooled down so far as to resume his seat before the fire, and having verbally consigned the King and court of Angria to the custody of the infernal agents he had invoked, he fetched a deep sigh, and through mere exhaustion was silent.

Now, it so happened that the Major King did not at all sympathize in this explosion of his noble Colonel’s furor. It seemed to him that no better or more exquisite revenge could be devised than that Hastings should be cashiered from his sublime post as Captain in the 19^th, and forced, on the most degrading conditions, to enter the ranks of the Bloodhounds and put his neck under the grinding yoke of Colonel Nicholas Belcastro. ‘It’s the best card that has turned up for many a day,’ thought he. ‘We can make the rascals wince again with telling them how they’re forced to take our dirtiest leavings. To be sure, they may give us tit for tat by replying that what is good enough for an officer in the 19^th will only do for a private in the Bloodhounds. Bah! That’s bad, but if any of them dare any such a thing there’s always one remedy – pistols and six paces.’

The Major was amusing himself with these pleasing reflections when Hartford interrupted him by a request that he would read the other letter. It was short:

‘General Sir Wilson Thornton is desired by His Majesty to intimate to Lord Hartford that, as there is some prospect of the army being called into active service erelong, it will be necessary that all the regiments should be efficiently officered. General Sir Wilson therefore has received directions to inquire whether Lord Hartford considers himself in a condition to take the field along with his troops in case the 19^th should be called out, or whether the state of his health and spirits will not render such a mode of procedure unadvisable. In case Lord Hartford should be of the latter opinion, it will be considered necessary to appoint a substitute for his Lordship, even though, by so doing, His Majesty should have to request the permanent loss of Lord Hartford’s valuable services. An immediate answer is requested.

‘(signed) W. Thornton.’

‘There’s for you,’ said Lord Hartford, and for the space of ten minutes he said no more. But at the expiration of that period of silence he in a faint voice bade Major King take a pen and a sheet of paper and write what he should dictate.

‘Begin,’ said he, ‘ “Hartford Hall, Hartford Dale, Zamorna.” I’ll remind them I’ve a house to shelter in at any rate. Have ye written that?’

‘Yes.’

‘Now put “March the 18^th 1839”. I’ll shew them I’ve sense enough to know what day of the month it is and what year of the century. Ye’ve written that?’

‘Yes.’

‘Now then, hearken, and jot away as fast as ye can. “Sir” – mind, I’m addressing farmer Thornton –

‘Sir, Allow me through your medium to thank His Majesty with all the warmth and sincerity His Majesty’s unprecedented kindness deserves, for the touching and philanthropic interest His Majesty has condescended to take in my welfare. It affords me matter of self-gratulation that through the blessing and protection of an omnipotent Providence I am enabled to return a most satisfactory answer to His Majesty’s benignant inquiry. His Majesty’s kind and generous heart will be rejoiced to hear that I never in all my life have been favoured with a state of more perfect, sound and uninterrupted health than what I at present enjoy, that my spirits are consequently light, free, and even at times exuberant, that so far from shrinking from active service with my regiment, I feel pleasure amounting to exultation at the thought of setting my foot in the stirrup again. His Majesty may rest assured that whenever His Majesty shall be pleased to summon the 19^th to the field, not an officer or a soldier in that well-tried regiment will respond more cheerfully to the call than I shall do. I am ready for anything, the post of honour and the post of danger. I have been faithful to my country so far, and I mean to die with that quality untarnished. Report my allegiance to His Majesty and my heartfelt gratitude for all the honourable, justifiable attentions I have lately received.

‘I am,

‘Yours &c.

‘Edward Hartford.

‘Now then, you’ll ring the bell and send that letter off directly, King, and then you’ll take horse and ride to Zamorna to order and prepare matters for the sitting of the court-martial to-morrow. As for me, I’m going to bed, and I shall keep it for the rest of the day, as I’m exceedingly sick. G—d d—n!’

And with these words Lord Hartford passed from his dressing-room to his chamber. When he was gone, Major King nearly suffered strangulation in a silent fit of laughter.

CHAPTER II

The city of Zamorna is a very pleasant place in fine sunny weather. The public buildings are all new, of very handsome architecture, and constructed of white gleaming stone. The principal streets are broad; the shops look busy and affluent; the ladies walking on the pavements are richly dressed, like the wives and daughters of wealthy merchants, and at the same time they have a stylish air about them, for the province of Zamorna is highly aristocratic. There is almost always an air of excitement over this town. Its population presents the appearance of an ant-hill, one moving mass of animation. The grand focus of bustle is Thornton Street, with Stancliffe’s Hotel on one side of the way and the court-house on the other.

It was March, the 19^th day of the month, and Tuesday by the week.¹¹⁴ The day was fine, the sky bright blue with a hot sun, and far on the horizon those silver-piled towering clouds that foretell the rapid showers of spring. There had been rain an hour ago, but the fresh breeze had dried it up, and only here and there a glittering pool of wet remained on the bleached street pavement. One could tell that in the country the grass was growing green, that the trees were knotty with buds and the gardens golden with crocuses. Zamorna, however, and the citizens of Zamorna, thought little of these rural delights. Tuesday was market-day. The piece-hall and the commercial buildings were as throng as they could stand. The Stuartville Arms, the Wool-Pack and the Rising Sun were all astir with the preparations for their separate market dinners, and the waiters were almost run off their feet with answering the countless calls for bottoms of brandy, glasses of gin and water, and bottles of north-country ale.

Serene in the majesty of aristocracy, Stancliffe’s Hotel stood aloof from this commercial stir. Bustle there was, however, even there, and that of no ordinary kind. To be sure, the gentlemen passing in and out of its great door had a different air and different ton to the red-whiskered travellers, the swearing, brandy-drinking manufacturers crowding the inferior inns. Servants in military and aristocratic liveries, too, were to be seen lounging in the passages and, had you gone into the stable-yards, you would have found a dozen grooms busily engaged in brushing down and corning some pairs of splendid carriage horses, as well as three or four very grand-looking chargers – proud, pawing beasts, who looked conscious of the glories of Westwood and the bloodier triumphs of Leyden.¹¹⁵

No doubt there is some affair of importance transacting at the court-house opposite, for the doors are besieged with a gentlemanly crowd of black and green and brown, velvet-collared frock-coats and black and drab¹¹⁶ beaver hats; and, moreover, every now and then the doors open and an individual comes out, runs hastily down the steps, across the way to Stancliffe’s, there calls impatiently for wine and, having swallowed what is brought him, runs with equal haste back again, a lane being simultaneously opened for him by the crowd through which he passes with absorbed, important gravity, looking neither to the left hand nor the right.¹¹⁷ The door is jealously closed as he enters, allowing you but one glimpse of a man with a constable’s staff standing inside.

On the morning in question, I was myself one of the crowd about the court-house doors, and I believe I stood four mortal hours at the bottom of a flight of broad steps, looking up at the solid and lofty columns supporting the portico above. Ever since nine o’clock the court-martial had been assembled within, and it was known throughout all Zamorna that Henry Hastings the renegade was at this moment undergoing a rigid examination, on the result of which hung the issues of life and death. Yes, just now the stern Hartford occupied his seat of judge; the crafty Percy sat by, watching every transaction, ferreting out every mystery, urging relentlessly the question that would fain be eluded, insinuating his sly acumen like the veriest Belial that ever clothed himself in flesh. All round are ranged the martial jury, whose character shall be their names alone – King, Kirkwall, Jones, Dickens, Berkley, Paget, etc etceterorum¹¹⁸ – while the few gentlemen privileged to be spectators sit on benches near. And then, the prisoner Hastings, imagine him. At this instant, the mental torture is proceeding; a broad gleam of sunshine rests on the outside walls of this court-house; the pillared front and noble roof rise against an unclouded sky. But if Judas¹¹⁹ Hastings is selling his soul to about a score of devils sitting upon him in judgment, what thought has he to spare for the cheerful daylight?

The town clock and the minster clock struck twelve.

‘Bless my life, do they never mean to have done to-day?’ said a chap standing near, and when I turned I recognized the peculiar phiz of the Sydenhams. It was John Sydenham, the eldest son of Wm. Sydenham Esqre. of Southwood.

‘How d’ye do, Mr John?’

‘Haven’t the pleasure of knowing you, sir,’ replied he with true Angrian politeness.

‘My name’s Townshend. You may remember meeting me in Sir Frederick Fala’s box in the theatre at Verdopolis.’

‘Oh, so I believe I do. Charles Townshend, really, beg your pardon! We went to a chop-house after the play, and had a night of it. I remember perfectly. Hope you’re well, Mr Townshend.’

‘Quite well, thank ye. Rather tired of standing, though. You’ve not heard anything of what’s going on inside there, I suppose, Mr John?’

‘Not a shiver. They’re laying bets at Stancliffe’s about the result. Some say Hastings’ll sign terms, and some say he’ll stand pepper.’¹²⁰

‘What’s your own opinion?’

‘Oh, I judge of others according to myself. Not a doubt he’ll tip King’s evidence.¹²¹ I’d do it if I were him.’

‘Why, the man that’s turned his coat once will turn it again, I suppose.’

‘Yes, yes. It’s only the first time that’s awkward. You get used to it after that.’

‘They say they’ve nearly wound up,’ said a third person, joining us.

‘Indeed, Midgley. Who told you?’

‘Paget. He’s just been out, and they’re reporting it in Stancliffe’s that the prisoner has turned stupid.¹²² Everybody there says he won’t peach.’

‘Why, some of the articles come it very strong,¹²³ I suppose.’

‘Very. They hold him tight.’

‘And the execution’s to take place directly, if he declines conditions?’

‘Yes, this afternoon. He’s to be shot on Edwardston Common. Orders have been sent to the barracks that the soldiers are to be in readiness by three o’clock, they say.’

‘Then that’s a sure sign he’s stupid.’

‘I should think so. They’d press him very hard, no doubt, and serve him right.’

‘Paget said the judge was swaggering bloodily.’

‘What about?’

‘Some interference of the government agents.’

‘What, Sir Wm. Percy?’

‘Yes.’

‘Does Percy want to save the prisoner?’

‘Nay, God knows. Paget said he pushed all ways and seemed to have eyes both before and behind.’¹²⁴

‘I say, what are they doing at that end of the crowd?’

‘Don’t know. They seem to be making a kind of sign.’

‘D’ye think the court’s rising?’

‘Shouldn’t wonder. They’ve sat four hours, I believe.’

‘There’s Mackay coming on to the steps.’

‘Yes, and they’re drawing up the blinds.’

‘Now for’t then; let’s push to get a bit nearer the steps.’

With these words, Messrs Sydenham, Midgley and Townshend made a bold plunge into the throng and, by dint of elbowing, pushing and kicking, succeeded in obtaining an advantageous position very near the court-house door.

That door being now opened, the occupants of the magistrates’ room began to issue from the interior. First came Mr Edward Percy, in the act of blowing his nose and then thrusting his silk handkerchief into his coat-pocket. He descended the steps at two strides and went straight across the way to Stancliffe’s. No intelligence was to be had from him. So far from speaking to any one in his passage, he did not so much as vouchsafe a look either to right hand or the left. Next came some officers, four abreast, with spurs on their heels jingling as they trod the stone pavement; then a professional-looking man with a grey head and a pallid thoughtful face. That was Mr Moore; he raised his hat to me as he passed. These all disappeared into Stancliffe’s. Now a policeman or two turned out onto the broad summit of the steps and stood erect by the pillars. Mackay came down into the crowd and began to clear a way with his official staff. A hackney-coach came wheeling out of the hotel yard, and drew up just before the door.

Just then, Midgley said in a low voice, ‘There’s Hastings’; and when I looked up, there was a man emerging from the shade of the portico, dressed in black, with his single-breasted coat buttoned close over his broad chest, and his hat drawn down on his brow. I can hardly say that I saw his face, and yet one glimpse I caught, as he raised his head for a moment and threw a hurried glance over the crowd. The expression of that glance was one to be soon caught and long retained. It denoted the jealous suspicion of a bad man who expects others to hate, and the iron hardihood of a vindictive man who resolves to hate others in return. His teeth were set, his countenance was one dark scowl. He seemed like one whose mind was troubling him with the gall of self-abhorrence. A policeman got into the hackney coach; then Hastings entered it, and a second policeman followed him. The vehicle drove away. Not a sound followed its departure, neither cheer nor hoot.

‘He’s Judas, I’ll lay my life on it,’ said I, turning to John Sydenham. John nodded assent.

‘Sir William Percy’s coming out,’ said a voice near me, and in the door-way appeared the thin Hussar in his blue and white dress, settling his hat on his brow and looking straight before him at no object in particular, with that keen, quiet, unsmiling aspect he always wears when he’s really busy about something important and has no time for his usual sneers of superciliousness or airs of nonchalance. He passed by us in his easy, leisurely way. I had a full view of his face, for he always carries his head very erect. His forehead, the only regularly handsome part of his phiz, had a trace of shade on its smoothness not often seen there. I believe just then he was burning with venom against somebody – perhaps his brother or Lord Hartford – yet how calm he looked! I lost sight of him in the all-absorbing abyss of Stancliffe’s passage.

‘Make way for Lord Hartford’s carriage,’ cried a voice from the yard; and out thundering upon us came a dashing barouche with four fiery greys. Last but not least, the judge appeared when his vehicle was announced. A grand judge he looked, in an officer’s cloak, with boots and a travelling cap. This last article of dress suited his strongly marked face, swarthy skin and bushy black whiskers amazingly. It gave him very much the air of a gigantic ourang-outang; I’m sure he might have passed for that sort of gentleman in any menagerie in the kingdom. Arm in arm with his Lordship appeared a fine personage in a mackintosh and light drab caster. Of course, nobody was at a loss to recognize the ubiquitous Earl of Richton, who, no doubt grudging to lose so charming an amusement as was to be afforded by the spectacle of Hastings’ final degradation, had come down for the day and, too proud to accept even the princely accommodations of Stancliffe’s, was now about to accompany his noble friend to the Hall. The two entered the carriage, one looking as black as midnight, the other all smiles and suavity. In five minutes, they had swept up Thornton Street and were far on the Hartford road.

Two hours had elapsed before the result of the day’s proceedings was known all over Zamorna. Hastings had accepted conditions; had delivered a mass of evidence against his quondam friends, whose purport, as yet a secret, would erelong be indicated by the future proceedings of government; had yielded up his captain’s commission; had taken the striped jacket and scarlet belt of a private in Belcastro’s Bloodhounds; and, in recompense, had received the boon of life – life without honour, without freedom, without the remnant of a character. So opens the new career of Henry Hastings, the young hero, the soldier poet of Angria! ‘How are the mighty fallen!’¹²⁵

CHAPTER III

Sir William Percy, like his father, is very tenacious of a favourite idea, any little pet whim of his fancy, and the less likely it is to be productive of good, either to the individual who conceives it or to others, the more carefully it is treasured and the more intently it is pursued. Northangerland has all his life been a child chasing the rainbow,¹²⁶ and into what wild abysses has the pursuit often plunged him! How often has it seduced him from his serious aims, called him back when ambition was leading him to her loftiest summit, when the brow was nearly gained and the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them¹²⁷ were lying in prospect below! How often at this crisis has Alexander Percy turned, because the illusion of beauty dawned on his imagination and, down the steep that cost him days and nights of toil to climb, sprung like a maniac to clasp the dream in his arms! When it mocked him and melted into mist, he never awoke to reason. Still he saw those soft hues crossing the clouds before him, and still he followed, though the clouds and their arch faded into nothingness.

Sir William, being of a cooler and less imaginative temperament than his father, has never yielded to delirium like this. Compared to Northangerland, he is a man of marble – but still, marble under a strange spell, capable of warming to life like the sculpture of Pygmalion.¹²⁸ He is a being of changeful moods. Now, the loveliest face will call from him nothing but a sneer on female vanity; and again, an expression flitting over ordinary features, a transient ray in an eye neither large nor brilliant, will fix his attention and throw him into romantic musing, merely because it chanced to harmonize with some preconceived whim of his own capricious mind. Yet having once caught an idea of this kind, hav[ing] once received the seeds of this sort of partiality – inclination, fondness, call it what you will – his heart offered a tenacious soil, likely to hold fast, to nurture long, to cultivate secretly but surely the unfolding germ of what might in time grow to a rooted passion.

Sir William, busied with the debates of cabinet councils, in posting to and fro on political errands, holding the portfolio of a trusted and heavily responsible government attaché, consequently living in an atmosphere of turmoil, still kept in view that little private matter of his own, that freak of taste, that small soothing amusement – his fancy for Miss Hastings. She had dropped out of his sight, he hardly knew where. After that audience with his royal sister, he had never troubled himself to inquire after her. The last view he had of her face was as it looked, flushed with painful feeling, when she retired from the presence-chamber. The warm-hearted young man chuckled with internal pleasure at the recollection of the cold, indifferent mien he had assumed as he stood behind the royal chair. He knew at the time she would apply to him no more, that she would, henceforth, shun his very shadow, fearful lest her remotest approach should be deemed an unwelcome intrusion. He knew she would leave Verdopolis that very hour if possible, and he allowed her to do so without a parting word from him. Still, Miss Hastings lingered in his recollection; still, he smiled at the thought of her ardour; still, it pleased him to picture again the quick glances of her eye when he spoke to her – glances in which he could read so plainly what she imagined buried out of sight in her inmost heart. Still, whenever he saw a light form, a small foot, an intelligent, thin face, it brought a vague feeling of something agreeable, something he liked to dwell on. Miss Hastings, therefore, was not by any means to be given up. No, he would see her again sometime. Events might slip on; one thing he was certain of – he need be under no fear of the impression passing away. No,

His form would fill her eye by night

His voice her ear by day

The touch that pressed her fingers slight

Would never pass away.

So when he came again to Zamorna, having ascertained that she was still there, he began to employ his little odds and ends of leisure time in quiet speculations as to how, when and where he should reopen a communication with her. It would not do at all to conduct the thing in an abrupt, straightforward way. He must not seem to seek her; he must come upon her sometime as if by accident. Then, too, this business of her brother’s must be allowed to get out of her head. He would wait a few days, till the excitement of his trial had subsided, and the renegade was fairly removed from Zamorna and on his march to the quarters and companions assigned him beyond the limits of civilization. Miss Hastings would then be very fairly alone in the world, quite disembarrassed from friends and relations, not perplexed with a multitude of calls on her affection. In such a state of things, an easy chance meeting with a friend would, Sir William calculated, be no unimpressive event. He’d keep his eye, then, on her movements and, with care, he did not doubt, he should be able to mould events so as exactly to suit his purpose.

Well, a week or two passed on. Hastings’ trial, like all nine days’ wonders, had sunk into oblivion. Hastings himself was gone to the D—l, or to Belcastro, which is the same thing. He had actually marched bodily out of Zamorna, in the white trousers, the red sash, the gingham jacket of a thorough-going Bloodhound, as one of a detachment of that illustrious regiment under the command of Captain Dampier. To the sound of fife, drum and bugle, the lost desperado had departed, leaving behind him the recollection of what he had been, a man; the reality of what he was, a monster.

It was very odd, but his sister did not think a pin the worse of him for all his dishonour. It is private meanness, not public infamy, that degrade[s] a man in the opinion of his relatives. Miss Hastings heard him cursed by every mouth, saw him denounced in every newspaper; still, he was the same brother to her he had always been; still, she beheld his actions through a medium¹²⁹ peculiar to herself. She saw him go away with a triumphant hope (of which she had the full benefit, for no one else shared it) that his future actions would nobly blot out the calumnies of his enemies. Yet, after all, she knew he was an unredeemed villain. Human nature is full of inconsistencies. Natural affection is a thing never rooted out where it has once really existed.

These passages of excitement being over, Miss Hastings, very well satisfied that her brother had walked out of jail with the breath of life in his body, and having the aforesaid satisfactory impression on her mind that he was the finest man on the top of this world, began to look about her and consider how she was to make off life. Most persons would have thought themselves in a very handsome fix, majestically alone in the midst of trading Zamorna. However, she set to work with the activity of an emmet,¹³⁰ summoned her address and lady-manners to her aid, called on the wealthy manufacturers of the city and the aristocracy of the seats round, pleased them with her tact, her quickness, with the specimens of her accomplishments,¹³¹ and in a fortnight’s time had raised a class of pupils sufficient not only to secure her from want, but to supply her with the means of comfort and elegance. She was now settled,¹³² to her mind. She was dependent on nobody, responsible to nobody. She spent her mornings in her drawing-room, surrounded by her class; not wearily toiling to impart the dry rudiments of knowledge to yawning, obstinate children – a thing she hated, and for which her sharp, irritable temper rendered her wholly unfit – but instructing those who had already mastered the elements of education; reading, commenting, explaining, leaving it to them to listen; if they failed, comfortably conscious that the blame would rest on her pupils, not herself. The little dignified governess soon gained considerable influence over her scholars – daughters, many of them, of the wealthiest families in the city. She had always the art of awing young ladies’ minds with an idea of her superior talent, and then of winning their confidence by her kind, sympathizing affability. She quickly gained a large circle of friends, had constant invitations to the most stylish houses of Zamorna, acquired a most impeccable character for ability, accomplishment, obliging disposition, and most correct and elegant manners. Of course, her class enlarged, and she was as prosperous as any little woman of five feet high and not twenty years old need wish to be. She looked well, she dressed well – plainer, if possible, than ever, but still with such fastidious care and taste; she moved about as brisk as a bee. Of course, then, she was happy.

No. Advantages are equally portioned out in this world. She’d plenty of money, scores of friends, good health, people making much of her everywhere, but still the exclusive, proud being thought she had not met with a single individual equal to herself in mind, and therefore not one whom she could love. Besides, it was respect, not affection, that her pompous friends felt for her, and she was one who scorned respect. She never wished to attract it for a moment, and still, somehow, it always came to her. She was always burning for warmer, closer attachment. She couldn’t live without it. But the feeling never woke, and never was reciprocated. Oh, for Henry, for Pendleton, for one glimpse of the Warner Hills!

Sometimes when she was alone in the evenings, walking through her handsome drawing-room by twilight, she would think of home, and long for home, till she cried passionately at the conviction that she should see it no more. So wild was her longing that when she looked out on the dusky sky, between the curtains of her bay-window, fancy seemed to trace on the horizon the blue outline of the moors, just as seen from the parlour at Colne-moss. The evening star hung above the brow of Boulshill, the farm fields stretched away between. And when reality returned – houses, lamps and streets – she was phrenzied. Again, a noise in the house seemed to her like the sound made by her father’s chair when he drew it nearer to the kitchen hearth; something would recall the whine or the bark of Hector and Juno, Henry’s pointers. Again, the step of Henry himself would seem to tread in the passage, and she would distinctly hear his gun deposited in the house corner. All was a dream. Henry was changed, she was changed; those times were departed for ever. She had been her brother’s and her father’s favourite; she had lost one and forsaken the other. At these moments, her heart would yearn towards the old lonely man in Angria till it almost broke. But pride is a thing not easily subdued. She would not return to him.

Very often, too, as the twilight deepened and the fire, settling to clear red, diffused a calmer glow over the papered walls, her thoughts took another turn. The enthusiast dreamed about Sir William Percy. She expected to hear no more of him; she blushed when she recollected how, for a moment, she had once dared to conceive the presumptuous idea that he cared for her; but still she lingered over his remembered voice and look and language with an intensity of romantic feeling that very few people in this world can form the remotest conception of. All he had said was treasured in her mind. She could distinctly tell over every word; she could picture vividly as life, his face, his quick hawk’s eye, his habitual attitudes. It was an era in her existence to see his name or an anecdote respecting him mentioned in the newspapers. She would preserve such paragraphs to read over and over again when she was alone. There was one which mentioned that he was numbered amongst the list of officers destined for the expected campaign in the east; and thereupon her excitable imagination kindled with anticipation of his perils and glories and wanderings. She realized him in a hundred situations – on the verge of battle, in the long weary march, in the halt by wild river banks. She seemed to watch his slumber under the desert moon, with large-leaved jungle plants spreading their rank shade above him. Doubtless, she thought, the young Hussar would then dream of some one that he loved; some beautiful face would seem to bend over his pillow such as had charmed him in the saloons of the capital.

And with that thought came an impulse

Which broke the dreamy spell,

For no longer on the picture

Could her eye endure to dwell.

She vowed to leave her visions

And seek life’s arousing stir,

For she knew Sir William’s slumber

Would not bring a thought of her.

How fruitless, then, to ponder

O’er such dreams as chained her now,

Her heart should cease to wander

And her tears no more should flow.

The trance was over – over,

The spell was scattered far,

Yet how blest were she whose lover

Would be Angria’s young Hussar!

Earth knew no hope more glorious,

heaven gave no nobler boon

Than to welcome him victorious

To a heart he claimed his own.

How sweet to tell each feeling

The kindled soul might prove!

How sad to die concealing

The anguish born of love!

Such were Miss Hastings’ musings, such were almost the words that arranged themselves like a song in her mind; words, however, neither spoken nor sung. She dared not so far confess her phrenzy to herself. Only once she paused in her walk through the drawing-room by her open piano, laid her fingers on the keys and, wakening a note or two of a plaintive melody, murmured the last lines of the last stanza,

How sad to die concealing

The anguish born of love!

And instantly snatching her hand away, and closing the instrument with a clash, she made some emphatic remark about unmitigated folly, then lighted her bed-candle and, it being now eleven at night, hastened upstairs to her chamber as fast as if a nightmare¹³³ had been behind her.

CHAP[TER] IV

One mild, still afternoon, Miss Hastings had gone out to walk. She was already removed from the stir of Zamorna and slowly pacing along the causeway of Girnington Road. The high wall and trees enclosing a gentleman’s place ran along the road side; the distant track stretched out into a quiet and open country. Now and then, a carriage or a horseman rolled or galloped past, but the general characteristic of the scene and day was tranquillity. Miss Hastings, folded in her shawl and with her veil down, moved leisurely on, in as comfortable a frame of mind as she could desire, inclined to silence and with no one to disturb her by talking, disposed for reverie and at liberty to indulge her dreams unbroken. The carriages that passed at intervals kept her in a state of vague expectation. She always raised her eyes when they drew near, as if with the undefined hope of seeing somebody, she hardly knew whom – a face from distant Pendleton, perhaps.

Following a course she had often taken before, she soon turned into a bye-lane with a worn white causeway running under a green hedge and, on either hand, fields. The stillness now grew more perfect. As she wandered on, the mail-road disappeared behind her; the sense of perfect solitude deepened. That calm afternoon sun seemed to smile with a softer lustre, and away in a distant field a bird was heard singing with a fitful note, now clear and cheerful, now dropping to pensive silence. She came to an old gate. The posts were of stone, and mouldering and grey; the wooden paling was broken; clusters of springing leaves grew beside it. It was just a fit subject for an artist’s sketch.¹³⁴ This gate opened into a large and secluded meadow, or rather, into a succession of meadows, for the track worn in the grass led on, through stiles and gates, from pasture to pasture, to an unknown extent. Here Miss Hastings had been accustomed to ramble for many an hour, indulging her morbid propensity for castle-building, as happy as she was capable of being, except when now and then scared by hearing the remote and angry low of a great Girnington bull which haunted these parts.

On reaching the gate, she instinctively stopped to open it. It was open, and she passed through. She stopped with a start. By the gate-post lay a gentlemanly-looking hat and a pair of gloves, with a spaniel coiled up beside them as if keeping guard. The creature sprung forward at the approach of a stranger and gave a short bark, not very furious. Its instinct seemed to tell it that the intruder was not of a dangerous order. A very low whistle sounded from some quarter quite close at hand, yet no human being was visible from whom it could proceed. The spaniel obeyed the signal, whined, and lay down again. Miss Hastings passed on.

She had hardly set her foot in the field when she heard the emphatic ejaculation, ‘Bless my stars!’ distinctly pronounced, immediately behind her. Of course she turned. There was a hedge of hazels on her right hand, under which all sorts of leaves and foliage grew green and soft. Stretched full length on this bed of verdure, and with the declining sun resting upon him, she saw a masculine figure, without a hat, and with an open book in his hand which, it is to be supposed, he had been perusing – though his eyes were now raised from the literary page and fixed on Miss Hastings. It being broad day-light, and the individual being denuded as to the head, features, forehead, hair, whiskers, blue eyes, etc., etc., were all distinctly visible. Of course my readers know him: Sir William Percy and no mistake. Though what he could possibly be doing here, ruralizing in a remote nook of the Girnington summerings, I candidly confess myself not sufficiently sagacious to divine.

Miss Hastings, being, as my readers are aware, possessed with certain romantic notions about him, got something of a start at this unexpected meeting. For about five minutes she’d little to say, and indeed was amply occupied in collecting her wits and contriving an apology for what she shuddered to think Sir William would consider an unwelcome intrusion. Meantime, the Baronet gathered himself up, took his hat, and came towards her, with a look and smile that implied anything rather than annoyance at her presence.

‘Well, you’ve not a single word to say to me. How shocked you look, and as pale as a sheet. I hope I’ve not frightened you.’

‘No, no,’ with agitation in the tone, ‘but it was an unusual thing to meet anybody in those fields, and she feared she had perhaps disturbed Sir William. She was sorry. She ought to have taken the spaniel’s hint and retreated in time.’

‘Retreated? What from? Were you afraid of Carlo? I thought he saluted you very gently. Upon my word, I believe the beast had sense enough to know that the new-comer was not one his master would be displeased to see. Had it been a great male scarecrow in jacket and continuations he’d have flown at his throat.’

The tone of Sir William’s voice brought back again, like a charm, the feeling of confidence Miss Hastings had experienced before in conversing with him. It brought back, too, a throbbing of the heart and pulse and a kindling of the veins which soon flushed her pale face with sufficient colour. But never mind that; let us go on with the conversation.

‘I was not afraid of Carlo,’ said Miss Hastings.

‘What, then, were you afraid of? Surely not me?’

She looked up at him. Her natural voice and manner, so long disused, returned to her.

‘Yes,’ she said quickly. ‘You, and nothing else. It is so long since I had seen you, I thought you would have forgotten me and would think I had no business to cross your way again. I expected you would be very cold and proud.’

‘Nay, I’ll be as warm as you please. And as to pride, I calculate you are not exactly the sort of person to excite that feeling in my mind.’

‘I suppose, then, I should have said contempt. You are proud, no doubt, to your equals or superiors. However, you have spoken to me very civilly, for which I am obliged, as it makes me unhappy to be scorned.’

‘May I ask if you’re quite by yourself here?’ inquired Sir William. ‘Or have you companions near at hand?’

‘I’m alone. I always walk alone.’

‘Humph! And I’m alone likewise. And as it’s highly improper that a young woman such as you should be wandering by herself in such a lot of solitary fields, I shall take the liberty of offering my protection whilst you finish your walk and then seeing you safe home.’

Miss Hastings made excuses. ‘She could not think of giving Sir William so much trouble. She was accustomed to manage for herself. There was nothing in the world to be apprehended, etc.’

The Baronet answered by drawing her arm through his.

‘I shall act authoritatively,’ said he. ‘I know what’s for the best.’

Seeing she could not so escape, she pleaded the lateness of the hour. ‘It would be best to turn back immediately.’

‘No.’ Sir William ‘had a mind to take her half a mile further. She would be able to get back to Zamorna before dark and, as he was with her, she needn’t fear.’

On they went then, Miss Hastings hurriedly considering whether she was doing any thing really wrong, and deciding that she was not, and that it would be sin and shame to throw away the moment of bliss chance had offered her. Besides, she had nobody in the world to find fault with her, nobody to whom she was responsible, neither father nor brother. She was her own mistress, and she was sure it would be cant and prudery to apprehend harm.

Having thus set aside scruples and wholly yielded herself to the wild delight fluttering at her heart, she bounded on with so light and quick a step Sir William was put to his mettle to keep pace with her.

‘Softly, softly,’ said he at last. ‘I like to take my time in a ramble like this. One can’t walk fast and talk comfortably at the same time.’

‘The afternoon is so exceedingly pleasant,’ returned Miss Hastings, ‘and the grass is so soft and green in these fields, my spirits feel cheerier than usual. But however, to please you I’ll draw in.’¹³⁵

‘Now,’ continued the Baronet, ‘will you tell me what you’re doing in Zamorna, and how you’re getting on?’

‘I’m teaching, and I have two classes of twelve pupils each. My terms are high – first-rate – so I’m in no danger of want.’

‘But have you money enough? Are you comfortable?’

‘Yes, I’m as rich as a Jew. I mean to begin to save for the first time in my life, and when I’ve got two thousand pounds I’ll give up work and live like a fine lady.’

‘You’re an excellent little manager for yourself. I thought now, if I left you a month or two unlooked after, just plodding on as you could, you’d get into strait or difficulty and be glad of a friend’s hand to help you out. But somehow you contrive provokingly well.’

‘Yes, I don’t want to be under obligations.’

‘Come, let me have no proud speeches of that sort. Remember, Fortune is ever changing, and the best of us are not exempt from reverses. I may have to triumph over you yet.’

‘But if I wanted a sixpence, you would be the last person I should ask for it,’ said Miss Hastings, looking up at him with an arch expression very natural to her eyes, but which seldom indeed was allowed to shine there.

‘Should I, young lady? Take care; make no rash resolutions. If you were compelled to ask, you would be glad to go to the person who would give most willingly, and you would not find many hands so open as mine would be. I tell you plainly, it would give me pleasure to humble you. I have not yet forgotten your refusal to accept that silly little cross.’¹³⁶

‘Nay,’ said Miss Hastings, ‘I knew so little of you at that time, I felt it would be quite a shame to take presents from you.’

‘But you know me better now, and I have the cross here. Will you take it?’

He produced the green box from his waistcoat pocket, took out the jewel, and offered it.

‘I won’t,’ was the answer.

‘Humph!’ said Sir William. ‘I’ll be revenged sometime. Such nonsense!’ He looked angry, an unusual thing with him.

‘I don’t mean to offend you,’ pleaded Miss Hastings, ‘but it would hurt me to accept anything of value from you. I would take a little book, or an autograph of your name, or a straw, or a pebble, but not a diamond.’

The attachment implied by these words was so very flattering, and at the same time expressed with such utterly unconscious simplicity, that Sir William could not suppress a smile. His forehead cleared.

‘You know how to turn a compliment after all, Miss Hastings,’ said he. ‘I’m obliged to you. I was beginning to think myself a very unskilful general, for turn which way I would and try what tactics I chose, the fortress would never give me a moment’s advantage; I could not win a single outwork. However, if there’s a friend in the citadel, if the heart speaks for me, all’s right.’

Miss Hastings felt her face grow rather uncomfortably hot. She was confused for a few minutes, and could not reply to Sir William’s odd metaphorical speech. The Baronet squinted towards her one of his piercing side-glances and, perceiving she was a trifle startled, he whistled a stave to give her time to compose herself, affected to be engaged with his spaniel, and then, when another squint had assured him that the flush was subsiding on her cheek, he drew her arm a little closer, and recommenced the conversation on a fresh theme.

‘Lonely, quiet meadows these,’ said he. ‘And all this country has something very sequestered about it. I know it well, every lane and gate and stile.’

‘You’ve been here before, then?’ returned Miss Hastings. ‘I’ve often heard that you were a rambler.’

‘I’ve been here by day and by night. I’ve seen these hedges bright as they are now in sunshine and throwing a dark shade by moonlight. If there were such things as fairies I should have met them often, for these are just their haunts – foxglove leaves and bells, moss like green velvet, mushrooms springing at the roots of oak-trees, thorns a hundred years old grown over with ivy, all precisely in the fairy-tale style.’

‘And what did you do here?’ inquired Miss Hastings. ‘What made you wander alone, early and late? Was it because you liked to see twilight gathering in such lanes as these, and the moon rising over such a green swell of pasture as that, or because you were unhappy?’

‘I’ll answer you with another question,’ returned Sir William. ‘Why do you like to ramble by yourself? It is because you can think, and so could I. It never was my habit to impart my thoughts much, especially those that gave me the most pleasure, so I wanted no companion. I used to dream, indeed, of some nameless being, whom I invested with the species of mind and face and figure that I imagined I could love; I used to wish for some existence with finer feelings and a warmer heart than what I saw round me. I had a kind of idea that I could be a very impassioned lover, if I met with a woman who was young and elegant and had a mind above the grade of an animal.’

‘You must have met with many such,’ said Miss Hastings, not shrinking from the conversation, for its confidential tone charmed her like a spell.

‘I’ve met with many pretty women, with some clever ones. I’ve seen one or two that I thought myself in love with for a time, but a few days or at most weeks tired me of them. I grew ennuyé with their insipid charms, and turned again to my ideal bride. Once, indeed, I plunged over head and ears into a mad passion with a real object. But that’s over.’

‘Who was she?’

‘One of the most beautiful and celebrated women of her day.¹³⁷ Unfortunately, she was appropriated. I could have died to win that woman’s smile; to take her hand and touch her lips, I could have suffered torture; and to obtain her love, to earn the power of clasping her in my arms and telling her all I felt, to have my ardour returned, to hear in her musical earnest voice the expression of responsive attachment, I could, if the D—l had asked me, have sold my redemption and consented to take the stamp of the hoof¹³⁸ on both my hands.’

‘Who was she?’ again asked Miss Hastings.

‘I could not utter her name without choking. But she is one you have often heard of, a woman possessed of a singular charm. I never knew a man of strong and susceptible feelings yet who came near her without being more or less influenced by her attractions. She’s beautiful in form and face and expression, most divinely so. She’s impassioned, too; her feelings are concentrated and strong; and this gives a tone to her looks, her manners, her whole aspect that no heart can resist. Sorrow has made her grave. The recollection of important and strange events in which she has been deeply concerned have fixed a character of solemnity on her brow. She looks as if she could never be frivolous, seldom gay. She has endured a great deal, and with the same motive to animate her, she would endure it all again.’

‘Does she live in Angria?’

‘Yes. Now ask me no more questions, for I’ll not answer them. Come, give me your hand, and I’ll help you over this stile. There, we’re out of the fields now. Were you ever so far as this before?’

‘Never,’ said Miss Hastings, looking round. The objects she saw were not familiar to her. They had entered upon another road, rough, rutty and grown over. Not a house or a human being was to be seen, but immediately before them stood a church with a low tower and a little churchyard scattered over with a few head-stones and many turf mounds. About four miles off stretched a line of hills, darkly ridged with heath, now all empurpled with a lovely sunset. Miss Hastings’ eye kindled as she caught them.

‘What moors are those?’ she asked quickly.

‘Ingleside and the Scars,’ replied Sir William.

‘And what is that church?

‘Scar Chapel.’

‘It looks old. How long do you think it is since it was built?’

‘It is one of the earliest date in Angria. What caps me is why the d—l any church at all was set down in a spot like this where there is no population.’

‘Shall we go into the church-yard?’

‘Yes, if you like; and you’d better rest there for a few minutes, for you look tired.’

In the centre of the enclosure stood an ancient yew, gnarled, sable and huge. The only raised tomb in the place rested under the shadow of this grim old sentinel. ‘You can sit down there,’ said Sir William, pointing to the monument with his cane. Miss Hastings approached, but before she took her seat on the slab, something in its appearance caught her attention. It was of marble, not stone; plain and unornamented, but gleaming with dazzling whiteness from the surrounding turf. At first sight it seemed to bear no inscription, but on looking nearer one word was visible: ‘RESURGAM’.¹³⁹ Nothing else; no name, date or age.

‘What is this?’ asked Miss Hastings. ‘Who is buried here?’

‘You may well ask,’ returned Sir William, ‘but who d’ye think can answer you? I’ve stood by this grave many a time when that church clock was striking twelve at midnight, sometimes in rain and darkness, sometimes in clear, quivering starlight, and looked at that single word, and pondered over the mystery it seemed to involve, till I could have wished the dead corpse underneath would rise and answer my unavailing questions.’

‘And have you never learnt the history of this tomb?’

‘Why, partly. You know I’ve a sort of knack of worming out any trifling little secret that I get it into my [head] I should like to discover, and it’s not very likely that a slab like this should be laid down in any church-yard, however lonely, without somebody knowing something about it.’

‘Tell me what you know, then,’ said Miss Hastings, raising her eyes to Sir William’s with a look that told how magical was the effect, how profound was the interest of all this sweet confidential interchange of feeling. It was more bewitching even than the open language of love. She had no need to blush and tremble. She had only to listen when he spoke to feel that he trusted her, that he deemed her worthy to be the depository of those half-romantic thoughts he had never perhaps breathed into human ear before. These sensations might all be delusive, but they were sweet, and, for the time, Doubt and Apprehension dared not intrude their warnings.

‘Come, sit down,’ said the Baronet, ‘and you shall hear all I can tell you. I see you like anything with the savour of romance in it.’

‘I do,’ replied Miss Hastings. ‘And so do you, Sir William, only you’re rather ashamed to confess it.’

He smiled and went on.

‘Well, the first clue I got to this business was by a rather remarkable chance. I had been shooting on Ingleside there one day last August, and towards afternoon, as it was very hot, I got tired, and so I thought I would take a stroll down to Scar Chapel and rest myself a while under this old yew, proposing to make and meditate and perhaps concoct a poem over the eccentric grave-stone with one word on it. By the bye, Elizabeth, it has just struck me what a capital economist the individual must have been who ordered the inscription. You know, stonecutters always charge so much a letter. He could not have had much to pay. On my life, I’ll mention that notion to my brother Edward next time I see him; it will suit him to a hair.¹⁴⁰ But excuse me, you don’t like practical remarks of that sort. It interferes with the romance.

‘To proceed. I was just opening the little gate yonder and, as it stuck against a stone, I had bestowed upon it an emphatic kick to make it fly back more sharply, when I saw to my horror that the church-yard was not empty. You can’t conceive how aggravated I was. I had come here so often, and had always found it so utterly lonely, that I had begun to imagine somehow it was my own property, and that nobody ever came near it but myself. However, I now perceived that this idea was an egregious mistake. A chap in a shooting-dress was standing by this very tomb, my own blank tablet of mystery, leaning with both his hands on a long fowling-piece, and about a yard off, on that mound of turf, two pointers were laid stretched out with their tongues lolling from their jaws, panting after a long day’s run on the summer hills. I was on the point of levelling my rifle at the interesting group when prudence checked me by two considerations – firstly, that the fellow’s head might be of too leaden a consistency to be susceptible of injury from a bullet, and secondly, that there were such things as coroner’s inquests and verdicts of wilful murder. So I thought I’d stand and watch.

‘The sportsman had his face turned from me, but he was a tall, strapping specimen of mortality, with a contour of form that, when I looked hard at him for five minutes on end, seemed to me particularly familiar to my eye. He stood a long time, still as a statue, till I began to think he must be the victim of sentiment. This idea was confirmed by seeing him once or twice take a handkerchief from his pocket and apply it to his eyes. I had placed my thumb to the side of my nose, and was on the point of calling out in a loud clear voice to know how he was off for soap,¹⁴¹ when he used his handkerchief for the last time, thrust it hastily into his pocket and, calling “Dash” and “Bell”, came striding down towards the gate with his dogs at his heels. My God, here was a kettle of fish!¹⁴² I knew his face as well as I know yours; it was one I had seen under the rim of a crown. In short, it was our governing lord, Adrian Augustus himself.’

‘The Duke of Zamorna!’ exclaimed Miss Hastings.

‘Yes.’

‘And did he see you?’

‘See me? The D—l, no! I cut,¹⁴³ the moment I recognized his Satanic Majesty, and ran – my stars, how I did run!’

‘Well, and what had he to do with the gravestone? Why did he cry?’

‘Oh, because one of his women is buried under it, a woman very much talked of five years ago, Rosamund Wellesley.¹⁴⁴ She died at a house somewhere between here and Ingleside, where she had lived for some months under a feigned name. From what I have heard, I should think she gave nature a lift – helped herself out of the world when she was quite tired of it.’

‘Killed herself, do you mean? Why?’

‘Because she was ashamed of having loved His Majesty not wisely but too well.¹⁴⁵ I remember seeing her. She was very beautiful; not unlike your friend Jane Moore in features, figure and complexion; very tall and graceful, with light hair and fine blue eyes. Very different to Miss Moore in mind, though; clever, I daresay, and sensitive. The Duke undertook to be her guardian and tutor. He executed his office in a manner peculiar to himself. Guarded her with a vengeance, and tutored her till she could construe the Art of Love,¹⁴⁶ at any rate. She enjoyed the benefit of his protection and instructions for about a year, and then, somehow, she began to pine away. Awkward little reports were spread. She got to hear them. Her relations insisted upon it that she should leave her royal mentor. He swore she should not; they persisted in claiming her. So His Majesty sequestered her in one of his remote haunts out of their reach. Then he dared them to come into the heart of his kingdom and fetch her out. She did not give them the chance. Shame and horror, I suppose, had worked her feelings into delirium and she died very suddenly – whether fairly¹⁴⁷ or not, heaven knows. Here she was interred, and this is the stone her lover laid over her. Now, Elizabeth, what do you say to such a business as that?’

‘It seems the Duke of Zamorna never forsook her, and that he remembered her after she was dead,’ remarked Miss Hastings.

‘Oh! and that’s sufficient consolation, as the Duke of Zamorna is a very fine, grand God incarnate, I suppose! G—d d—n!’

‘The Duke of Zamorna is a sort of scoundrel, from all that ever I heard of him. But then, most men of rank are, from what I can understand.’

‘Were you ever blessed with a sight of His Majesty?’ inquired Sir William.

‘Never.’

‘But you’ve seen his portraits, which are, one and all, very like. Do you admire them?’

‘He’s handsome, no doubt.’

‘Oh, of course; killingly, infernally handsome. Such eyes and nose, such curls and whiskers – and then his stature! Magnificent! And his chest, two feet across! I never knew a woman yet who did not calculate the value of a man by the proportion of his inches.’

Miss Hastings said nothing. She only looked down and smiled.

‘I’m exceedingly nettled and dissatisfied,’ remarked Sir William.

‘Why?’ inquired Miss Hastings, still smiling.

Sir William, in his turn, gave no answer. He only whistled a stave or two. After a moment’s silence, he looked all round him with a keen, careful eye. He then turned to his companion.

‘Do you see,’ said he, ‘that the sun is set, and that it is getting dark?’

‘Indeed it is,’ replied Miss Hastings, and she started instantly to her feet. ‘We must go home, Sir William – I had forgotten – how could I let time slip so?’

‘Hush,’ said the young Baronet, ‘and sit down again for a few minutes. I will say what I have to say.’

Miss Hastings obeyed him.

‘Do you see,’ he continued, ‘that everything is still round us, that the twilight is deepening, that there is no light but what that rising half-moon gives?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you know that there is not a house within two miles, and that you are four miles from Zamorna?’

‘Yes.’

‘You are aware, then, that in this shade and solitude you and I are alone?’

‘I am.’

‘Would you have trusted yourself in such a situation with any one you did not care for?’

‘No.’

‘You care for me, then?

‘I do.’

‘How much?’

There was a pause – a long pause. Sir William did not urge the question impatiently. He only sat keenly and quietly watching Miss Hastings and waiting for an answer. At last she said in a low voice,

‘Tell me first, Sir William Percy, how much you care for me.’

‘More than at this moment I do for any other woman in the world.’

‘Then,’ was the heart-felt rejoinder, ‘I adore you – and that’s a confession death should not make me cancel.’

‘Now, Elizabeth,’ continued Sir William, ‘listen to the last question I have to put, and don’t be afraid of me. I’ll act like a gentleman whatever your answer may be. You said just now that all men of rank were scoundrels. I’m a man of rank. Will you be my mistress?’

‘No.’

‘You said you adored me.’

‘I do, intensely. But I’ll never be your mistress. I could not, without incurring the miseries of self-hatred.’

‘That is to say,’ replied the Baronet, ‘you are afraid of the scorn of the world.’

‘I am. The scorn of the world is a horrible thing, and more especially, I should dread to lose the good opinion of three persons, of my father, of Henry and of Mr Warner. I would rather die than be despised by them. I feel a secret triumph now, in the consciousness that, though I have been left entirely to my own guidance, I have never committed an action, or hazarded a word, that would bring my character for a moment under the breath of suspicion. My father and Mr Warner call me obstinate and resentful, but they are both proud of the address I have shewn in making my way through life, and keeping always in the strictest limits of rectitude. Henry, though a wild wanderer himself, would blow his brains out if he heard of his sister adding to the pile of disgrace he has heaped so thickly on the name of Hastings.’

‘You would risk nothing for me, then?’ returned Sir William. ‘You would find no compensation for the loss of world’s favour in my perfect love and trusting confidence? It is no pleasure to you to talk to me, to sit by my side as you do now, to allow your hand to rest in mine?’

The tears came into Miss Hastings’ eyes.

‘I dare not answer you,’ she said, ‘because I know I should say something frantic. I could no more help loving you than that moon can help shining. If I might live with you as your servant I should be happy. But as your mistress! It is quite impossible.’

‘Elizabeth,’ said Sir William, looking at her and placing his hand on her shoulder, ‘Elizabeth, your eyes betray you. They speak the language of a very ardent, very imaginative temperament. They confess not only that you love me, but that you cannot live without me. Yield to your nature, and let me claim you this moment as my own.’

Miss Hastings was silent, but she was not going to yield. Only the hard conflict of passionate love with feelings that shrunk, horror-struck, from the remotest shadow of infamy compelled her, for a moment, to silent agony.

Sir William thought his point was nearly gained.

‘One word,’ said he, ‘will be sufficient, one smile or whisper. You tremble. Rest in my shoulder [sic]. Turn your face to the moonlight, and give me a single look.’

That moonlight shewed her eyes swimming in tears. The Baronet, mistaking these tears for the signs of resolution fast dissolving, attempted to kiss them away. She slipt from his hold like an apparition.

‘If I stay another moment, God knows what I shall say or do,’ said she. ‘Good-bye, Sir William. I implore you not to follow me. The night is light; I am afraid of nothing but myself. I shall be in Zamorna in an hour. Good-bye, I suppose, for ever!’

‘Elizabeth!’ exclaimed Sir William.

She lingered for a moment; she could not go. A cloud just then crossed the moon. In two minutes it had passed away.

Sir William looked towards the place where Miss Hastings had been standing. She was gone. The church-yard gate swung to. He muttered a furious curse, but did not stir to follow. There he remained, where she had left him, for hours, as fixed as the old yew whose black arms brooded over his head. He must have passed a quiet night – church and graves and tree all mute as death, Lady Rosamund’s tomb alone proclaiming in the moonlight ‘I shall rise!’

CHAPTER V

You must now, reader, step into this library, where you shall see a big man sitting at a table with a long swan-quill pen in his hand and an ink-stand before him. Behind the big man’s chair stands a little man, holding a green bag from which he hands papers for the big man to sign. The scene is a silent one. When you have looked awhile you begin to imagine that both performers are dummies. It reminds you of the mute allegories shown by the Interpreter to Christian,¹⁴⁸ or of the old Dutch groups of ghosts who play dice and nine-pins a hundred years after they are dead.¹⁴⁹ At last the profound taciturnity of the scene is relieved by an audible sigh heaved from the deep chest of the big man.

‘I think,’ he says, ‘there’s no bottom to that d—d bag.’

‘Patience,’ replies the little man. ‘Some persons are soon tired, I think. Where is the labour of affixing a signature?’

‘Another pen,’ demands the big man, throwing away his swan-quill.

‘There is a loss of time in changing the pen often,’ replies the little man. ‘Cannot your Grace make that do?’

‘Look at it,’ was the answer. The quill was split up in some emphatic dash or down stroke.

‘Strange mismanagement,’ says the little man, handing, however, another pen.

The pantomime again proceeded. In a while its monotony was broken by a gentle knock at the library door.

‘Come in,’ said the big man.

‘Absurd interruption of business,’ muttered the little man.

The door opened. The person entering closed it again, and crossed the soft carpet without much sound. A lady approached the table, of tall and dignified appearance. She wore a hat with black feathers and a veil thrown back.

‘How d’ye do?’ said she, placing her hand on the table.

‘How d’ye do?’ responded the signer of documents, and that was all the interchange of words that took place. Him of the green bag bowed, with an air of mixed respect and annoyance; and the lady said something that sounded like a ‘good morning’. She stood a moment by the table, looking half abstractedly at what was transacting there. She then moved away to the hearth, and stood for about five minutes turning over the coins and shells laid on the mantle-piece and surveying the features of three bronze busts that stood there as ornaments. Finally, she loosened the strings of her hat, removed a fur boa from her neck, and having thrown that and her shawl on a sofa that stood near the fire, she seated herself there also and remained perfectly still.

‘All things must have an end’,¹⁵⁰ and so, at long last, the green bag and its contents were exhausted. ‘I have given your Grace the last paper,’ said Mr Warner, when his master, now broken into the service, looked round with the patience of despair, expecting another document and yet another.

‘God be thanked for all his mercies,’ replied the King solemnly. Mr Warner, who was in a ruinous temper, did not vouchsafe a reply. He merely locked his bag with particular emphasis, drew on his gloves and, bowing stiffly, said,

‘I wish your Majesty a very good morning.’ Another silent bow to the lady followed, and then the Premier of Angria formally backed out of his master’s presence.

The Duke of Zamorna now crossed his legs, leant his arm on the back of his chair, and turned half round to his stately visitor.

‘The little man’s cursedly peevish today,’ said he, smiling. The lady uttered a scarcely articulate monosyllable of assent, and continued to sit gravely gazing at the window opposite. The Duke reached out his arm, and drew from under a pile of books and papers an immense folio.

‘You’ve seen these new maps, I suppose?’ said he, opening the vast boards. ‘They’re the pride of my life, so beautifully accurate.’

The lady got up, stood behind him, and stooped over his shoulder as he turned the leaves.

‘The first military chartists¹⁵¹ in Angria have been employed to get up these,’ he continued.

‘I daresay they’re good,’ replied the lady.

‘Good! they’re exquisite!’ exclaimed the monarch. ‘And the engraving is first rate, too. Look there, and there – how distinct.’

He traced his ringed fore-finger along certain ridges of mountains and courses of rivers and markings of sand-hills and boundaries of trackless wildernesses.

‘Very clear,’ said the lady.

‘And correct, that’s the point,’ added her companion. ‘No guessing here, no romancing. One can depend on such stuff as this. My word, if the fellows had given rope to their imaginations, here Etrei would soon have twisted it into a halter for their own necks. But bring a chair, Zenobia, and I’ll shew you the whole thing, and all my pencil-marks.’

Zenobia brought a chair. She leant her arm on the table, and inclined her head to look and listen while the maps were shewn and their bearings explained.

‘Take your hat off first,’ began His Majesty. ‘The feathers throw a shade on the paper so that you cannot see.’

She complied in silence, removed her hat, and let it drop onto the floor beside her. The process of demonstration and elucidation then began. In other words, His Majesty proceeded to make a famous bore of himself. He was listened to with exemplary patience, a patience the more remarkable as the royal lecturer, like all very formidable bores, exacted the most rigid attention from his hearer; and every now and then, to convince himself that she comprehended what he said, required prompt answers to very botheracious questions. One of his interrogations not being readily replied to, he got vexed.

‘Now, Zenobia, I wish you would attend more closely. Why, I explained all that only five minutes ago.’

‘Well, just repeat it once more.’

So in a deliberate, doctrinal tone, His Majesty proceeded to lay down the law again. In about a quarter of an hour, another bungle occurred. Zenobia requested some explanation which seemed to produce the effect of an electrical shock on her royal instructor. He dropped his pencil, raised his eyes to the ceiling in rapt astonishment and, turning his chair completely round from the table to the fire, gave the important information that ‘since she did not understand that, the game was up’. In a while he seized the poker, and having made an emphatic assault on the already blazing coals, he read¹⁵² on thus:

‘What the D—l you’re thinking about this morning, I can’t tell. I never knew you so stupid before – never. When I’ve spent the last hour in explaining to you the finest system of tactics that ever a d—d infernal sand-hill and jungle warfare was conducted on, and proved to a moral certainty that if I can only have my own way not a black piccaninny will be left to cheep between this and Tunis,¹⁵³ all at once you pose me with a question that shews you no more heard or understood a word of my argument than the babe unborn.’

‘Well, Zamorna,’ said the Countess, ‘you know that sort of abstruse reasoning is not my forte. You always said I never could deduce an inference.’¹⁵⁴

‘Yes, I know that. Mathematics and logic are chaos and confusion in your estimation, I’m perfectly aware. But this caps the globe,¹⁵⁵ as they say in Angria. I tell you, Zenobia, if I’d spent as much time over my Frederick, in teaching him the facts of the case, and he’d cut me short with such a speech as that, by the Lord, I’d have whipped him.’

‘Well, I’ll do better another time,’ continued the Countess. ‘But the truth is, Zamorna, my thoughts were running on something else all the time you were speaking. I’m downright unhappy.’

‘Oh, that’s another thing!’ returned the Duke. ‘You should have told me so at once. But what’s the matter?’

‘Percy vexes me so. I shall have to leave him.’

‘What, his vagaries are not over, are they?’

‘No indeed, worse than ever. I feel persuaded he will not settle till he has done something very wild and outré.’

‘Come, you’re looking on the dark side, Zenobia. Cheer up! Has he done anything very extraordinary lately?’

‘He seems so strange and fitful,’ returned the Countess. ‘Every evening, he goes into the red saloon and plays on the organ there for hours together. If I happen to be there, not a single word does he speak. He seems altogether absorbed in the music. He looks up in that inspired kind of way he has when he feels excited, then he takes his fingers from the keys and sits silent with his head on his hand. If I ask him a question, he says “I don’t know” or “I can’t tell”. Nothing can draw him into conversation. At last he’ll get up and ring for his hat and set off God knows where. I understand he often goes to Lady Georgiana Greville’s¹⁵⁶ or Lady St James’ – sometimes even to that little insignificant wretch’s, Miss Delph’s. But I will not bear it, and I solemnly declare to you, Zamorna, that if he does not change soon I’ll leave him and go away to the west.’

‘No, Zenobia,’ returned his Grace. ‘Take my advice and make no public move of that sort, nothing to cause éclat; it will only hurry on some frantic catastrophe. Besides, you know you’ll come back to him as soon as ever he chooses to coax you. Refuse to see him if you like, confine yourself entirely to your own suite of rooms and give him to understand that your apartments are forbidden ground, then shut your eyes and let him go to the D—l his own way. He’ll sit down quietly enough in a while.’

‘What!’ exclaimed the Countess. ‘Then I’m to let him follow a score of mistresses, waste all his love on Greville and Lalande – who, by the by, like a dirty French demi-rep as she is, has actually come over from Paris and taken up her quarters at Dèmars Hotel, that she may make hay while the sun shines¹⁵⁷ – I’m to endure all this tamely, am I? No, Augustus, that’s a trifle too much to require of me; you know I could not do it.’

‘Then box his ears, Zenobia – he deserves it – and invite all his ladies to a good dinner, feed them well, give them a few glasses of wine, and then flog them all round. I shouldn’t hesitate to back you against any ten of them. One down, and another come on –’¹⁵⁸

‘It would do me good,’ replied the Countess, half-crying, half-smiling. ‘I should like to chastise some of them, especially that Delph and that Lalande. I say again, Augustus, it’s too bad, when I love him so well for himself alone, that he should refuse to give me so much as a word or look, and lavish all his affection on these nasty, mercenary wretches.’

‘Yes, men are cursed animals,’ replied Zamorna. ‘That’s a fact and it won’t deny. And your Alexander is a charming specimen of the worst of a bad set. But Zenobia, you may exaggerate a little. You may be misinformed. There’s such a thing, you know, as ladies being jealous without a reason. I happen just now to be acquainted with a case in point, and as you and I are on the subject of matrimonial grievances, I’ll tell you what it is, in order that we may condole with each other.’

‘Oh, Zamorna,’ interrupted the Countess, ‘you’re going to turn the whole affair into ridicule in your usual way.’

‘No, indeed. I was merely about to tell you that I’ve quite a weight on my mind at present, on account of the freezing distance at which her Grace the Duchess has thought proper to keep me lately, and the unaccountable coolness and frigidity which has marked her whole manner towards me for this fortnight last past. I’ve thought every day that I’d request an explanation, but somehow I felt a sort of impulse to let matters take their own course and look as if I was not greatly concerned about the business. When I do so, she makes a point of crying – yes, actually shedding tears and looking considerably heartbroken, and I declare before heaven I can’t guess what it’s all about.’

The Countess shook her head.

‘You’re a Nathaniel without guile,¹⁵⁹ all the world knows that,’ said she. ‘But I see you’ll not consider my distresses in a serious light, and yet I’m such a fool I can’t help complaining to you.’

‘Well,’ returned his Grace, ‘I complain to you and you won’t pity me, and so we’re even. Come, Zenobia, dismiss sad thoughts from your mind. It’s precisely three o’clock by my repeater. I’ve had a very hard morning’s work, and am just in tune for an hour or two’s relaxation. Go and put on your riding habit and beaver. I’ll order a pair of my hunters to be saddled, and we’ll have a gallop on the Alnwick road in the old style, neck and neck.’

The Countess rose, wiping her eyes and smiling in spite of herself.

‘Mercurial as ever,’ said she. ‘Care does not cling to you, Augustus.’

‘Nor to you either,’ was the answer. ‘In half an hour, as soon as you’ve inhaled a draught of fresh air and got fairly into the country, you’ll be as fresh as a lark and thinking only how to beat me in the hard trot and sharp canter. But the chances are not as equal as they used to be, Zenobia. Though you are magnificently round, my height and bone will outweigh you now.’

‘Well,’ said the Countess, ‘I suppose I must humour you. I shall not be long in preparing. Do you mean to ride till dinner time?’

‘Yes. We shall only have two hours and a half, so make haste. It’s a glorious day, bright and breezy. Hey, what’s that passing the window? Zenobia, just come and look.’

Zenobia approached the casement where his Grace was standing. Two elfish figures rode by, mounted on diminutive and shaggy ponies and followed by a tall and stately footman in splendid scarlet livery, mounted on a glossy black steed. The first cavaliers were little fellows in blue dresses¹⁶⁰ with tassled caps. They sat in their saddles as erect as arrows, and looked about them with an air of shy, proud consequence, truly aristocratic.

‘Not bad riders, are they?’ said the Duke, gazing after them with a grin of complacency that displayed all his white teeth.

‘They manage their chargers wonderfully well,’ replied the Countess. ‘And the ponies look spirited too. You must have begun to teach them in good time.’

‘Only half a year ago. The lads took to their saddles well. Look at Frederick! D—n the little toad! He’s laying it into his nag most viciously.’

At this moment one of the shelties turned somewhat restive, and the slim rider, a pale, light-haired boy of between four and five, lifted his switch and, setting his teeth, laid on about the pony’s head like a savage. The creature kicked and reared, and if the footman had not interfered a drawn battle might have ensued. With his aid, the matter was at last settled. Both the little chaps then started into a canter, and sweeping across Victoria Square entered Fidena Park.

‘There go the hopes of Angria,’ said Zamorna, laughing. ‘That was a touch of the grandfather.¹⁶¹ He looked very like him at the moment. He deserves licking.’

CHAP[TER] VI

Evening being come on, the time for closing curtains and rousing fires, I will introduce my readers to a domestic scene in Wellesley House, all very innocent and homely. The daylight, perhaps, is not quite drawn in, for winter, you must remember, is past, and the sunset of a fine day leaves a long glimmer behind it. However, it is dusk enough to bring out the full glow of a good fire, and in this drawing[-room], which I wish you now to imagine, there is more of red reflection from the hearth than of pale gleam from the windows.

Don’t suppose you are about to witness a scene of unalloyed peace. On the contrary, the room is full of talk and noise. Or rather, there are two divisions in the place: calm reigns on one side, chaos on the other. By some tacit regulation, nothing tumultuous dare approach the region of the rug and mantle-piece. A sofa covered with crimson occupies one side of the hearth. The further end of this sofa comes against a window, through which the shrubs of a garden are seen dimly clustered in twilight, and above them ascends a half-moon, softening a sky of clear, cold azure. This moon directs a very pale beam on to the brow of a gentleman who sits on the sofa and gazes serenely at vacancy, without proffering a word to man or beast.

Now, a person of slim, genteel stature and mellow years, with a bald, smooth, lofty brow glistening in moonlight and bust-like features ditto, must needs look very poetical, especially when he is dressed in an angelical blue swallow-tail coat, a pallid primrose vest, and pantaloons which are a sight to see, not speak of. Nor was there wanting, to give full effect to this aërial picture, the force of contrast. Behold, at the feet of this celestial form, this heavenly thought embodied in marble, sat or crept or rolled a human infant, yea, an absolute child, small and plump, with a white frock and round face, features as yet invisible, and a pair of saucer eyes a shade darker than jet in their hue. This child seemed to hold the territory of the rug with undivided sway, and it crept from end to end of its dominions with an unwearied and ceaseless vigilance of surveillance not easily accounted for on any known principal of government. Now and then it laid ten minute fingers on the rim of the burnished brass fender which formed the boundary to one side of its realm, and seemed inclined to overpass this formidable barrier and make an incursion into the fiery district beyond. Whenever these signs of a rising spirit of discovery occurred, the tall pensive gentleman would bend down, and with a gentle hand remove the adventurer to its own limits, just as one would put back a white mouse convicted of attempting to escape beyond its cage. These transactions took place in silence. Neither god-like man nor impish child seemed gifted with the faculty of speech.

Individuals of a different calibre peopled the other end of the room. There, three boys were making a famous clatter. Chairs and foot-stools were hauled about with small regard to decorum, and a yelp of voices was kept up much like what you might expect to hear in a kennel of pointer puppies. Two of the lads were pale, slight fellows with curling light hair. The other was a rounder, rosier animal, with a dimple in his cheek and with hair a shade darker, more thickly curled. Large brown eyes seemed a family peculiarity common to them all. The uproar they were keeping up seemed partly controlled, partly excited by a powerful-built gentleman who sat on a music-stool in the midst of them. At the identical moment we speak of, he had them in a half-circle before him, and appeared to be asking them some questions.

‘Frederick, did you and Edward say your lessons this morning before you rode out?’

‘Yes, Papa.’

‘All of them?’

A pause.

‘I did, but he didn’t!’ exclaimed Edward.

‘And why didn’t he, sir?’

‘Because he wouldn’t.’

‘Wouldn’t? What’s the meaning of that, Frederick? I said you were not to come down in the evening next time you missed your lessons.’

‘I did all but spelling,’ said the accused.

‘And why didn’t you do spelling, too?’

‘’Cause Dr Cook wanted me to say G— and I wanted to say J—.’

‘A pretty reason, sir. Truly, I hope Dr Cook will lick you soundly next time you take that whim. Do you know, sir, what Solomon says on the subject of flogging?’

Silence was the expressive answer to this question.

‘Spare the rod and spoil the child,’¹⁶² pursued the paternal monitor. ‘And moreover, Frederick, my lad, let me tell you that the very next time I see that switch of yours laid on in the way it was this morning, I’ll take the pony from you, and you shall ride no more for a month to come.’

‘It wouldn’t go right,’ said Frederick, ‘and Edward did just the same, only worse, when we got into the park.’

‘Very well, gentlemen, I’ll speak to your groom, and you shall walk out with Miss Clifton tomorrow, like little girls. Now, Arthur, what are you looking so eager about?’

‘I want to ask you something, Papa.’ The rosy wretch, setting a stool, proceeded rumbustiously to climb on to his father’s knee. Having seated himself en cavalier, he began:

‘I’ve said all my lessons today.’

‘Well, that’s a fine lad. What then?’

‘May I have a pony?’

‘He neither read yesterday nor the day before,’ interposed Edward, who, with his brother, had been struck with chill dismay on hearing the sentence pronounced that they were to walk out with Miss Clifton like little girls.

‘And he cried and screamed all the time we were out this morning, because he mightn’t ride too,’ added Frederick.

The Duke shook his head at hearing this.

‘Bad account, Arthur.’

Arthur knew how to manage. Instead of crying, he eyed his father with a twinkling, merry glance out of the corner of his roguish dark eye, and repeated,

‘Let me have a pony. Mamma says I ought.’

‘Mamma spoils thee, my lad,’ said Zamorna, ‘because thou happenest to have a cheek like an apple and a vile dimple mark upon it, with sundry tricks of smiles and glances that, judging by my own experience, are never likely to win thee a share in saving grace.’

‘A pony, a pony,’ persisted the petitioner.

‘Well, well, be a good boy for three days, and then we’ll see about it.’

‘I suppose Maria is to have a pony next,’ muttered Frederick, regarding the diminutive thing on the rug with a look of lordly scorn, and then turning a displeased eye on Arthur. Happily, his father did not hear this remark, or it would probably have been rewarded by a manual application onto the auricular organs. Edward, retreating a little behind his father, expressed his feelings on the subject in the more delicate language of signs. Applying his thumb to his nose, he took a sight,¹⁶³ thereby meaning to intimate, ‘Never mind, Fred. Let Arthur have his pony. He’ll never sit in the saddle, and what fun the tumbling will be.’

Frederick, being a trifle in the sullens,¹⁶⁴ strayed away to the quiet region of the fire-place, and stood looking into the embers for some time. His noble grandsire, opposite to whom he had planted himself, noticed his proximity only by an uncertain glitter of the eye, with which he surveyed him at intervals. At last Northangerland made a movement as if he were going to speak, though reluctantly.

‘Where’s your mother?’ he said abruptly, at the same moment directing a singular squint at the young heir of Angria and withdrawing his gaze instantly. The pale, sharp lad looked up.

‘What did ye say, sir?’ he asked, with the quick utterance that seemed natural to him.

‘I asked you where your mother was,’ replied the earl somewhat sternly.

‘Mamma’s in her room, sir.’

‘And why doesn’t she come down?’

‘I don’t know, sir.’

‘Go and ask your father, then.’

‘Ask him what, sir?’

‘Blockhead!’ said Northangerland, scowling. ‘Ask your father why your mother is not here.’

‘Very well, sir.’

Frederick whipped off.

‘Please, Papa, my grandfather wants to know why Mamma is not come down.’

‘Tell your grandfather,’ replied his Grace, ‘that I have been asking myself the same question, and that I had just screwed my courage up to the exploit of ascertaining the reason in propria persona.’

‘In what, Papa?’

‘In my own august person, Frederick.’

The ambassador returned.

‘Papa’s screwed up his courage to go and ask in his own august person.’

Northangerland curled his upper lip.

‘I’ve done with you, sir,’ he said, nodding to Frederick. But the imp, like a true Angrian, would not take a hint. He continued to stand by the fender, and shew to his annoyed progenitor the small correct features and pale auburn curls of the house of Percy gleaming in firelight. Zamorna drew near, a tower of strength.

‘Frederick,’ said he, ‘go to the other side of the room.’

‘What for, Papa? Maria’s always let to be on the rug, and we never are.’

‘To the right-about instantly,’ said the Duke. ‘No words from you, my lad. Do as you’re bid.’ And placing a hand on the slim malcontent’s shoulder, he impelled him some yards on his way.

‘If you return here while I am out of the room, I shall send you to bed directly,’ said his Grace, and with these words, he opened a side door and departed.

The Duchess of Zamorna was sitting in a room as beautiful as jeweller’s work, but without a fire, and therefore chilly and ungenial in spite of its splendour. One taper was shining on the toilet, and by the light it shed her Grace, seated in an arm-chair, seemed reading. At least, she had an open book in her hand and her eyes were fixed on the page, though the fair, slight finger resting between the leaves was not often raised to turn them over. Her dress was all elegant and queenly, and her hair, divided from her forehead in a silken braid, separated into wavy curls on the temples and relieved her rounded cheek and delicate features with its soft shade. She looked somewhat proud and somewhat sad, but most perfectly, most picturesquely lovely. What could be imagined fairer? De Lisle’s pencil could not add a charm, and Chantry’s chisel¹⁶⁵ could not remove a defect.

A rather smart rap at the door roused her. She lifted her cheek from the hand of ivory on which it rested, and seemed to consider a moment before she replied. It was not like the tap of her attendants; their summons was usually more gentle and subdued. And the one other person who had a right to enter this room always claimed his full privilege by appearing unannounced. While she doubted, the rap was repeated, with a still smarter, more prolonged application of the knuckles.

‘Come in,’ she said, with a stately composure of tone and mien which seemed to rebuke the impetuosity of the summons.

The door unclosed. ‘I hope I’ve done right,’ said the Duke of Zamorna, stepping forward and shutting himself in. ‘I’d be sorry to be too bold, and hurt anybody’s notions of delicacy, even if they were a little fastidious, or so.’

‘Your Grace wishes to speak with me, perhaps,’ returned the Duchess, laying down her book and looking up, with an aspect of serene attention.

‘Yes, merely to speak; I pledge my word, nothing more. In surety whereof, I’ll take a chair here just by the door, which will leave at least four yards between your ladyship and me.’

Accordingly, he placed a chair with its back against the door, and there seated himself. The Duchess looked down, and something stole into her eye which made it glisten with a more humid shine than heretofore.

‘Your Grace will be cold there, I think,’ said she, and a half smile lit the incipient tear.

‘Cold? Aye, it seems to be a hard frost tonight, I think, Mary. Pray, if I might presume to put the question, will you be kind enough to tell me why you prefer sitting here reading a homily or a sermon by yourself, instead of coming down into your drawing-room and looking after the children? Frederick has been bothering his grandfather again, and little Maria has kept him engaged all the evening.’

‘I’ll come down if you wish me,’ replied the Duchess. ‘But my head ached a little after dinner, and I thought, perhaps, if I sat in the room and looked out of spirits, you would think me sullen.’

‘Why, you’ve been looking out of spirits for the last fortnight, and therefore I should most likely never have noticed what I am now grown so much accustomed to. But if you’ll favour me with the reason of it all, I’ll consider myself obliged to you.’

Her Grace sat silent. She reopened her book and turned over the leaves.

‘Are you going to read me a sermon?’ asked His Majesty. The Duchess turned her head aside, and wiped away the single tear now stealing down her cheek.

‘I can’t talk to you at that distance,’ said she.

‘Well,’ returned Zamorna, ‘I would wish always to observe the strictest propriety, but if you’ll give me an invitation, perhaps I may venture a yard or two nearer.’

‘Come,’ said the Duchess, still engaged with her handkerchief.

His Grace approached. ‘You’ll perhaps faint if I stir another step,’ said he, pausing half-way between the door and the toilet. The Duchess held out her hand, though still her head was turned away. Thus encouraged, his diffident Grace drew nearer by degrees, and at last cast anchor with his chair alongside of his royal consort. He possessed himself, too, of the hand which had not been withdrawn, and then, with his peculiar smile, sat waiting for the sequel.

‘You haven’t been to Flower House lately, have you?’ asked the Duchess.

‘Not very, but what of that? Do you suspect a growing friendship between me and the Countess?’

‘No, no; but, Adrian –’

A pause.

‘Well, Mary?’

‘You were at Flower House a few weeks ago?’

‘I believe I was,’ said his Grace, and he blushed to the eyes.

‘And you forgot me, Adrian. You saw someone you liked better.’

‘Who told you that snivelling lie?’ returned his Grace. ‘Did Richton?’

‘No.’

‘Warner?

‘No.’

‘The Countess, or some other busybody in petticoats?’

‘No.’

‘Who, then?’

‘I dare not tell you who, Adrian, but a person I was forced to believe.’

‘Well, what more? What goddess was it that I liked better than you?’

‘It was a lady I have heard you praise myself. You called her the most beautiful woman in Angria. Miss Moore.’

His Grace laughed aloud.

‘And that’s all, Mary, is it?’ said he. ‘That’s what you’ve been pining over for two mortal weeks! And I like Miss Moore better than you, do I? I’ve a strange taste! Miss Moore?’ he continued, as if endeavouring to recall the lady’s identity. ‘Miss Moore? Aye, I recollect – a tall girl, with light hair and a somewhat high colour. I believe I did once say that she was a fine specimen of the Angrian female. And on second thoughts, I remember now that the last time I was at Flower House, Richton brought her into the room where I was taking off my coat, and she bothered me a little with some kind of request about Henry Hastings – all in a very modest way, though; she was not intrusive. I told her I was sorry I could not oblige her, and gave her a little serious advice about not being too ready to take up the causes of scoundrelly young red-coats, as it might subject her to unpleasant imputations. She blushed with due propriety and there the matter ended. Now, Mary, there’s the naked truth.’

‘Is it all the truth, Adrian?’

‘All, upon my Christian d—n—tion.’

The Duchess looked willing and yet afraid to believe.

‘I wish I could feel convinced,’ said she. ‘A heavy weight would be removed from my mind.’

‘Dismiss it instantly,’ said his Grace. ‘It’s all imaginary, a mere nervous affection. You inherit your father’s turn for hypochondria, Mary.’

‘But,’ pursued her Grace, ‘I am sure, Adrian, you have been very cold to me for some days past. I have hardly had an opportunity of exchanging a word with you.’

Again Zamorna laughed.

‘Well, the inconsistency of woman!’ exclaimed he. ‘Reproaching me with the effects of her own caprice! Have you not been shrinking from me like a sensitive plant, answering my questions in monosyllables, crying when I spoke to you kindly, and contriving to slip away whenever by any chance you happened to be left alone with me?’

‘You exaggerate,’ said the Duchess.

‘Not in the least. And pray, what was I to make of all this? Of course, I imagined you had taken some kind of odd whim into your head, perhaps begun to entertain scruples regarding the lawfulness of matrimony, and in fact, every day I expected a formal application for a dissolution of the conjugal tie, and an intimation that it was your purpose to seek some sacred retreat where the follies of carnal affection might beset you no more.’

‘Adrian!’ said the Duchess, smiling at his taunts while she deprecated their severity. ‘You know such ideas never crossed your mind. While you talk in that way, your eyes are full of triumph. Yes, Adrian, from the very first moment you saw me, six years ago, you perceived your own power. You perceive it now. It’s of no use resisting; I’ll believe all you tell me. I’ve acted foolishly. Forgive me, and don’t retaliate.’

‘Then you drop the idea of a convent, do you, Mary? You think there will be time enough to turn devout some thirty years hence, when that pretty face is not quite so fair and smooth and those eyes are not altogether so subduing, and, moreover, when your husband’s head has grown a little grizzled, and his brow has a furrow or two across, deep enough to give him the air of a stern old fire-eater, as he will be? Then, you’ll refuse him a kiss, but now –’

Two or three kisses were offered and received, and warmly returned. Duke and Duchess then rose. The candle remained burning on the toilet, the two chairs stood vacant before it, the splendid little room reflected around its fairy beauty, but the living figures of the scene were gone. Solitude and silence lingered behind them. The candle burnt soon to its socket. The flame flickered, waned, streamed up in a long tongue of light, sank again, trembled a moment, and finally vanished in total darkness. Then a piano was heard playing in the drawing-room below, and, when the first note had stilled the clamour of children, a voice sung:

‘Life, believe, is not a scene

So dark as sages say.

Oft, a little morning rain

Will bring a pleasant day.

Sometimes there are clouds of gloom,

But these are transient all,

If the shower will make the roses bloom,

O why lament its fall?

Merrily, rapidly,

Our sunny hours flit by,

Then gratefully, cheerily,

Enjoy them as they fly.

‘What though Death at times steps in,

And calls our best away?

What though sorrow seems to win

O’er Hope a heavy sway?

Yet Hope again elastic springs

Unconquered, though she fell.

Still buoyant are her golden wings,

Still strong to bear us well.

Then manfully, fearlessly

The day of trial bear,

For gloriously, victoriously,

Can Courage quell Despair!’

                 Charles Townshend, March 26^th 1839