^ UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN STACKS The person charging this material is re- sponsible for its return to the library from which it was withdrawn on or before the Latest Date stamped below. Theft, mutilation, and underlining of books are reasons for disciplinary action and may result in dismissal from the University. To renew call Telephone Center, 333-8400 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN ma jBS L161— O-1096 THE FAIR OF MAY FAIR was born to speak all mirth and no matter. Much Ado About Nothing. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. THE FLIRT OF TEN SEASONS. THE SEPARATE MAINTENANCE. LONDON HENRY COLBURN AND RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. 1832. J. D. NICHOLS AND SON, 25, PARLIAMENT-STREET. Y. A WORD OR TWO WITH THK PUBLIC. It may be accounted one of the evil signs of the times, that, while the mischievous blaze of Personality is fanned on all sides by the favour of the reading public, the purer flame of Satire, though kindled at a sacred altar, Begins to pale its ineffectual fires. The world is now too much accustomed to be popped at (after the fashion of the Kentucky riflemen) from some cunning ambuscade, to heed the straightforward warfare of its lawful antagonists ;— too much familiarized with the deadly laugh of the hyena, to give ear to the milder mirth of human nature. The failure of this salutary source, this me- 543151 IV TO THE PUBLIC. dicated spring of classic ground, may perhaps be traced to the drying up of the adjoining waters of Helicon. Those nine foolish virgins, the Muses, have gradually dwindled into dis- repute; and Satire, long accustomed to the graceful array of poetry, prefers even rags and oblivion to the homely garment of prose. But, as a leading periodical justly observes, "If Horace himself were to appear again on earth, he must write in prose." Juvenal would probably flourish as an Essayist in the Edinburgh ; — Boileau " speak daggers, but use none," in the Noctes of Blackwood; — Pope, defrauding his Belinda of her tags of rhyme, transform her into the heroine of " The Lost Curl ;"— the author of the " Night Thoughts,*' pepper his Characters of Women over three octavo volumes; — and Churchill wield his toma- hawk in the pages of a popular magazine. It is plain that, in this prosiest of centuries, when oratory is valued by the hour, and books by their length, breadth, and thickness, the terseness of poetical satire will ensure its con- demnation by the guagers of literature. Like TO THE PUBLIC. V Esop's diamond, it is derided as useless by the heroes of the barn-door. Modern science, how- ever, can decompose the gem ; and, by reducing it to charcoal, render it available to household purposes. Thus much in exposition of the nature and views of my book ; — and now, a word or two in exposition of the views and nature of my Pub- lic. Yes, many-headed monster ! — mine or any body's ! — Sir Walter is at Naples ; — you are to be let or sold; — to be had cheap, like other crazy tenements, on a repairing lease. Know then that I am solicited, not by a few. And those of true condition, that your scribblers Are in great grievance. There have been comnaissions Sent down among them, which have flawed the heart Of all their loyalties ! — you are accused of an aptitude to play the huffing despot among your hirelings. We admit that, like Gobbo's master, you give us " rare new liveries ;" but if your vails be libera], your buffets are abundant also. Like Voltaire's personification of your countrymen in the Merchant Freeport, " vous savez donner, VI TO THE PUBLIC. mats vous ne savez pas vivre" You have nothing of the kindness of heart with which Paris fostered its Bonhomme la Fontaine, till like a favourite cat he purred in domestic familiarity at the feet or on the knee of his master: you, my beloved Public, would have tied a tin kettle to his tail ! Instead of exhibit- ing the sympathy with which his fellow-citizens went hand in hand with Moliere, and reve- renced the gray hairs of Corneille, you resemble the Philistines, who bade the strong man their captive arise and make sport for their leisure ! At this rate, you may have slaves and cour- tiers, but you will have no friends. Our cheer- fulness will become constrained in your pre- sence ; and instead of flourishing our Toledo with grace and spirit, it will become entangled between our legs, like a booby's in a court suit, and amuse you only by the clumsiness of our dowrtfall. Think upon this, my Public, and receive us somewhat more courteously. It was the custom of Francis the First to advance three steps in honour of every man of letters presented at his TO THE PUBLIC. Vll court. Do you also descend from your lofty throne. Come half way to greet us ; — take us graciously by the hand; — "do us a shrewd turn," and like my lord of Canterbury, " we are yours for ever ! " THE FLIRT OF TEN SEASONS. How many pictures of one oymph we view, All how unlike each other, — all how true ! Pope. VOL. I. CHAPTER I. Fashion, bon ton, and virtu, are the names of certain idols to which we sacrifice the genuine pleasures of the soul. We are content with personating happiness ; to feel it is an art beyond us. Mackenzie. Till five years old, Adela Richmond was the beautiful plaything of her fine lady mother, the fashionable wife of Lord Germaine ; from five to ten, the troublesome incumbrance of the fashionable widow of Lord Germaine; fi-om ten to fifteen, she was seen by glimpses in places of public resort, adored as the queen of every juvenile ball-room, and already an object of calculation to Lord Germaine's dowager ; and from fifteen to twenty, five-and-twenty, thirty, we intend that her charms and capacities shall B 2 4f THE FLIRT be more amply depicted for the amusement of the reader. In marking by lustres the progress of our heroine through the various vicissitudes of child- hood, girlhood, and womanhood, we do not pur- pose to neglect those minor shades and grada- tions which intervene from year to year — from day to day — nay, hour to hour — in the picture of life; but it is necessary to establish the frame- work of the canvas from that happy epoch of Adela's existence which saw the harness of the governess laid aside, the Italian grammar ex- changed for the Court Guide, the muslin frock expanded into the brocaded train, the flaxen ringlets raised from her shoulders and braided into a Grecian contour. Lady Germaine had resolved that her daughter should remain a child till she was almost a woman ; and, now by a transforming touch of the wand of Fashion, chose that she should become a woman, though almost a child. From the hour she was pre- sented at Court, Adela found it decreed that her laugh should subside into a smile — her natural demeanour into a graceful glide — her OF TEN SEASONS. 5 playful frankness into a courteous discretion. It took her full a week to make her own ac- quaintance after the singular metamorphosis effected by Lady Germaine's interposition. The " musts" and " must nots " of her La- dyship's tables of the law would have filled a volume ; and though Adela had little difficulty in submitting to a transformation dependent rather on the art of the staymaker, shoemaker, mantuamaker, milliner, and hair-dresser, than on her own exertions, it certainly imposed a tax on her memory and her patience, when she found how many and how much she was to forget to remember, and remember to forget. First in the schedule attached to the com- mandment respecting oblivion of persons, stood the names of a family of cousins ; children to a sister of Lord Germaine, who had married im- •prudently. Marrying imprudently implied, of course, according to the interpretation of the Germainic code, marrying for love instead of money — for good qualities instead of good es- tates ; — and when poor Mr. Raymond died the death of a man of low fortunes and high 6 THE FLIRT blood (a victim to the pestilential climate of a colony maintained by the wise policy of govern- ment, for the purpose of enabling the aristo- cracy to get rid of their younger sons without any necessity for a Coroner's Inquest), his honourable widow, looking down on the heads of the six little orphans whom the yellow-fever had barbarously spared, might possibly be in- duced to admit the accuracy of the definition. Many trite proverbs were quoted for her conso- lation. She was reminded that large families always get on best in the world, and told that " Providence feedeth the young ravens ; " while Lady Germaine, her sister-in-law, never failed to remark in her presence upon the multitude, complication, and fatality of the diseases of childhood. Strange to relate, however, these little " ra- vens," — these little Raymonds, — grew to be full- fledged birds, and to flutter round the parent- nest without any diminution of the covey by the attacks of measles, scarlatina, or whooping-cough. While divers of their aristocratic kindred spin- dled up into consumptions, they remained tough, OF TEN SEASONS. 7 rough, and compact; and while their little cousin Lord Germaine was crammed into a liver complaint, their homely cheeks became red as rosesj their laughing eyes bright with the im- pulses of health. Lady Germaine was once heard angrily to declare, on quitting Mrs. Ray- mond's modest residence at Fuiham, that " she did really believe nothing would ever provide for one of those Raymond boys ; — that even if Harry were to get his father's appointment in the West Indies, he would live for ever. Poor Mrs. Raymond was very much to be pitied ; but then what could she expect in making such a connexion ! " Not to be left a widow at eight-and-twenty ! — or she would probably have welcomed with less delight the birth of Henry, Charles, and William, Mary, — Margaret, and Jane ; — for with all her motherly tenderness and self-denial, she found it a difficult task to maintain the appearance due to her connexion with the peerage, or satisfy her own fond wishes for her children. Her noble brother was dead, and the present Lord Germaine (his nephew and her own) a minor, 8 THE FLIRT unable to come forward to her assistance. Adela's richly jointured mother occasionally fa- voured her with a very long note of advice, and a very small note payable at sight ; and had it not been for the tender mercies of a college friend of her husband who got her second boy entered at Woolwich, and the generosity of a distant relative, a Sir Richard Raymond, in placing Henry at school and promising him a commission in the Guards, she might have been forced,, on her children's behalf, to unite her- self with a certain old, ugly, fantastic Mr. Orme, who was extremely anxious to marry the indi- gent family. But she had now only little Wil- liam at home, for whom she had been already compelled to accept the painful provision of a wriiership in India. And as to Mary, Marga- ret, a^id Jane, the maintenance of girls, espe- cially if good, simple, and well-principled girls, such as poor Raymond's orphans, entails no very alarming expenditure. But it was not little William, it was neither Mary, Margaret, nor Jane, whom the beautiful Adela discovered still adhering to her remem- OF TEN SEASONS. 9 brancej in spite of Lady Germaine's repeated ad- monition of, " Now you are out, my love, it will not do for you to have any thing to say to those Raymonds." — It was Henry, " my cousin Harry !" — to whom she had ahvays found a prodigious deal to say ; and whose replies to her sayings had heretofore been inextricably entangled in her memory vnth the rules of the Italian grammar ,and the ethics of Mademoiselle Meringue. During her father's lifetime, Henry Raymond, who was his godson, resided in his uncle's family ; but no sooner did Lady Germaine find herself in possession of her liberty and a jointure of two thousand per annum, than she dispatched a pathetic letter to Mrs. Raymond, full of la- mentation over her own unfortunate change of circumstances, and the necessity it involved of separating the children ; and Harry, in the lit- tle fancy hussar-jacket she had not judged it necessary to exchange for mourning for her lord his uncle, was dismissed on the spot, to encroach upon the limited roast mutton and rice pudding of his brothers and sisters. It is true Lady Germaine never looked upon her B 5 10 THE FLIRT deceased husband's banished favourite, after she had turned him out of her house, without ex- pressing an aunthke hope that he would always consider it his home, and Adela as his sister j more particularly when Sir Richard Raymond undertook the cost of his education, and the care of his advancement. But on discovering that the said Sir Richard was a married man with a son of his own, and that he proposed nothing better for his young relative than a pair of colours in the foot-guards, she issued an ukase purporting that Henry Raymond and Adela were once more to become brother and sister. This indeed was the only safe mode of connexion between them; for it must be owned that Harry's personal appearance did ample honour to the young-raven mode of nourishment. When he first appeared in uniform in St. James's Street, even the hackney-coachmen frequenting that regal purlieu, decreed that nothing in the three regiments could match with the new ensign. At that period, Adela was allowed to think so and say so too; for she was then "not out," OF TEN SEASONS. 11 — very far from out — only thirteen ; already, how- ever, a miniature beauty, — an embryo coquette ; and already the idol of Henry Raymond's heart. He could always manage to perceive half a mile off, Lady Germaine's carriage dowagering in January towards the Serpentine to look at the skaiters, so as to be in time to astonish his pretty little cousin with his most elaborate evo- lutions. Whenever Adela was smuggled from the school-room to the Opera for a single night to take a lesson from Pasta's cadences, he failed not to detect the lustre of her bright flaxen curls the moment she entered the house. He chose to fancy himself still a boy, that he might be admitted to the youthful entertainments of the season; and would gladly have personi- fied even an old w^oman to obtain admit- tance to those morning mysteries of Willis's rooms, whereby the incipient belles of patrician lineage are initiated into their still more occult midnight revels. He had no misgivings, no anxieties on the subject ; Lady Germaine was as kind to him, Adela as fond of him as ever ; — nor was it till the very day of his cousin's 12 THE FLIRT presentation, — when, on observing her blushing and beautiful face through the window of her mother's new chariot, he flew to offer his hand as she stepped from the carriage — that he found himself encroaching in a troublesome manner on her train — that his assistance was wanted by mamma, — that she could take care of herself. But though he observed all this, and even a degree of coldness in the altered eye of the debutante, he did not^/ic?,— he did not infer — he could not dream, that he was indebted for the exhibition of such vagaries to Lady Germaine*s commands that Adela would have "nothing further to say to those Raymonds." Now Sir Richard, in ex<:ending the genero- sity of his honest heart towards one of the orphans of his distant kinsman, had not acted wdth the precipitancy of those who promise more on impulse than they are inclined to perform on deliberation ; and in the apprehension that his son might hereafter feel inclined to diminish the measure of his munificence, he had judged it ne- cessary to place in the hands of trustees, for the exclusive benefit of his protege, a sum of five OF TEN SEASONS. 1^ thousand pounds. The income of two hundred a year, thus secured to Henry Raymond in addition to his pay, was however diminished by one half, (precisely in accordance with his bene- factor's calculation) to increase the pittance of his mother and sisters ; and many a cold and rainy night did Harry trudge home to his lodg- ings from those places of gay resort to which he was tempted by the hope of obtaining a glimpse of his beautiful cousin; and many a time pass repiningly the doors of the Opera, where he knew that Adela's beauty was attracting the gaze of hundreds, lest he should trespass upon the little hoard he delighted to lay aside for his sister Margaret's annual expedition to the coast. It must be owned that Margaret was Henry's favourite of the three sisters; his favourite because she most needed favour. If less beau- tiful than Mary, less pretty than little Jane, she was frailer, gentler, less self-relying than either. Her delicate health demanded more fostering than falls to the lot of one of six unportioned orphans ; her delicate mind more consideration 14 THE FLIRT than is apt to be bestowed by the mother of a large family on the least useful member of the little community. But Harry was her decided champion ; would make any sacrifice for the augmentation of her scanty stock of comforts, and exert all his eloquence with his brothers and sisters to render them equally forbearing. Mar- garet had no means of rewarding all this kind- ness, but by loving him intensely, and listen- ing patiently to all his details of Adela Rich- mond's attractions, and the admiration lavished upon their fair cousin whenever she made her appearance in the world ; — to his lamentations over his own want of fortune, and Lady Ger- maine's want of magnanimity. It seemed still more extraordinary to Margaret than to him- self, that their cousin should hesitate to frown on all mankind for the sake of her devoted adorer ; or that the Dowager should be blind to the eligibility of keeping her daughter single for the chance of Harry's becoming a Field- officer with a private fortune of an encumbered two hundred per annum. That she did so close her eyes, soon became OF TEN SEASONS. 15 apparent to the young ensign. Harry found himself promoted to new dignities without any war-office advertisement in the Gazette. He now became Mister Raymond with his Aunt and Adela ; and instead of the smile and blush with which his assiduities were formerly repulsed by the little coquette, they were listlessly and almost unconsciously accepted by the fine lady. The Hon. Miss Richmond could not condescend to be rude, but she alienated him from her side by the utmost impertinence of fashionable lan- guor ; seemed incapable of exerting herself to return his bow, to answer his enquiry; and yawned her way through the dance, in which the forms of society forbade her to refuse him her hand, unless with the penalty of sitting still for the remainder of the evening. All this was done in a manner his quick spirit could not but resent. Adela's calculations were fully answered that Henry would soon desist from seeking her as a partner ; but then it was no fault of hers : — Lady Germaine had ordained that she was to have "nothing more to say to those Ray- monds." 16 THE FLIRT On his next visit to the cheerful cottage at Fulham, which the activity of his mother and the natural refinement of his sister Margaret rendered so charming a retreat, Henry found it difficult to answer their numberless interro- gations touching the success of their cousin Adela's debut. Mary, her rival in beauty, had a thousand investigations to make concerning Miss Richmond's dress, her style, her position in society ; Margaret was only anxious to learn whether the world had wrought no evil in her, — whether her smiles were still as affectionate for " my cousin Harry," as they were enchanting to all the other Harries of the metropolis ; while Jane cared only for the list of her conquests, and the amount of peers she had already reduced to desperation. Henry contrived to give as satisfactory a reply to all these questions as he could, without implicating the haughty beauty by an unquali- fied statement of her proceedings. For him- self, he had only one anxiety on the subject : — was Adela happy, or likely to remain so? — Alas, he feared not ! OF TEN SEASONS. 17 CHAPTER 11. Shall I paint Aurelia's frown ? Her proud and regal looks, — her quick black eye Through whose dark fringes such a beam shot down On men (yet touched at times with witchery) As when Jove's planet, distant and alone, flashes from out the sultry summer sky. PnOCTER. Sir Richard Raymond and his wife (for according to the custom of the good old times they composed a single animal, and therefore need not be severally considered by the biogra- pher) were of high respectability in their native county of Dorset, — of utter nothingness among the Stars and Garters of the metropolis. They had commenced life together by an early mar- riage, as a Baronet and Dame of tolerable 18 THE FLIRT pedigree, with a clear ten thousand per an- num ; and at the expiration of forty years stood pretty nearly on the spot from whence they started. Kind-hearted, simple, affectionate, bountiful to their poorer neighbours, living and letting live with those of higher degree, — they were cordial and reverent with an old dunny Vicar who half-starved a deserving curate, — by way of testifying their respect to the Church ; and evinced unlimited submission and regard towards their colossal neighbour the Duke of Dronington, who bullied his wife and his tenants, and sneaked to his Sovereign and his Sovereign's minister, — by way of proving their reverence to the state. They intended well, however, and therefore seldom acted ill ; they had a warm heart, which was sure to prevent the head from disgracing itself. It is wrong to assert that nothing was changed at Langdale House from the period of Sir Richard's marriage and first session in Par- liament, to that of the commencement of our story. He was now a father : — not like his luck- less cousin, of six hungry and promising children, OF TEN SEASONS. 19 but of one sleek, self-satisfied, middle-aged man, whom Sir Richard and her ladyship alone re- garded relatively to his position as their son. To all the rest of the world he was " Burford Raymond ; '* a man with a name — with a seat in the house — chambers in Albany — a position in society ; — a being as much above the level of his country baronet of a father, in all the adven- titious distinctions of life, as he was beneath him in every moral purpose, in all the best qualities of human nature. But though Sir Richard and Lady Ray- mond continually referred to him with pride and pleasure as " my son Mr. Raymond," certain it is that they were full of wonder at having hatched so wise a bird ; and regarded him with somewhat more of awe than of parental tender- ness. Perhaps, after all, the miracle was one of education ; for scarcely had Master Raymond begun to trot round the hall at Langdale on his father's walking-stick, when their neighbour of Dronington, a man singularly addicted to the theoretical and practical maintenance of absolute monarchy, took it into his ducal head to inves- 20 THE FLIRT tigate Sir Richard's projects of education for his heir apparent; to suggest a Reverend Nicode- mus Fagg, M.A. as his private tutor, and to insist upon the paramount necessity of classical proficiency to every English gentleman of mo- dern times. " An English gentleman" is one of those cant phrases of the day which are in- troduced on all occasions to fill up deficien- cies of personal definition. — Poor Sir Richard had always fancied himself " an English gentle- man" when, on a distant glimpse of his broad- brimmed hat and white corduroys in the High Street of his county-town, every head was un- covered, and All men cried, * God save him !' or when feasting his tenantry on rent-days, Christmas days, and other highdays and holi- days ; or, when complimented from the Treasury bench on his luminous exposition of the state of public opinion in his native county. He now found he had been mistaken. How could it be otherwise, when his very good friend the Duke of Dronington said so, or so implied? — He OF TEN SEASONS. 21 resolved that Master Burford should have plenty of Horace and Pindar drummed into his head to compensate his father's deficiencies, and qua- hfy the future proprietor of Langdale to become *' anEnghsh gentleman !" Nicodemus Fagg was accordingly installed in his functions at Langdale House, and certainly spared neither Greek nor Latin on his pupil. Burford, who was always a grave heavy child, became a solemn plausible boy, a pedantic man ; and his painstaking tutor, — while he laboriously fulfilled the intentions of the Duke of Droning- ton, by teaching young Raymond's political ideas to shoot as exactly in accordance with those of his Grace as if every twig had been nailed up over the old gothic gateway of Dro- nington Manor, — fancied himself repaying Sir Richard's liberal salary by obtaining for his son the highest honours of Eton and the University. Burford Raymond was the first man of his year ; and, between ourselves and the reader, one of the coldest dullest egotists who ever detected a false concord, or prosed over the intricacies of Greek prosody. 22 THE FLIRT It is not to be imagined that so complete a prodigy of erudition would content himself with Squire-ifying for life at Langdale House ; listen- ing to his mother's rheumatic grievances, or carving venison for the corporation of ^ ^ * * * — after an obscure season passed in the me- tropolis, where his personal insignificancy af- forded a lesson more afflicting than profitable, he persuaded the good old Baronet that it was indispensable for " an English gentleman'' to travel ; and as no family living was just then va- cant to recompense the exertions of Nicodemus, the dominie considerately agreed to become the post- chaise companion of his quondam pupil. Most young men of twenty-four would have voted the society of a pedagogue superfluous in such an exigency. But Burford Raymond entertained no projects of amusement in which the presence of the divine was likely to prove embarassing. He had no thoughts of visiting Paris ; no cu- riosity respecting Berlin, Vienna, Florence, or Naples ; but was earnestly bent on a pilgrimage to The spot where Troy once stood, and nothing stands ; OF TEN SEASONS. 23 and eager to examine into the rites and relics of mythological idolatry in the Archipelago. He cared nothing for Mont Blanc or Vesu- vius, the Louvre or the Vatican; but his am- bition was roused to ascertain whether Lacede- monian broth is still eaten black in Misitra. From these erudite researches, Burford Ray- mond, like other monkeys who see the world, returned with a solemn physiognomy, a vocabu- lary of polysyllabic words, a collection of well- turned phrases, and the coterie-reputation of being one of the most learned men in Europe. He became an F.S.A. an F.R.S. and every other sort of fellow excepting always a good fellow ; — still priding himself on being " an English gentleman," though whether he pos- sessed the generous and honourable sentiments characteristic of that distinction, or had added one iota to the stock of human knowledge such as might entitle him to the alphabetical honours attached to his patronymic, is highly proble- matical. He became, however, on the strength of his classical travels, a dining-out lion; and executed several bon-mots wnich were accepted 24i THE FLIRT as stock pieces in the repertory of the clubs. A well-sounding name, and the two thousand per annum allowed by his father, afforded a creditable footing in society ; and in the course of twelve years wholly and solely devoted to the task, he contrived to establish his reputation as a most accomplished scholar, a " man of wit and fashion about town." He lived indeed in a small but very select circle, wherein his sayings were pre-assured of applause ; and his doings, muiute as they were, ran no chance of being brought to shame by the lofty deeds of his com- petitors. In a word, he was now " Bur ford Raymond;" a man to quote — a personage; nor would any human being have presumed to suspect his affinity to the Dorsetshire baronet, with the broad-brimmed beaver and hunting cords. But with all the admiration entertained by Sir Richard for his illustrious son, it would seem that he was apt to regard the learned Pundit as better versed in Pausanius or Euripides, than in Coke, Blackstone, or Burn's Justice ; — seldom consulting the sage of Albany respecting his OF TEN SEASONS. 25 family affairs, and never in those where worldly wisdom was to merge in active liberality. Sir Richard undertook, for instance, the main- tenance of little Harry without one word of reference to the dining-out dictator ; and was in the habit of inviting the young and lovely Mary Raymond to pass the summer at Langdale, without the slightest regard to Burford's dis- pleasure on observing such an a<:ldition to their family circle. Perhaps the groper of antiquities might have been less disposed to opposition on the subject, had he not found reason to suspect that one of the motives of his parents in placing their fair relative so determinately in his way, was to suggest a future ladyship for Langdale House. But Burford was not the man to receive suff- o gestions. He thought it necessary to mark his sense of Sir Richard and Lady Raymond's presumption, by demeaning himself towards Mary with as much supercilious respect as if she had been queen of the Sandwich Islands : while Miss Raymond, too little versed in the airs of London coterieism to apprehend the VOL. I. C 26 THE FLIRT meaning of the solemn coxcomb, looked upon him in return as a very curious specimen of a class of animals quite new to her ; and on many occasions perplexed his dignity by the naivete and pertinacity of her questions respecting the manners and customs of his section of society. It was peculiarly disgusting to Burford Ray- mond when these indiscretions of speech chanced to occur in the presence of the Duchess of Dronington, and her daughter Lady Caroline Ilderfield. What opinions would they form of his connexions, on learning that he had a family of cousins living at Fulham, who knew not where Almacks was situated, nor whether it were the name of a man, house, street, or square ; and that one of them, moreover, was so deficient in tact, as to amend her ignorance by public inqui- ries on the subject. But Mary Raymond was incorrigible ; Lady Caroline had frequently put up her glass at her, without abashing her into nothingness ! while the Duchess had twice called her " that young person," without ren- dering her at all conscious of her own insigni- ficance. OF TEN SEASONS. 2t' Nor was this the worst aspect of the affair. Another member of the Ilderfield family, now began to amuse himself with raising a glass to Miss Raymond's beautiful face and sparkling eyes. The young Marquis of Stone- ham — a very ladylike young man just returned from the Continent — had openly avowed his opinion that she was the prettiest girl in the county, and marked his intention of honouring her with his patronage ; on which hint Burford, instead of courting the chance of getting rid of the intruder from Langdale by making her a Marchioness, became more shocked than ever by her presumption in effecting such a conquest ! Maiy Raymond, — a poor relation, — a girl who thought herself fortunate when Sir Richard put a ten pound note into her hand to buy her a new dress ; — she to aspire to the honours of Droning- ton Manor ? — Monstrous ! — Burford was nearly as much distressed as their Graces the Droning- tons themselves ! The Duke indeed commenced on this occasion an attack upon the persuadeabi- lity of Sir Richard, almost as direct as that he had formerly practised in favour of Nicodemus c 2 28 THE FLIRT Fagg. He rode over to Langdale, and enter- tained his worthy neighbour a full hour tete- a-tete in the library, with the avowal of his uneasiness lest " that showy-looking girl whom Lady Raymond chose to keep about her should attract the attention of his young friend Mr. Burford Raymond. Marriages between cousins were such bad things — such very dangerous things : — no extension of the family connexion, — no cross in the race ! He ventured strongly to recommend his dear Sir Richard to dispatch Miss Raymond back to her friends." But his dear Sir Richard was as inflexible on this point as he had been on that of assuring a provision to little Harry. " Miss Raymond was with her friends — was engaged to pass the winter and spring at Langdale. He was not ambitious of an extension of his connexion ; not solicitous about a cross in the race ; not alarmed on Burford's account ; — his son might marry Mary as soon as he pleased." Unfortunately old Dronington was perfectly well aware that he did not please ; that all her charms and all her captivations were and would OF TEX SEASONS. 29 remain at the service of his own son Lord Stoneham. He had long felt a distaste towards the family at Langdale on account of Burford's pretensions to the hand of his daughter ; and this second instance of Raymond ambition almost overpowered him. The Duke had some consolation in knowing that he had nothing to apprehend from Lady Caroline's favourablt; reception of the suit of the son ; but he saw no means of evading Stoneham's perverse predilec- tion for the poor relation. Even were his Grace to quit Dronington with his family and pass the winter at one of his seven other seats, it would be impossible to control the movements of a full-grown puppy, or impose the authority of a bear-leader or head-nurse upon a young gentle- man who had already officiated as one of the junior lords of His Majesty's Treasury. All that could be done by his desponding parents in his defence, was to fill Dronington INIanor with groups of young ladies as pretty and witty, but better born and better bred than this hundred and nineteenth cousin of a Dorsetshire Baronet. They could not indeed (while such a 30 THE FLIRT thing as electioneering interests remained to be considered) entirely exclude the Raymonds from a participation in the gaieties which were the result of these importations, nor refuse a formal dinner-party at Langdale House in return; but they resolved to crush both Mary and her pompous cousin into absolute annihilation by the mere force of contrast, — the mere superiority of fashion. OF TEN SEASONS. 31 CHAPTER III. He sets out his feathers like an owl, to swell and seem bigger than he is ; he is troubled with a tumour and inflammation of self-conceit, that renders him stiff and uneasy, Butler. Langdale House was a mansion of the old cast; square, solid, respectable and hideous. It was situated in a fine park, but so completely on the verge of the estate as to invalidate the benefit of its fine woods and majestic stream; and with a thousand noble situations begging to be built upon, chose to stand on the very verge of a solitary unsheltered hill, apparently re- quiring a prop to maintain it on its unstable footing. Notwithstanding its extent and dignity of proportion, the red brick of which the house 32 THE FLIRT was composed, contrasting with the plantations of firs and Weymouth pines which the present Baronet had tried to coax into growth to dis- guise its nakedness, gave it a trivial and vulgar appearance. Lord Stoneham and his St. James's Street friends called it " Le Chateau de Rouge et Noir." The interior of the mansion was precisely accordant with its external promise. It was cold, rectangular, roomy, and comfortless ; and Mary, who was adjudged by her cousin so unne- cessarily fortunate in being translated from the cottage at Fulham to the higher see of Lang- dale, was apt to fancy that her mother's cheerful abode, with all its little modernisms, the gifts of her son or the results of the industry of her daughters, was a far pleasanter place than the vast " parlour" in which Lady Raymond, her pug and her worsted-work, took their station morning after morning, amid hard highbacked mahogany chairs, and black narrow refulgent mahogany tables — sans books, sans flowers, sans taste, sans every thing; two newspapers (the Dorchester Evening and metropolitan Morning OF TEN SEASONS. 83 Chronicle) alone connecting the scene with the passing day. The Baronet was in fact a holy hater of innovation ; he had no notion why the library chair which had been sufficiently commodious for his father Sir Henry, should be too hard for himself, Sir Richard; and if Rachel, third Lady Raymond, had contented herself with a square board by way of di-essing- table, he considered it absurd to extend the fantastical improvements of modern art to Lady Raymond the sixth. He was no frequenter of shops, no coveter of superfluous movables ; and with the exception of Burford Raymond's sealed apartments, which he had rendered a facsimile of his chambers in the Albany, there was not a room in the house but threatened martyrdom to a lounger. The Baronet was in fact one of those unas- piring persons who are content to live within the limits of their income, without grasping at all the enjoyments, or affecting all the follies, created by the opulence of a wealthier class. But it is evident that penuriousness was not the origin of his predilection for his threadbare c 5 34j the flirt fustian curtains and chain-stitch chairs. A nig- gardly man would not have set apart a provision for an orphan kinsman, nor thrown a portionless beauty in the way of his heir-apparent. Per- haps he was not a lover of luxury ; — perhaps the gratification of an easy conscience was in his opinion a better promoter of a comfortable doze, than that of an easy chair or eider-down mat- trassr Nothing could be more diverting than the air of discomfort with which the Duchess of Dro- nington sat mounted on the state sofa, and Lady Caroline on a high-arched satin fauteuil, on occasion of those annual dinners at Langdale House which brought them into melancholy contact with their contemptible neighbours Lord and Lady Soho (who had just crept into the peerage with their half dozen Honourable Misters and Misses Compton) ; their more con- temptible neighbours Mr. Mrs. and the two Miss Dechiminis ; and their most contemptible neighbours the dunny Vicar Dr. Docket, and the injured curate Mr. Rubric. From these parties, (a tribute from the ma- OF TEN SEASONS. 85 ternal tenderness of the Duchess of Dronington to her son's parHamentary career) Burford Ray- mond contrived to absent himself; for they usually occurred in the month of October, when he went pheasant-shooting to his mother's Norfolk estates. He had scarcely courage to see Lady Caroline Ilderfield's sneering eye making a catalogue of that " ancient most domestic furniture" he was so anxious to convert into the goods and chattels of her own jointure- house ; and never did the Duke and Duchess of Dronington set foot in Langdale House, but he felt heartily ashamed of his old fashioned father and mother, their old fashioned saloon, and old fashioned modes of hospitality. By some ill-timed arrangement on the part of Sir Richard, on occasion of Mary's last and wonder-working visit, his son was on the spot to do the honours of the hetacomb offered up to their Graces of Dronington ; and bitter indeed was his vexation on observing throughout its tedious courses, the piteous expression of weariness and malaise visible in the party. He, whose field of triumph was the field of the cloth of damask, 36' THE FLIRT whose victorious course was that second course of a dinner party which is as favourable to the sayersas to the eaters of good things, — he, Burford Raymond, learned to hail with delight the awful moment when butlers announce the illumination of the drawing-room ; — -when gloves and hand- kerchiefs are assiduously scrambled for under the table, till many plethoric gentleman assumes the complexion of a turkey cock ; — when young ladies scud like a flight of lapwings in all the delicate embarrassment of undecided precedence, while the dowagers rustle from the room like seventy fours and three-deckers leading a fleet out of harbour. Burford Raymond noted with disgust the ad- miring glances cast by the young Marquis at Mary as she glided past his chair ; but it would have called forth still deeper indignation had he known the easy self-possession with which soon afterwards she sat conversing with his lordship's haughty sister, in the room which Lady Ray- mond thought proper to nominate her bou- doir. The fault was Lady Caroline's; who, with all her contempt for Miss Raymond's ringlets and fashionless air, found her a degree OF TEN SEASONS. 3T more endurable than the Comptons and Dechi- minis, whom she could not honour by a similar familiarity without the chance of finding her acquaintance claimed by them in London. Havinor led the way to the little sanctum whi- ther she knew their companions would not pre- sume to follow uninvited, she screwed herself up with a most repining countenance into one of the great carved settees ; and gave vent to her impertinence by tormenting Mary with a thou- sand questions, without listening for the reply, and with a thousand details in reply to questions which Mary had never asked. "You have have a brother in the Guards, I think. Miss Raymond ? — I often meet him at Almacks, and the sort of public places where one meets every body." " On the contrary, my brother never — " " Exactly ! — Very tall, with red hair. He would be a very good waltzer if he had the lea.st idea of time, but — " " I assure you that Henry — " " They would have it last season tliat he was going to be married to Lady Gertrude Mild- 88 THE FLIRT hurst; but I have very good reason to suppose he was only flirting with her married sister; and — " " You are quite mistaken in — " " Ah ! well — I dare say I was wrong. Lady Gertrude is a very pretty girl ; and though by no means in a good set, and too English in her tone, she is tolerably popular, independent of the attraction of those fifty thousand pounds, which Mr. Raymond, — Captain Raymond — Captain is he ? — found so irresistible." " Believe me. Lady Caroline " — " No ! I really never trust to sisterly exculpa- tions. Adela Richmond and I settled one night at Lansdowne House — ^^ " Adela ! — then you know " — " Very true ! — I see you agree with us that a younger brother is just as excusable in attach- ing himself to an heiress, as a younger sister to an elder son. Adela declares that the very notion of being a Mrs. Henry, or a Mrs. Charles, would drive her to distraction." " Drive her to distraction ! " retorted Mary ; " my cousin Adela's proceedings — ' " " Your cousin ? " — cried Lady Caroline^ now really anxious for a reply. " Is Adela a cousin OF TEN SEASONS. 39 of yours, and of all these Langdale people ? — I never should have guessed it." " Not of all these Langdale people, — if you mean — '' " Sir Richard and her ladyship, and their learned son? '* " Adela Richmond is my mother's niece ; the Raymonds are relations on my father's side." *' Ah ! very true. I remember hearing her say that it was the destiny of the last gene- ration of Miss Raymonds to marry in some unfortunate way or other ; and that she had made up her mind to amend the matrimonial destinies of the Germaine family." "I hope she may fulfil her intentions," observed Mary in a tone of pique. " And yet—" " She has every chance that beauty and fashion can give," said Lady Caroline sneeringly. " One of my younger brothers took it into his head to fall desperately in love with her as soon as she came out ; and Mamma was seriously uneasy about it. But I pacified her by the assurance, that so long as an heir apparent was 40 THE FLIRT to be had in London, Horace ran no danger ; and, just as I predicted, she refused him at the end of the season, in company with half a dozen other despairing swains, not one of whom filled up the measure of her ambition." " Not one of whom had managed to engage her affections, I conclude," added Mary gravely. "I rather fancy Adela has no affections to engage," observed the impartial Lady Caroline. Either her heart was already gone, or she was born without one." " I will answer for it that she had one, and a very warm one too, when we were all children together. But Lady Germaine is a very worldly woman ; and perhaps may have rendered Adela as calculating as herself." " Perhaps so ; it remains to be proved whether ihey calculate wisely. They seem to forget that human life is precarious; and that when Lady Germaine's jointure goes, Adela will only have her pretty face and a few thousand pounds to push her on in the world. An only child and without any opulent connexions, what on earth would become of her in the event of her mother's death ! " OF TEN SEASONS. 41 " Poor girl ! " said Mary, shuddering at any allusion to the death of a mother. " And yet she has been rash enough to refuse Mr. Browze, — that great huge vulgar man with a Yorkshire estate as larore as himself; and Sir Hector Mackenzie, who brought back that noble fortune last year from Calcutta !" '* Indeed ! — then after all," said Mary, se« cretly reverting to the girl and boy attachment between Adela and her brother Harry, "my cousin may not be so heartless as I thought ; after all she may prove herself superior to the temptations of a mercenary match." " Heartless ? — Why what do you imagine to have been her inducement in rejecting Sir Hec- tor and Bronze ? — Affection for my brother Horace, or some other chivalrous knight with the horrors of a small competence to allure her to St. George's Church ? — No, no ! my dear Miss Raymond, — I cannot believe that so much unsophistication of mind exists even at Langdale. — " " What could have been her motive ? " in- quired Mary. 42 THE FLIRT * « Her mother's, you mean ;— for my friend Adela had Httle voice in the business. Why of course to form a better connexion. Lady Germaine has been manoeuvring to get Stone- ham to lier house all the spring; — and young Lord Westerham appeared really struck by Adela's beauty; — and Colonel Rawford, Lord Rawford's eldest son, is always dangling after her. In short, she is the fashion ; — and Lady Germaine fancies she may marry whom she pleases. But both mother and daughter may find themselves mistaken. Marrying and flirting are too very different modes of amusement." " Marrying and flirting are two very dif- ferent modes of amusement !" exclaimed young Dechimini, with most provoking mimicry, hav- ing entered the boudoir on tiptoe without the smallest deference to the dignity of the two young ladies. " Raymond ! — will you believe that Lady Caroline has actually decoyed your fair cousin into this lonely chamber to impart a lesson in fashionable ethics." Burford was furious that a Mr. Dechimini, OF TEN SEASONS. 43 an undistinguished individual with a plebeian name, should presume to " Raymond" Azm, or degrade Lady Caroline Ilderfield to the level of his cousin Mary. "Remington, my dear fellow!" cried Mr. Dechimini to Lord Soho's eldest son, who now entered the boudoir, (a young man who, in spite of his connexion with a new peerage, was looked up to as one of the most eminent of the rising generation, — whose society was welcomed by the grey-beards of law and literature, as ea- gerly as by the men of his own standing) " Re- mington, do pray come and try your eloquence in persuading Lady Caroline to extend her course of lectures. For my part, I am dying to learn in what sort and degree the amuse- ments of flirting and wedlock are incompa- tible ; or by what lapse of discretion Miss Ray- mond has subjected herself to the homily." " Will you join the Duchess ?" — said Burford Raymond in a low tone to Lady Caroline, offer- ing her his arm to conduct her into the other room; and too indignant to remonstrate with the son of a Dorsetshire squire, who presumed 44 THE FLIRT to apostrophise so familiarly the only daughter of the Duke of Dronington. " Thank you, replied the young lady, who had no objection to flirt or be flirted with by the young Comptons when no better diver- sion was at her disposal, " I came here to avoid the unendurable heat of the other room.'' " Unendurable! How completely a lady's word," cried Dechimini again ; nothing daunted by the dry lofty disdain of the classical profi- cient. " Your ladyship has nothing to apprehend from the atmosphere of the drawing-room," in- terposed Burford very stiffly; " the doors have been opened into the library." . . " I wish the bookworm would profit by the circumstance, and betake himself to his proper latitude," whispered the young Squire to Remington Compton, who stood with his keen satirical eye fixed upon the mincing af- fectation of Lady Caroline, the solemn af- fectation of her admirer ; and secretly ponder- ing over the dulness and embarrassment which the presence of a single disagreeable or fasti- dious person spreads around him ; — when a ge- OF TEN SEASONS. 45 neral murmur of satisfaction and gratulation was heard in the adjoining apartment. Sir Richard's voice rose to its highest pitch of ex- ultation; Lord Soho's hand was heard inflict- ing a friendly slap on the back of some new comer ; Miss Compton smiled, — Lady Ray- mond's pug capered and frisked, — and Burford stood aghast while in the midst of it all — " Ay, ay ! Harry will find his way to them without much prompting," uttered in the cor- dial voice of his father, announced to him the inopportune arrival of young Henry Raymond ! In another minute the brother of Mary was among them ; imprinting an affectionate kiss on her cheek, receiving a most gracious bow and smile from Lady Caroline, shaking hands cor- dially with Compton and Dechimini, and re- spectfully with the learned Albanyan himself; in his morning dress, redolent of the freshness of the external atmosphere, his hands and face Sflowins: with the chill air throuo^h which he had been tiavelling (the monster!) on the top of a Dorchester coach. Burford Raymond was scandalized beyond 46 THE FLIRT measure at the disclosure of such a circumstance in presence of the Dronington party. He could have annihilated the indelicate intruder on the spot; more particularly when Lady Caroline, instead of maintaining her usual air of languid apathy, brightened up to laugh and talk witli the young Guardsman; of whom she had a thousand inquiries to make respecting their friend Lady Gertrude Mildhurst, — their friend This, their friend Lady That, Lord and above all, respecting his cousin Adela Richmond. It was surprising how soon the formality of the party gave way before the influence of Henry's popular manners and cordial tone. Every body liked him. Even the dense old Duke had always fifty questions to put respect- ing his regiment, in which he had himself served when Marquis of Stoneham about the middle of the preceding century. The present femi- nine Lord of that name, whose absence from England had precluded any acquaintance with the protege of his father's quizzy neighbour Sir Richard Raymond, advanced to beg Mary would present him to her brother ; and Harry OF TEN SEASONS. 47 soon found himself carried off to a window, after the fashion of the Ilderfield set, to whisper away the remainder of the evening in the most un- meaning mystery, instead of being able to de- liver to Sir Richard the newspapers, and letters, and parcels, and messages he had charged him- self withal; or to her ladyship the product of the innumerable commissions he had exe- cuted at her bidding. It would have been long enough before Burford condescended to become postman to his old father, or light porter to his old mother ! — no wonder he had the mortification of perceiving how much more • welcome at Langdale was the arrival of his tall, frank, handsome, animated, good-humoured, genuine cousin, — dian his own frigid, selfish, well-bred, supercilious entrte. He could have forgiven them all except Lady Caroline Ilder- field : — but really she might have known better ! 48 THK FLIJIT CHAPTER IV. Should any novice in the rhyming trade With lawles pen the realms of verse invade, Forth from the conrt where scepter'd sages sit — Abused with praise and flattered into wit — Legions of factious authors start. Churchill. When Burford Raymond announced him- self to be under the necessity of returning to town the day following the arrival of Harry at Langdale House, it never occurred to his kind- hearted old father and mother that jealousy of his young relative was the motive of this sudden journey ; so little indeed, that Sir Richard ac- tually presumed to enquire whether he could not remain another day or two, and take back Henry, who had only a week's leave of absence. OF TEN SEASONS. 49 " It is my intention. Sir, to go round by Newbury, and sleep at Lord Rawford's." " So much the better ! — I am sure my friend Rawford will be very glad to see the boy." " It does not enter into my plan. Sir, to im- pose the company of Mr. Henry Raymond, or that of any other member of his family, on the patience of those who only endure it from re- spect to ourselves." " I fancy you will find," replied his father, somewhat tartly, " that very little of the re- spect due to ourselves is encroached upon for patience to bear the company of a fine, likely^ manly fellow like Harry, or of a beautiful girl like Mary. Nature has given them a letter of introduction, that makes them welcome wher- ever they go." Burford Raymond's departure was evidently a relief to every one at Langdale, even to the worthy old Baronet and his wife ; who, proud as they were of their only son, could not but perceive that he considered himself advanced a century before themselves in refinement and knowledge of the world, as well as a whole class VOL, I. D 50 THE FLIRT above them in personal importance. Even the warm-hearted Henry, who involuntarily in- cluded every thing at Langdale in his gratitude to the founder of his fortunes, was painfully em- barrassed by the awkwardness of his position relative to his ungracious kinsman; and as to Mary, however guarded on the subject in pre- sence of Sir Richard and the old lady, she dis- guised neither from her brother nor herself, that Mr. Raymond was her physical and moral aversion. — He was so ugly, so hard, so coolly insolent ! — What was his conventional reputa- tion to her ? — One of the first objects of her first tete-a-tete with Henry, after due enquiries touching the health and happiness of the little dove's nest at Fulham, was to ascertain how much was to be held authentic of Lady Caroline Ilderfield's por- trait of their cousin Adela ; whether he had seen much of Lady Germaine, — and whether — but no! she had not courage to interrogate him con- cerning his feelings towards them both. Harry meanwhile was little inclined to trifle with her curiosity. No sooner had he given his bulletin OF TEN SEASONS. 51 of Margaret's winter-cough, and his opinion of the extraordinary development of Jane's musical talents, than he commenced, in a voice that did not tremble much — ojily a little in the beginning of the history — a narrative of Miss Richmond's conduct towards him; and it was with wonder and indignation that Mary heard how Adela had loner since dismissed him to the footing of a common acquaintance; how much she had been admired and followed during the season ; and how eagerly both Lady Germaine and her- self had shown diemselves for the increase of her followers and admirers. " Lady Caroline's assertion then is true, that Adela has become a most decided flirt?'* " Quite true ; — and she is still so beautiful! " *' And that she has been absolutely laying siege to the attentions of men. who had shown no pretensions to her favour? " " Exactly ; but Adela is surrounded by wilU ing votaries ; by men who would, lay down their lives for her ! " " And she will accept none of them?" " Lady Germaine is the accepting partv in D 2 $2 THE FLIRT these nlatters ; and I can perceive that the sen- sation -Adela has produced in society has in- flated her ambition beyond all bounds. That she should disregard my attachment to her daughter, and that which I presume to believe hei* daughter once entertained for me, I can o forgive ; perhaps it was her maternal duty to act as she has done towards us. But several of Miss Richmond's new admirers are men of rank, — several of them men of fortune, — and — " " Any of them men of merit ? '^ inquired Mary, with a look of grave indignation. " That is a point of indifference to my aunt» Of two things she would prefer a roue to a saint, lest Adela should be withdrawn from the stare of society, and her own amusements be interfered with by her son-in-law. But wealth and high blood arc indispensable quali- fications; and till they unite in some pre- tendant to my cousin's hand, Adela's opinion of her host of lovers will never even be asked." " Meanwhile she will go flirting on, and be- come heartless and frivolous, and — " " Every thing a v/oman of fashion ought to OF TEN SEASONS. 53 be ! — Lady Germaine is enchanted with her daughter's improvement in looks and manners^; while Margaret and Jane (in a glimpse they had of her in a morning visit at the old Duchess of RackwelFs) thought her sadly altered for the worse : — still beautiful, as Adela always must be, — but so artificial, — so manierte ! " " Poor Adela ! " exclaimed Mary, " I fear we shall live to see her a disappointed and un- happy woman." " And what is all this Sir Richard has been telling me about Lord Stoneham, my dear Mary?" — retorted her brother, eager to divert the conversation from Adela's crimes and mis- demeanours. '^ Lady Raymond is of opinion that you have made a most important conquest." " Self-important she means. Yes, my dear Henry, Lord Stoneham actually condescends to speak to me, look at me, and honour me by his languid smiles of approbation; to hint, to me that it is not absolutely impossible he may deign to overlook the monstrous disproportion between us; and what is still more extraordi- nary, he has a flither, mother, and sister, stupid 54 THE FLIRT enough to conceive it possible I shall profit by his excess of condescension, and be alarmed lest I should snatch at the opportunity of becoming Duchess of Dronington ! — Silly people ! " " They do not know my little Mary*s spirit and sense of her own dignity," said Henry, laughing at her indignant air. " But she^ too, has a mother and sisters, and on this occasion must not wholly overlook their interests." " How, Henry ! — Have you also been per- verted by Lady Germaine's admonitions, to be- come the advocate of mercenary marriages ? " Far from it ! — Heaven knows, I should be sorry to see a sister of mine united to a prince on such temptations. But Lord Stoneham is highly spoken of in the world as an honourable, gentle- manly young man ; and I should regret that you threw away the chance of a happy and pros- perous marriage, on the mere pique of a young lady's wounded consequence, or for the sake of prejudices excited against him by Burfbrd Ray- mond's sneers. Do not be precipitate, my dear Mary." Yet in spite of these brotherly cautions, Mary OF TEN SEASONS. 55 was precipitate. Disgusted by the air of non- chalance with whicli, after Harry's departure for London, the young Marquis was in the habit of establishing himself morning after morning in " the parlour," with Lady R. her pug worsted work and poor relation, and by the rigid aus- terity of demeanour preserved towards her on every occasion by all the members of the Dro- nington family, she closed her eyes and heart against the professions of ardent devotion with which Lord Stoneham finally tendered himself and his brilliant prospects to her acceptance; and even uttered her decisive rejection without one qualifying compliment — one expression of gratitude for his affection ! — The amazement of the ducal tribe knew no bounds. Scarcely could her aunt CJermaine have been more astonished at the notion of the heir of the Droningtons meeting with a repulse in such a quarter ; and even Sir Richard and Lady Raymond, although they secretly avowed to each other a suspicion that Mary's magnanimous disinterestedness arose solely from a predilection for their own in- comparable son, — the old bachelor of the Al- 56 THE FLIRT bany, — were almost inclined to wonder that even Burford Raymond should be able to cast into the shade the supereminent grandeur and dignity of Dronington Manor. It was made an especial request to them by their lovely pro- tegee that no rumour of the circumstance should transpire. She was particularly anxious that her mother should not be vexed by a knowledge of the difficulty she had found in sacrificing her own inclination — her own pride — for the advan- tage of her family. With one brother a lieu- tenant of artillery, another an ensign in the Guards, and a third at Haileybury College pre- paring for banishment to Madras, she felt almost unpardonable for having entertained any scruples about becoming a duchess. It is not to be supposed that the Baronet copartite thought it necessary to disappoint its paternal and maternal vanity by keeping the fact, and its own surmises thereupon, a secret from Burford Raymond. Sir Richard on his next meeting with his son, frankly declared his opinion that the beautiful Mary had cheerfully sacrificed her brilliant prospects to a hopeless OF TEN SEASONS. 37 attachment for the topographer of Troy ; while Mr. Raymond looked grave — was very sorry for her — be^rojed that his mother would remon- strate with the young person on her absurd infatuation — and seriously assured his father that something better was expected of him in society than to throw himself away on so obscure an individual. He said nothing, however, of his long concocted scheme of increasing his county consequence by an alliance with Lady Caroline Ilderfield; and maintained a similar caution when, three months afterwards, his proposals to that effect were very pompously declined by his Grace her father. I'he Droningtons were de- lighted with an opportunity of giving blow for blow, refusal for refusal, to their presumptuous neighbours of Lans^dale House. Whatever might be Burford's mortification on the subject, it was not of the garrulous order. He never v/as heard to mention Lady Caroline's name again ; and as the DroningtOns belonged to a very different London set from that in which he had so long flourished his laurels, he returned to his usual circle to say and eat good things, D 3 ^8 THE FLIRT to be admired, quoted, invited, and listened to, without any apprehension of finding his disap- pointment the subject of a lampoon : — when, lo ! a circumstance occurred which set the reading public, and more particularly that little literary ant-hill in which Burford Raymond was a fetcher and carrier of straws, into an uproar of wonder and investigation. A poem made its appearance, unenhanced by any claptrap on the part of its publisher, — unan- nounced as the work of any illustrious and mys- terious individual, or of one of the muses living in lodgings in May Fair, — of O. P. Q. or the ghost of Lord Byron. Yet in spite of this unos- tentatious debut, it was hailed by the critics, both professional and honorary, as the finest thing that had startled the public mind for years. Rogers acknowledged its perfection, Holland House echoed its praises; and even the Quarterly Review had neither a misplaced comma nor a questionable moral sentiment to detect. It was sterlini^, — admitted at sioht amonff the classics of English literature ! Yet no one fathered the bantling. Its fame OF TEN SEASONS. 59 grew and grew ; edition after edition issued from the press; but not a syllable transpired respecting its authorship. Burford Raymond, like all the rest of the tittle-tattling blues, was in a fever of curiosity. He would have given much for only a distant surmise of the writer, to whisper about as- a noveltv among; the members of his wonder- ing coterie. He forgot his disastrous suit, and even Mary Raymond's unhappy passion for himself, in the eagerness of canvassing, cri- ticising, quoting, applauding and conjecturing; his whole mind was filled with interest respecting the " prodigy that had made its appearance in the republic of letters." His Dorsetshire neighbour. Remington Compton, even earned some credit with him by the able manner in which he set forth its merits in a spirited article in the Edinburgh Review ; — in a woid, poor Burford could neither eat, drink, nor sleep, except with reference to the poem. The Baronet his father, and his mother, Avas seriously afflicted by seeing him so strangely- absorbed by a matter which left them very little hope of a realization of their matrimonial pro- 60 THE FLIRT jects ; and would gladly have seen the tuneful Nine drowned in their own Helicon, to make way for Mary, or some other mundane damsel of equal merit. They had very little suspicion how mighty was the influence likely to be exer- cised by the new poem and its writer, over the conjugal destinies of their son. OF TEN SEASONS. CHAPTER V. Women who, confident and self-possessed, By vanity's unwearied finger dress'd, Forget tlie LKish that virgin fears impart To modest cheeks, and borrow one from art- Are just such trifles, without worth or use, As silly pride and vanity produce; Curl'd, scented, furbelow'd, and flounced around, With feet too delicate to touch the ground. CoWPER. The beautiful Adela, meanwhile, was passing a most brilliant season at Brighton. In the il- luminated saloons of the Pavilion, (at that period enlivened by the voluptuous court of George IV.) her loveliness and elecjance found a congenial atmosphere; and the most refined of modern princes was heard to pronounce to Lady Ger- maine a verdict equally flattering and discern- ing on the charms of her graceful daughter. (>2 THE FLIRT Adela, delighted witli herself and all around her, increased every day in attractions — and pre- tensions ! After flirting through the winter, under a persuasion that a degree of popularity such as hers admitted of a relaxation of merely speculative views, — that she, under whose feet admirers started up at every step, might venture to amuse herself for a time without any direct regard to the special license and the diamond necklace, — returned to town just before Easter, eager to start on the course of London dissipa- tion. When, just as she had prepared her finery for the season, lier grandmother, the only surviving relative of Lady Germaine, was at- tacked by a severe, and, as the physicians thought proper to assert, a mortal illness. But it was not the prospect of its mortality which so roused the sympathy pf Adela; — the malady was lin- gering as well as dangerous; and as grandmamma not only chanced to have some little property at her disposal, but was an elderly lady of con- siderable testiness and tenaciousness on points of personal respect, Adela was condemned to seclusion till the crisis of her ladyship's death or OF TEN SEASONS. 63 recovery. Her white crape, like the green leaves in the song, " all turned yellow ;" and instead of Almacks and Kensington Gardens, she was obliged to purr away the months of May, June, and July, in attendance on a frac- tious narrow-minded old woman ; who, after all, thought proper to disavow the decree of the Doctors, disappoint her annuitants, and re-as- sume the control of her own banker's book. The murmurs vented by Lady Germaine on the occasion it is needless to transcribe. Unthink- ing woman ! — She had no hesitation in offering to her own daughter the heinous example of filial ingratitude ! — And thus the month of August found Adela unwearied by the vigils of a single ball, un- perplexed by the suit of a single worshipper. " Browze, Esq. and Lady .Emily Browze," were announced as having departed to Italy on a bridal tour ; Lady Westerham's wedding- clothes were exhibiting on all the counters in London ; and Colonel Rawford was to be seen riding every day in the Park with his bride-electj the fashionable widow Lady Har- 64 THE FLIRT man. Lord Stonebam was gone abroad ; and of all ber votaries, the only one at borne, and still disenojasfed, was the contemned Henrv Raymond, — with whom chance brought her oc- casionally in contact during Lady Germaine's confinement with her invalid mother. But although Adela Richmond thought proper to accept his arm in ber solitary walk in Ken- sington Gardens, while ber carriage waited at the ffate : althouirb she extended her band for the rose which every day be brought as a senti- mental pledge to his beautiful cousin ; and en- dured, if she did not piecisely return, the pres- sure lavished by the young guardsman on ber band at parting, she bad not the slightest in- tention of accepting himself : — her views v/ere unaltered. She readily acceded to ber mother's proposal of an airing to Fulham soon after the old lady's recovery, without a suspicion that Lady Germaine's sudden intention of visiting " those Raymonds," arose from a discovery that the son of Henry's patron was still unmarried, — still to be had ; — with the positive reversion of ten thousand per annum, a baronetcy, and the OF TEN SEASONS. 65 option of a peerage. Having heard Burford Raymond considerably quoted in the beau monde since the abdication of Brummell L, she took it into her head to ascertain from her sister-in- law ^« what sort of a person was the son of that excellent creature Sir Richard ?" — or, in other words, whether he were likely to prove an eligi- ble match for Adela. Miss Richmond was now in her twentieth year ; and her Ladyship began ' to think it time she should be settled in life. The amiable couple put on a plausible face as they drove to the door ; mutually observing that '• it was a tremendous long time since they had been there, but that they must make the best of it." Lady Germaine sailed magnificently through the little flower-garden, and Adela followed, with lier accustomed mincing step of affectation ; as- suming the air — as they always did on occasion of their visits to " those Raymonds" — of de- scending goddesses, irradiating with their pre- sence some scene of vulsjar mortality. But they soon found there was no occasion to make the best of it. " Those Raymonds" were very well contented to accept die worst. The 66 THE FLIRT active, virtuous, frugal mother entertained so much contemptuous compassion for the fine- lady widow of her brother, that she had no in- clination to declare war against her neglect or her insolence ; while her daughters, really lov- ing and really pitying their cousin Adela, re- ceived her with all their usual smiles, if not their usual cordiality. It is possible they might feel inclined (particularly Margaret) to resent her hard-heartedness towards their brother ; but Harry invariably made it his entreaty that they would not on his account withdraw their good- will from the child of his earliest benefactor. Somewhat surprised by their Christian for- bearance. Lady Germain e was still more asto- nished at the remarkable change visible in the establishment of her sister-in-law. That look of indigence which was w^ont to jar so painfully against her own self-love, had entirely disap- peared. There was an appearance of comfort, of even elegance, in the sitting-room — of care and cultivation in the lawn ; while the dress and air of the three sisters were scarcely inferior in fashion to that of Adela herself. She, who OF TEN SEASONS. 67 had come prepared to patronize, to instruct, to depreciate, saw occasion to amend her own taste on a survey of " those Raymonds " and their little fairy palace. Moreover, she found Mr. Compton established among them on the most familiar footing ; a man who, thous^h only the son of a new peer, had already placed himself on a pedestal of his own, as one of the most eminent speakers and writers of the day ; and while Adela was still wondering to which of her three cousins his homage was addressed, she was startled by Henry's arrival, and the warm greeting bestowed upon him by his family. " I have brought you a present, dearest mo- ther," said he, secretly pleased with an opportu- nity of elevating her in presence of the scornful Lady Germaine ; "I have received a letter this morning from Lord Stoneham, who is now at Rome, begging me to solicit in his name your acceptance of this box of cameos. They seem very fine, and in sufficient abundance to gratify the vanity of yonder three silly girls." " Very fine indeed ! " said Lady Germaine, 68 THE FLIRT looking the other way as Mrs. Raymond opened the casket, and offered it for her inspection. " Very beautiful indeed, — if any one could devise a method of making them either useful or ornamental," echoed Adela. " At present they are chiefly useful," observed Mr. Compton, significantly, "in proving that my friend Stoneham has a constant as well as a tender heart. — I honour him." And as he uttered this oraccular sentence, Adela looked again most earnestly towards her cousins, to ascertain which of the three be- trayed consciousness on the occasion. But again she was at fault. Margaret and Jane loved Mary too dearly not to blush as deeply as herself on any allusion to a subject so interesting to her feelings. Adela was completely puzzled ! — Nor did Lady Germaine manage to enlighten herself in a more satisfactory manner with respect to the heir of Langdale House. All the interrogations, direct and indirect, she could venture to address to her sister-in-law on the subject, only availed to inform her that Burford Raymond was about to pass the Autumn in Dorsetshire; that Mary, OF TEN SEASONS. 69 Margaret, and Jane, had been invited severally and collectively to visit Sir Richard and Lady Raymond during the period of his stay; and that each and all preferred accompanying their mother to the Isle of Wight, whither the whole of the family was on the point of adjourning. Lady Germaine now rose to depart in a very ill humour. But while Harry was most assidu- ous in offering his arm to convey her to the car- riage, Mr. Compton remained fixed in his seat ; and instead of attending Adela to the door, drew his chair closer to the table with that air of release after the thraldom of a formal visit, which plainly says, " Now you are going, we shall all be very comfortable." She began to feel herself ill- used; — to decide that there was something odd, something wrong about " those Raymonds." What could they mean by such proceedings ? — the son of Lord Soho dangling after those portionless girls ! — She would take care that the parents of that flippant, easy Mr. Remington Compton received due hint and warning of the business. '70 THE FLIRT And then, the girls ! — Mary was growing very handsome to be sure ; but however rich the ringlets of her hah', what pretension had she to a comb like Adela's ? — Jane was a very pretty little girl, with a foot of tlie dimensions of Cinderella's; but was that a reason that her French gaiters should resemble those of Miss Richmond? — As for Mrs. Raymond herself, nothing could be plainer than that she was either running in debt on the chance of making an advantageous marriage for one of her daugh- ters ; or that she was herself privately married to that great lumbering yellow nabob old Orme, who had been so anxious to make her his own shortly after poor Raymond's decease. Lady Germaine desired her daughter would take an opportunity of cross-questioning Henry on all these matters. While the Fulham family were enjoying at once the brilliancy of their own prospects and those of the Isle of Wight, Adela and her mother found themselves most unsatisfac- torily planted for the Autumn in a dull dowa- ger house of grandmamma's, a place very unpro- OF TEN SEASONS. 71 pitious to any thing like matchmaking ; a dwelling over whose gateway Lady Germaine, the ma- noeuvrer, saw inscribed — Lasciate ogni progetto voi ch' entrate ! Tliere was however some consolation in this inopportune exile. Her daughter was secure at Colston from any communication with her cousin Henry ; ran no chance of collision with "those Raymonds;" and after five ironths of drowsy retirement, was likely to re-appear in the world more radiant, more beautiful than ever. But Lady Germaine relied too fondly on the good effects of country air, regular hours, and regular habits. Albeit herself considerably versed in the arts and mysteries of beauty or beautificaticn, she overlooked the fact so mani- fest to less prejudiced eyes, that there is a soft- ness, delicacy, purity, and transparency connect- ed with extreme youth, — a smile of girlhood, — a glance of perfect artlessness, which is seldom to be found after the 31st of December of their twentieth year ;— a charm which, evanescent as a rainbow, departs with the teens, and is incom- patible with the maturer pride of beautiful one- 72 THE FLIRT and-twenty. To a blonde like Adela, the epoch is arbitrary. The shghtest blemish traceable on the snow destroys its dazzling brightness; and though Miss Richmond might still claim precedence as one of the finest girls in London — as graceful, elegant, and accomplished — that overpowering brilliancy of beauty which had marked her debut^ was gone and for ever. Wholly unaw^are of the change, and possess- ing, it must be owned, strong inceiUives to vanity in the admiration which greeted her re-appear- ance in society at the commencement of the following season (Adela's third in town). Lady Germaine opened the campaign with a serious determination to render it decisive. Her daugh- ter had amused herself too long, — it was now time for business ; and severe instructions were issued from the war-office that every nerve should be strained, every resource put into ac- tivity to secure the field. But, alas ! her Lady- ship forgot that the tactics of great commanders reject all this parade — this Pomp and circumstance of glorious war — and no sooner did the detrimentals perceive that OF TEN SEASONS. 73 Adela had been required to evade the claims of former partners, and reserve her smiles for the ctat major of the eligibles, than they enrolled themselves in the " younger brothers' union/' and placed her for the first time on the muster- roll of the marrying young ladies. They soon forgot the beautiful, the radiant Adela Rich- mond, in the daughter of the finessing Lady Germaine. VOL I. 74 THE FLIRT CHAPTER VI. Where old simplicity, Though hid in gray Doth look more gay Than foppery in plush and scarlet clad. Randolph. Meanwhile an event occurred in the Ray- mond family, which though a source of real affliction among them, would have assumed a very different aspect but for the judicious stea- diness of purpose which had induced Sir Richard to pre-assure a provision for his young kins- man. Half (the masculine half) of the good old Baronet died ! — died, as the newspapers say, " deeply regretted by his disconsolate family and a large circle of surviving friends/' Seldom indeed is so favourable a verdict pro- nounced by the jury of society on one of its de- parted members, as in the case of Sir Richard or TEN SEASONS. 75 Raymond. However slenderly endowed with those capacities and acquirements, constituting, in the opinion of the Droningtons and his erudite son, the character of " an English gen- tleman," the old man contrived to leave behind him a widow really disconsolate, — really satisfied that her business in life was over, — that nothing remained for her but the family vault ; an estate increased by two fifths in value since his acces- sion ; an orphan relative, raised to an honour- able position in society through his interposition and generosity; a circle of neighbours, among whom he had never introduced an evil word or evil feeling; and a body of tenantry the most prosperous and contented to be met with in the county. After all, he certainly could dispense with the reputation of having Bernasconied the staring red fa9ade of Langdale House, or intro- duced new ottomans and claw tables into its comfortless parlour ; more especially since some hundreds of acres on Langdale Chase were converted into thriving woodlands during his reign. The good old grayheaded man was laid in his E 2 76 THE FLIRT grave amid the tears of the young and the reverent stillness of the old. On the Sunday following his interment, not an eye in Lang- dale Church could fix itself on the black hang- ings on Dr. Docket's pulpit. The people felt chilled, desolate, abandoned. Their friend was gone ; — their good kind friend, who had lived among them so much more as a father than as a magistrate or a landlord. It may be ques- tioned whether the demise of the best classic of all the universities, English, Scotch, or Metro- politan, would have produced half so many aching hearts. On opening the will, it was a matter of equal surprise and regret to the executors and the leading gentlemen of the neighbourhood, that Sir Richard, whose estates were un- entailed, had made no contingent provision for their reversion to Harry Raymond in case of Sir Burford's decease, unmarried or childless. Nothing could be more apparent to them all than the distaste cherished by the present Baro- net against his father's favourite, unless the fact that Sir Burford would certainly live and die a bachelor; and there was no calculating OF TEN SEASONS. 77 to whom the peevish jealousy of his narrow mind might instigate him to bequeath the family property? in order to avoid the possibility of benefiting " those Raymonds." He detested them almost as much as Lady Germaine; re- garding Mary's insolent conquest of the Mar- quis of Stoneham as the chief source of his own rejection by Lady Caroline Ilderfield ; and Harry's inordinate popularity with the thrones and dominions of Dorsetshire, as the principal cause of the coldness testified towards himself. He ascribed nothing to the evil influence of that supercilious self-opiniated egotism which ren- dered him so uncompanionable and so unlove- able ; qualifj^ing him far better for his sullen selfish chambers in Albany, than for the presi- dency of a house and estate such as that of Langdale. But although the father had judged it illiberal to shackle the property of his son with other conditions than those under which it had de- scended to himself, he felt at liberty to bequeath to Harry (at the death of Lady Raymond) a small estate in Kent, which had lately fallen to himself by the will of a friend ; and to 78 THE FLIRT each of the Raymond girls an annuity of fifty pounds per annum. It was not much, — not more than Sir Burford could very well spare from his twelve or fourteen thousand per an- num; yet those who fancied they knew him best, asserted that Sir Richard could not have taken a more infallible method to alienate his son's regard from the family, and to obliterate all chance of the eventual accession of his favourite Harry to the heirless dignities of Langdale. It was said that he did not invite young Raymond to re-enter the house which had been so long his home, after the melancholy ceremony of his benefactor's interment; and that his earliest exhortation to the remaining moiety of the Baronet, — the disconsolate relict of Sir Richard, — regarded a cessation of intercourse with the needy kindred on whom she had been accustomed to lavish so much kindness and li- berality. All this was said ; — and if true, cer- tainly reflected no credit on the learned pundit. Meanwhile, Sir Burford Raymond's debut in London, enrobed in his new dignities, was almost as important an enterprize as that of Lady Germaine's daughter. OF TEN SEASONS. 79 Dearly as he loved the importance affixed by his own exertions to the name he had earned in society, he was by no means insensible to the charm of being Sir Burforded ; and, partial as he avowed himself to his bachelor chambers, the bustle and anxieties of purchasing and inhabiting a magnificent mansion in May Fair, afforded a charming excitement to his jaded mind. The finicalities of furnishing, picture-dealing, and collecting old china and scarce books, were in fact exactly consonant with the fiddle-faddle tone of his character. He had no gratification in the possession of a fine Vandyke, Aldus, or Cellini, at all equal to that derived from the flummery of the auctioneers, dealers, and collectors, gathered around him by the officiousness of the Rev. Nicodemus Fagg; and the incense of a little levee of the meanest order of literati, — the grubs which are generated and fed upon the laurel. He liked to see his purchases and pro- ceedings noticed in the papers ; and never prized his Baronetship so highly as when it illuminated the proceedings of some learned body with the 80 THE FLIRT announcement of" Sir Burford Raymond, Bart., in the chair." This flattering unction was soothing enough as far as it went ; but it was not all-sufficient to a man of such unbounded stomach in the vanities of life. The mansion in May Fair when com- pleted, — with all its Etruscan cornices and Vitru- vian mouldings, its Parian and gold-veined mar- bles, its jasper pedestals and columns of por- phyry, its Flemish school and Italian school, its Phidian gallery and Canova vestibule, its Gobelin tapestry and Venetian pier-glasses, — was found wanting in one of the most important adjuncts of a noble mansion. The Venus of Medicis stood in her appointed niche, the Venus of Thorwaldson lay sporting amid her roses ; and many a nymph, and many a beauteous saint, and many a goddess smiled from the lofty walls upon the little baronet. But no animated nymph, no goddess in a gown of gros de Naples, displayed her rounded contour or graceful brows in the dull silent chambers. Such a one was not to be purchased at the curiosity shops, nor selected through a magnifying glass in Christie's OF TEN SEASONS. 81 rooms ; and Sir Burford discovered that in the event of his making up his mind to complete his collection by the purchase of a wife, he must go forth Faggless into society, frequent the ball-room, the opera, the park, and descend for a time from the altitudes of his uncontrolled self-importance. His chief object in such an undertaking was to mortify Lady Caroline Ilderfield. Still un- married and verging towards the scraggy, love- less joyless epoch, of five-and- thirty, the Duke of Dronington's daughter had more than once been tempted to lament her father^s pompous rejec- tion of her Dorsetshire neighbour's son ; and now, on his re-appearance in the world under such brilliant auspices, made up her mind to attempt the renovation of his passion. — She might as well have undertaken the re-vivification of a mummy ! — On the whole, indeed, although the remembrance of his disappointment still rankled in his mind, he felt no reason to regret the appointment or disappointment of his matrimo- nial destinies. He now considered himself far above the necessity of deriving conventional dig- nity from the alliance of any ladyship in the E 5 82 THE FLIRT land; and was of opinion that the mind of Lady Caroline Ilderfield was not sufficiently .culti- vated, nor her tastes sufficiently classical, to make her acceptable as the presiding deity of the tem- ple he had created: — she had once spoken of Cicero in his hearing as a Greek poet ! — To his perceptions, nothing could exceed the import- ance of his own circle, — of the orbit in which for many years past he had been revolving so en^ tirely to his own satisfaction : and it would have given him little pleasure to behold any one of his twenty-seven Venuses Pygmalionized for his sake, had he been pre-assured that the new mortal would prove insufficiently intellectual and accomplished for the atmosphere of his lite- rary coterie. Such was the man on whom Lady Germaine undertook to make an impression in favour of her beautiful daughter ; such the being for whom Adela was instructed to clothe her brow in wis- dom, and attune her discourse to the jargon of May Fair philosophy. The acquaintance was soon made, and followed up by an invitation to dinner on her Ladyship's part, and a request OF TEN SEASONS. 83 on that of Sir Burford that the ladies would condescend to come and view his pictures ; and not even on a first introduction, not even while still unfamiliar with his narrow countenance and mean graceless person, did Adela dream of comparing him disadvantageously with his hand- some namesake, her youthful playmate, her de- voted cousin Harry. She could see nothing ugly or disagreeable in Sir Burford. Was he not a man of fifteen thousand a year, — a town house and country seat ; — and had he not been for twenty years past a somebody in society, a person universally accepted ? — In a word, was he not a very good match ? — It was really amusing, — at least it would have amused any one but Nicodemus Fagg, who was alone present on the occasion, and was too much of a manoeuvrer on his own account to see any matter for jest in the avidity of others, — to observe the inventorial eye with which Lady Germaine made the tour of Sir Burford's mansion. All that she saw or heard was with reference to Adela. to a liberal settlement, to a widow's thirds. What cared she for Paestum or Pompeii, — or 84 THE FLIRT whether the Guido to which her observation was directed by Sir Burford, had originally graced the Houghton collection or the Lanfranchi pa- lace? — While her host was talking to her of the incense-pots and paterae in use among the Phoenicians, exhibiting an un impugnable spe- cimen of Corinthian metal, or rehearsing the beauties of the sardonyx of Poly crates while he paraded a chalice adorned with studs of that precious gem, — Lady Germaine was secretly reverting to the possibility that all these trea- sures might be made heir-looms, and alienated from the personalty so precious to the cupidity of widowhood. The only interest vouchsafed by the dowager to the objects placed before her eyes, arose from a doubt concerning their re- convertibility into the currency from whence they sprang; the only care entertained by the daughter, in surveying the home she was already determined to render her own, arose from in- certitude whether a suite so encumbered with objects of virtu, were favourable to fashionable hospitality? — She almost doubted whether Sir or TEN SEASONS. 85 Burford would not prove too blue to be a giver of balls. But this was a minor point to lady Germaine. The Hon. Lady Raymond, of Langdale House and Seamore Place, would be quite enough of a personage to satisfy her ambition for her daughter. Sir Burford, it is true, was a twaddler, — a man of a circle ; — but he would the less interfere with the amusements and va- nities of his young wife. She made it appear pretty plainly (so plainly that even Nicodemus could decipher the text without spectacles) that the cognoscente had only to propose, to be ena- bled to add the prettiest woman in London to his collection of rarities. Why did he hesitate? — Was he aware that the existence of his handsome cousin of the Guards might interpose a dangerous obstacle to his conjugal happiness ? — Did it occur to him that twenty and four-and-forty are epochs di- vided by twenty-four fatal anniversaries of mortal nature ? — that the bright ringlets of the fashionable belle were less accordant with the outline of his own bald pate, than the heads of 86 THE FLIRT Paris and Helen in his favourite intaglio ? — that Middle age and youth Cannot live together ? — that the Almack's Goddess, the nymph of the park, would certainly have experienced little inclination for a niche in his gallery, had it not been for the splendour of the car on which her journey thither was to be executed ? — No ! he thought of none of these things !— Regarding himself as the most attractive of mankind, as a pariie inferior only to the Duke of Derby- shire, he still hesitated, from secret motives, to throw the Satrap kerchief of election to the lovely Adela Richmond. This vacillation of mind was extremely tiresome and perplexing to Lady Germaine. What was the man about ? Opulent, independent, in every sense his own master, what could prevent him from accelerat- ing an event, which forty-four years subtracted from three-score left him so little leisure to enjoy ? Perhaps he was breaking off some un- satisfactory connexion : — perhaps he was build- ing a carriage, — perhaps a wig ; — but why not OF TEN SEASONS. ST propose ad interim and terminate the dilemna ? Still he went on accepting her ladyship's dinner- parties, — sitting nailed to a chair at the back of her ladyship's opera-box, — calling her lady- ship's carriage : — but why not propose ?— Could it be respect to the memory of his father, which suffs^sted the delay of so festive a rite as the hymeneal? Absurd ! — impossible ! — in the nine- teenth century, and a man so intellectual. No ! no ! Sir Burford Raymond was too much of a philosopher for the old woman's prejudice of filial tenderness. May passed away, — June came and went with its roses, — strawberries were already out of season (except for the " lower classes") and cherries were becoming plebeian food ; — yet no proposal ! — Lady Germaine grew angry ; and began to lament that her nephew Lord Ger- maine was still at Eton, and too juvenile to be alarming either as a rival or antagonist. Cer- tainly the conduct of Sir Burford was such as to call for explanation. For three months he had entirely engrossed her daughter's attention. He must have seen that in compliment to his 88 THE FLIRT mute courtship, Adela had remained sedentary at half the balls of the season; had given up waltzing, riding, flirting ; had sobered herself down to the decorum of the middle-aged Stre- phon;— had assumed the sententious prosiness of the learned Fellow, the demure gravity of the " English gentleman." She had forfeited half her natural graces by forming herself on the model of a Dorsetshire Baronetess ! All this was lost time, unless the head of the house of Ray- mond had serious intentions. Another season was gone;— gone in fruitless manoeuvres, and most unsatisfactory self-denial. It was difficult to say whether Lady Germaine were most irate against Sir Burford, her daughter, or herself. In the midst of her misgivings and vexations, it struck her that the Reverend Nicodemus might be the secret enemy, the preacher of pre- caution. Such a TartufFe as he looked ; — so sly, so smooth, so mischievous ! — Surely a man with so glozing a smile, and a voice so hypocritically tuneful, must be open to bribery and corruption ? Lady Germaine took to helping him at table to the heads of the carp, the foie gras of the ragout OF TEN SEASONS. 89 mele, the thighs of the pheasant poult; nomi- nated him her Chaplain, and enclosed him a hundred pound note in the letter of appoint- ment. The Reverend Nicodemus accepted, bowed, smiled, and ate, — but said not a word ; when, three days after the last-named act of munificence, " Sir Burford Raymond, Bart. for Italy," was announced among the fashionable departures; while the learned Pundit and his new chaplain forwarded to the Dowager their cards of P.P.C. by the hands of the under footman. 90 THE FLIRT CHAPTER VI. Forgets her labour as she toils along, Weeps tears of joy, and bursts into a song. COWPER. Perhaps Lady Germaine liad some little right to be in a rage on occasion of this base act of desertion. She, at least, did not call it in question; and was just as angry as an author at the hissing of his play, or Napoleon during the concluding cannonade of HouGjoumont. She was defeated, done, overmatched, — while her daughter was not matched at all ! But what was the augmentation of her disgust and fury, when circumstances brought to light the true motives of Sir Burford's abrupt de- OF TEN SEASONS. 91 parture ! He had been refused, — absolutely refused by one of '' those Raymonds." While her own beautiful Adela was engaged in smiling her sweetest smiles at him, and mtent only on waiting the honour of his nod matrimonial, Margaret Raymond had calmly, coolly, and deliberately rejected his addresses ! — Margaret Raymond, — a poor sickly thing, with nothing on earth to recommend her but a pair of senti- mental gray eyes, and an annuity of fifty pounds per annum, payable from his own estate. Was such an insult to be borne ? — Lady Germaine redoubled her injunctions to Miss Richmond to withdraw the light of her countenance from the family; and contented herself with turning her back upon Harry when he ventured to approach her at the last ball of the season. But could there be any real foundation for the report ? Could Sir Burford Raymond, who held the name of his poor relations in abhorrence — who had looked year after year with indiffer- ence upon the rare beauty of his cousin Mary — who breathed but in the atmosphere of fashion, — and scarcely recognized the existence of persons 92 THE FLIRT unincluded in his own set, could he by any possibility have found his way to Fulham ; by any impossibility have discovered a heart to place at the disposal of the gentle Margaret ? — At all events he found a hand ; — nay ! even the decency to tender it in the most respectful and deferential manner, to offer an amende honorable for past offences, to restore Henry Raymond to his forfeited honours at Langdale, and the whole family to the open arms of his delighted old mother. Margaret, however, was inflexible. Without thinking it necessary to explain to her disap- pointed suitor that her heart had already spoken in favour of Mr. Compton, and that Remington had only delayed speaking in favour of himself till he should conquer the honourable inde- pendence necessary to support a wife, she assured him that neither time nor place would effect the least change in her sentiments towards himself, the seat in Dorsetshire, or the mansion in May Fair. She would have nothing to say to him or his. It is true that even Margaret, although of so OF TEN SEASONS. 93 soft and imperturbable a disposition, was for a moment startled from her usual serenity by the miracle of Sir Burford's addresses. But she soon laughingly confessed to her sisters and brother, her suspicions that it was the authoress^ not the woman, he was anxious to make his wife ; that his sudden passion arose solely from the discovery that Harry Raymond's second sister, the patient unassuming invalid of the cottage at Fulham, was, in fact, the inspired writer — the brilliantly successful writer — of that poem which had caused a revolution on Mount Parnassus, and troubled even the halcyon-haunted waters of Helicon ! She perceived that to so profound a classic, the laurel was far beyond the myrtle, — and fame immeasurably more precious than reputation. And she was right in her conjecture. A wife who had been lauded in the Quarterly, eulogized in the Edinburgh, sanctioned in the Westminster, and smothered in the panegyrics of New Monthly and Old— Fraser, Blackwood, and Athenaeum — immortalized in the Literary Gazette — renowned in the National Omnibus ; a candidate for Westminster Abbey — a subject for the chisel and 94 THE FLIRT graver ;how could ths clas sical Raymond, the blue Baronet, ponder without enthusiasm on the honours thus introduced into his family; — on his own obscure patronymic sent forth to the four corners of the earth by the unsilenceable trumpet of Fame ! — What would he have given to call her his ; to place her in perpetual presi- dency over his coterie of May Fair ; and behold the laurels of her garland budding among the Weymouth-pine plantations of Langdale House ! But it was not to be. Margaret, with all her sensitive timidity, possessed that tone of decision inseparable from good sense. In the course of half an hour's conversation she made it appear so plainly to her lofty kinsman he had no chance of effecting an impression on her feelings, that Sir Burford, when he re-entered his carriage to return to town, had already decided on prolong- ing his journey along the Dover road on the following morning:. He was aware that Dr. Fagg had long been in correspondence with the Superior of the Armenian Convent at Venice, touching a Sanscrit MS. on the game of Chess, dated 570 years before the Flood; and would gladly accompany him to " the cradle OF TEN SEASONS. 95 of learning and nursery of the arts," as Sir Burford and the rest of the phrase-mongers are fond of denominating Italy. In the course of this brief exposition of her views and opinions, Margaret Raymond con- trived, moreover, to render her suitor sensible of something more than her own insensibility. Without assuming a tone either of dictation or remonstrance, she managed to place before his eyes the narrowness of his character, the un- filiality of his conduct towards his worthy father and mother, the ungenerous nature of his feelings towards her brother Henry, the barren nothing- ness of his own career. He was surprised — angry of course ; — but hinted that in the course of his Italian tour he might perhaps be tempted to lay her lessons to his heart. Certes, a more charming monitress than Margaret would have been difficult to find ! High-minded, but with a voice, like Desdemona's, " ever soft and low," — lofty in her sentiments, yet lowly in her own self-estimation, — cultivated in mind and manners, yet fulfilling without even the notion of debasement, all the humble offices inseparable from the necessities of her family. 96 THE FLIRT Margaret had cherished her fine gift of poetical inspiration as the consolation of her hours of sickness, as the brightener of her clouded for- tunes ; nor was it till she was taught to regard this well-spring of her earthly desart as a source of prosperity to the good mother who had borne and sacrificed so much for the sake of herself, her brothers and sisters, that she began to recognize its value. Provided the seed could be sown in secret, the harvest gathered in the dark, so as to conceal her exertions in their behalf, Margaret readily consented to attempt the replenishment of the garners of her family ; and it was a gratifica- tion inappreciably beyond the hollow triumphs of vanity, to contribute to the comfort of those who had so tenderly watched over her own. Like a honey-beti, she clung to the flower- garden only to provide winter subsistence for the hive. She spared them, however, all the anxieties of her venture; preserving the secret of her under- taking even from her beloved Harry, till she was enabled to offer to her mother a fifth edition of her work, and a sum of one thousand pounds. By the ministry of a faithful friend she had OF TEN SEASONS. 97 effected all her negociations, realized all her profits. How grateful she was to him for his advice and interposition ; — how grateful to the Mighty Source of every better gift, for imparting to her mind those impulses which were the real origin of her prosperity ! " A faithful friend ?" — We trust none among our readers have ventured to suggest an idea that Mr. Compton was the bosom counsellor of Margaret on this critical occasion; for at that period, Miss Raymond was acquainted with Lord Soho's son only through his literary repu- tation, and as an old brother Wintonian of Henry ; she had not even seen him since his boyhood, when he occasionally paid a holiday visit to the protege of his father's neighbour, Sir Richard Raymond. No ! the faithful friend was no Mr. Compton ; no hero of romance ; no lover in disguise; — it was the yellow lumbering nabob, old Orme ! Honestly and humbly would we apologize to the manes of that excellent man for this tardy mention and procrastinated development of his character; but knowing him to have been a VOL. I. F 98 THE FLIRT hater of hollow forms, we desist. Rupert Orme was in fact a very singular man, — singular by nature, singular by circumstance ; the strange chances of destiny had preserved him unsophis- ticated among all the conventionalities of modern life. From his swaddling clothes to his shroud, the boy, the man, the veteran, afforded but a prolongation of the same thread. He was an oddity from his birth, without the smallest suspicion of his own originality. Rupert had been the friend of Raymond's father previous to his own departure for India. He was a man of what is called "no family;" that is, he was the son of a yeoman of some twenty pure descents of yeoman blood. But whereas this twenty-first representative of the Ormes of Barleyholme chanced to be at once a man of no family and the father of one of con- siderable extent, Rupert, his ninth son, was dispatched to India under the patronage of a Leadenhall -street godfather, at a period when the Pagoda tree, having been less roughly shaken than now, was still prolific of golden fruit. At twenty-one years of age, he was appointed OF TEN SEASONS. 99 Judge of a district with an unpronounceable name, somewhere midway between Bombay and Cal- cutta; where he found himself destined to pass as many more years as he had already breathed the breath of life, among a tribe of dingy hea- thens, of whom it would be difficult to say whe- ther the idol divinities or their human prototypes were the more hideous. Residing thus in the midst of fellow-creatures with whom he had neither possessed an idea in common nor could exchange a single obser- vation, it is plain that his own ideas must have multiplied exceedingly, and his own observations waxed most abundant. He became a sort of Nepaulitan Jaques, — a free commoner of the mango-groves, — a muser among the padd}'- fields, — a Cowper, substituting a cage of tiger- whelps for one of domesticated hares, — a bowl of sangaree for the bubbling and loud-hissing urn, — and the lotus of the Ganges for the water-lily of the Ouse. He was an amiable philosopher, walking about with a Welch nightcap and tassel amid the shadows of the oanyan trees, and the haunts of the Cobra de Capellas. F 2 100 THE FLIRT But not even the most amiable philosophy is proof against the irritations of bilious disorgani- zation. Cowper himself, the mild Melanch- thon, or Shenstone of the purling rills, would have become fretful, and like Shakspeare's soldier "full of strange oaths," had they been grilled into a liver complaint, or stewed over the slow fire of Hindostanic earth. At five and forty, Rupert Orme was as yellow as a ripe mag- num-bonum plumb; at fifty, as brown and speckled as a Havannah cigar ; at fifty-five, he was seen scudding laboriously at the regular constitution trot on the Montpelier Parade at Cheltenham Spa ; and at sixty, he had been re- fused by his friend Raymond's widow, — was estab- lished as the proprietor of a fine house in Port- land Place, — and (in spite of his caxon and velveteens) as the favourite friend and adviser of the gifted Margaret. An opinion is prevalent in the world, that nothing is so fatal to the fortunes of a young widow as a large little family. But the case was exactly reversed with Mrs. Raymond. Ru- pert had been so long a homeless, companionless, OF TEN SEASONS. 101 affectionless man, that the sight of so many young and blooming faces was new and beautiful in his eyes. Their joyous voices spoke to his very heart ; their endearments thrilled through his very soul. He longed to make them his own; he would have married them all, — girls, boys, and mother, — without a moment's hesitation. Their penury was nothing to him ; he had a home and a heart for the whole family. But whether Mrs. Raymond still retained a few of her Richmond prejudices (she had scarcely been eight years a wdfe), and found it difficult to establish a parallel between the bright-eyed daughter of a Lord Germaine, and the caxon- acious scion of Barleyholme; or whether she found it impossible to replace the image of the young and handsome Raymond in her heart (she had scarcely been two years a widow), by that of the contemplative philosopher in velveteens — the disjointed Goliah of the Gauts — she declined his overtures of alliance, and would accept nothing at his hands but a writership for her youngest boy. Charles, the eldest, had already been entered at Woolwich ; Henry 102 THE FLIRT was living with her brother Germaine ; but httle WilUe she placed under the guardianship of the man she did not love sufficiently to marry, or perhaps respected too much to marry without loving. Old Orme was satisfied ; not quite, but very nearly. He had found an object on which to vent his affection ; for of the Ormes of Barley- holme, with the exception of one boor of a nephew, the representative of the estate, all had disappeared ; and as Mrs. Raymond was too wise to affect any sentimental coyness towards an old man of Rupert's complexion, who had wooed her chiefly for the pleasure of feeding her young ravens, he soon found himself a welcome guest at Fulham whenever he chose to extend his airings in that direction, and a favourite with all the little boys and girls. He was satisfied ; for he had discovered the means of making himself happy through the happiness of others. And why, it may be asked, was this muni- ficent man, this anxious benefactor of an orphan family, so slow in redeeming them from the degradations of poverty ? Why took he no direct OF TEN SEASONS. 103 means to place them above the privations of their narrow fortunes ? — He was an oddity ! In that one word every inconsistency may be included ; but those who are willing to give him credit for the best motives, are at liberty to infer that Rupert's experience confirmed the lesson that Sweet are the uses of adversity ! — the opinion that persons who struggle with the cares of life in the onset of their career are fitted to defy all future vicissitudes ; that those who have been nursed in the storm and nur- tured in the whirlwind, are most capable of appreciating the beauty of the rainbow, and the charm of the sunshine. He knew he should always be at hand in case of an emergency ; and loved, meanwhile, to applaud the honest pride with which the widow conformed to her sunken fortunes, the gentle humility with which the girls attempted to lighten her task. He was not at all eager to augment their means of education or accompUshment ; he was not 104 THE FLIRT desirous of seeing them more choice in their attire, more prone to the empty diversions of society; but rejoiced that the three girls were in training to become good wives, good mo- thers, good Christians ; and perhaps considered that the thorns of their garland became them even better than its roses. He was an oddity ; but he was also human, and subject to the frailties of humanity. Is there not therefore a possibility that this precautionary wisdom might arise from the tyrannical vagaries of a mind matured and orientalized in a province midway between Bombay and Calcutta? — from the acquired despotism of a nature dieted for five- and- twenty years on currie and mulligatawney ? — And, above all, might not Cupid, or Mahadeo, or some eastern or western god of love and lovers, — overlooking both caxon and velveteens and a pair of cheeks and top-boots of the Havannah complexion, — be the secret instigator of all his prudential forbearance? Might not Rupert Orme imagine that the solicitude of maternal OF TEN SEASONS. 105 affection would at length drive into his arms the mother of Charles, Henry, and William; of Mary, Margaret, and Jane ? If such his view of the case, it proved falla- cious. Every day the widow learned to regard him with a more friendly familiarity ; but with a firmer degree of self-gratulation that she- had evaded the distress of becoming wife to the ungainly, uncouth benefactor of her children ; a being whose soul and body were completely out of joint, — and who was incapable of seeing, hearing, and feeling things as they are seen, heard, and felt by other people. There cannot be a more curious object of inquiry to a lover of speculative philosophy, than a man of acute perceptions and strong understanding, who has been thus suspended, like Mahomet's coffin, between earth and air ; a man of books and meditations, who has lived apart from his kind ; and suddenly finding him- self dropped from the skies into the hubbub of a city, considers every thing in the abstract, and is still untrammelled by the prejudices and verdicts of society; — a man who has never in F 5 106 THE FLIRT his life set foot in that illuminated house of correction — a London drawinsr-room ! o Rupert Orme was full of odd conceits, and crammed with the opinions of the fifteenth century. He looked upon poetry, painting, and music, as the appanage of kingsj as mechani- cal inventions, good for what they would fetch, or baubles peculiarly appropriate to courtly delectation. A fine picture, like a stray stur- geon, should be reserved he thought for the appetite of the great; and a book of poetry, he regarded like ermine and minever, as a graceful superfluity intended for the magnates of the land. j When taken into Margaret's confidence re- specting her own, he pointed out to her that it was as much her duty to convert her talent into the means of maintenance for her family, as if she were in possession of a string of pearls, or some other costly trinket. Yet even with this contracted view of things, the old man formed a sane judgment of its merits. He saw that it was good ; that it came straight from the mint of a fine imagination, and a pure and OF TEN SEASONS. 107 glowing heart. He told her it could not be overlooked ; and his prognostications were veri- fied. The value accorded by all classes of so- ciety to the flower thus suddenly uprooted from its solitude, and put forth to blossom in the eye of day, eventually secured ease and recreation to the little cottage at Fulham; and obtained for the gentle Margaret, the adoration of a congenial mind in the person of Mr. Compton. Nay, it even tended to restore her brother Henry to the forbidden halls of Langdale House. Rupert Orme was triumphant ! — On hearing of Sir Burford's proposal, he puckered his yellow cheeks mto a smile, and indulged in an effort of cachinnation very much resembling the neigh of a zebra. 108 THE FLIRT CHAPTER VII. Now labyrinths, which but themselves can pierce, Methinks conduct them to some pleasant ground. Where welcome hills shut out the universe And pines their lawny walk encompass round. Campbell, It was a very happy Autumn, a very cheerful winter, that once more united the Raymond family at Langdale, under the auspices of the worthy widow. They felt it impossible to de- cline the invitation of one who had been so much a mother to Henry ; more especially as her own son — her sole relative — was just then estranged from his home and country by the obduracy of Margaret. They regretted to leave old Orme to the dreariness of his uncompanion- OF TEN SEASONS. 109 able existence. But Henry was in town on duty, and promised to be diligent in his visits to Portland Place ; and Charles, who was now in the Artillery, promised to run up occasionally from Woolwich, and cheer the solitude of his old friend. Meanwhile the sisters led a cheerful happy life, which borrowed neither monotony nor insi- pidity from their experience of the giddy levities of a London season. Mary had often described Langdale to them as dull and desolate, but she now admitted that Burford's presence must have been the drawback on its attractions ; for she grew daily fonder of the place, and confirmed the opinion of Margaret and Jane that nothing could exceed the beauty of its woods and planta- tions. The former admired them because they commanded a fine view of Compton Park ; the latter because they enabled her to pursue the suggestions of her own buoyant youth and sportive animation, and run, skip, and laugh, as girls of sixteen are apt to do, w ho have not the fear of the governess before their eyes. Mar- garet, however, was seldom of their rambles; 110 THE FLIRT her health was too delicate to admit of more than an airing in the pony carriage, with her mother or Lady Raymond ; but Mary and Jane were delighted to find their way through the woods to meet the daughter of Lord Soho, with whom they lived on terms of neighbourly friendship, and who had recently returned from a sojourn on the coast. Alicia Compton was one of the liveliest, drollest creatures in existence, — a person regarding all things and all people on their comic side, who had never known a care, never experienced a regret ; the darling of a prosperous and happy family. She was fond of the Raymond girls; fond of laughing with them at the solemn cox- combicality of their cousin Burford, the prepos- terous affectation of Lady Caroline Ilderfield; and of projecting schemes for the re-union of two persons who, she protested, were born for each other. Sometimes, indeed, she included even Lord Stoneham in these sportive satires; till repeated experience led her to discover that Mary was apt to take upon herself the cham- pionship of the absent Marquis, with more vi- OF TEN SEASONS. Ill vacity than might have been inferred from her unrelenting rejection of his suit. " There is a great diflPerence between making him my husband and the object of my perpetual ridicule," was the young lady's self-defence, when her leniency towards him was pointed out. " If you had seen so much of him, dearest Alicia, as I have, you would know that his man- ners are more objectionable than his vmder- standing. With all Lord Stoneham's seeming silliness, it will one day be discovered that he has a good head and a better heart." " Then why did you refuse him ?" was on the point of rising to Alicia's lips, but she saw that Mary's cheek was already flushed with embar- rassment and vexation, and good-naturedly dropped the conversation. Alicia had some- times found her own colour rise to a tint ex- tremely unsatisfactory to herself, when another young gentleman of the neighbourhood was made the subject of discussion ; and she there- fore forbore to retaliate upon poor Mary Ray- mond. It chanced, meanwhile, that one fine day in 112 THE FLIRT September, (one of those days of streamy yellow sunshine when the landscape seems enriched by an atmosphere of gold) the three friends met by appointment in a lofty grove of firs, command- ing one of the highest points of ground in the neighbourhood ; on which the late Sir Richard, in some enthusiastic fit of the picturesque soon after his marriage, had erected a Belvedere. The building, like most others merely orna- mental, soon grew out of favour, and at length out of repair. Holiday people from the adja- cent villages gradually defaced the walls, frac- tured the windows, and broke up the seats to light their kettles : till, on the accession of Sir Burford the first, Langdale Tower was nothing but a granite skeleton, good at most for shelter during a storm of rain; but still possessing certain attractions ineffacable by the mischief- loving hand of man, unconvertible to any vulgar purpose, incorruptible by the base uses of hu- manity. The knoll on which the Belvedere was erected, commanded a vast sweep of country, rich with the finest features of a highly cultivated neigh- OF TEN SEASONS. 113 bourhood. The woods of Dronington Manor darkened the horizon ; the modern elegance of Compton Park formed the middle distance of the landscape ; the beautiful lake of Langdale and the winding stream by which it was fed lay at its base ; and around the tower, tufted thickets interspersed with gorse and fern and heather, partly clothed and partly revealed the crags amona: which its foundations were laid. A mur- muring multitude of bees prevented the solitary spot from seeming altogether lonely ; and the spicy exhalations of the adjoining pine groves, basking in the searching fervour of the autumnal sun- shine, seemed to justify their preference of so fragrant a spot. Alicia and Mary had been sitting for nearly an hour among the ruins of the Belvedere, in refuge from the vivid brightness of the sky, discussing such topics as young ladies love to discuss ; — new novels, new music, new works of fancy, old friends, old times, old ties, old claim- ants on their beneficence. They were trifling away a summer hour in the happiest interchange of innocent nothings ; while Jane, graceful and 114. THE FLIRT wild as one of the fawns which might be dis- cerned at a distance frisking among the dotted thorn-bushes of Langdale Chase, amused her- self in defiance of the fierceness of the atmos- phere, by collecting the infinite variety of grasses and wild-flowers springing among the cliffs of the little glacis surrounding the tower. A shadow darkening the open door of the building suddenly arrested their discourse ; and a young, a very young sportsman was seen hur- rying past, followed by several dogs and a gamekeeper. He was precisely such a figure as ladies love to look on; and nothing could be more natural than that Miss Compton and Mary should exclaim at the same moment, " How very handsome ! " The next minute a third person was added to their party ; Jane, with her cheeks crimsoned and her breath panting, burst into the Belvedere. " Jane has seen a ghost, or the illustrious stranger," exclaimed Alicia, laughing at her perturbation. "How is it. Fairy- Foot; — did the young gentleman in the green jacket mistake you for the partridge — OF TEN SEASONS. 115 ' That cuddles close beside the brake Afraid to stay — afraid to fly ? ' Have you run any risk from that fearful double- barrelled gun ? " " Do you know him ? " exclaimed Jane. " Him ? — the gun ? — My dear Jenny, a gun is always personified as of the feminine gender." " No, no ! '' " Yes, yes, my dear ! Or perhaps you mean the ' him ' who seemed the proprietor of that dreadful implement of destruction ? " Jane's cheeks glowed of a still deeper red. " It must be some person staying at Dronington Manor; for I know Sir Burford has given the Duke the disposal of his preserves during his absence,'^ observed Mary Raymond. "Perhaps so," said Alicia listlessly; "and we must needs allow that his grace is fortunate in a very handsome visiter. I do not know his name ; but I noticed him at Weymouth last week, flirting tremendously with that beautiful Miss Richmond." " With my cousin Adela ? '* " Very true, — with your cousin ! I always 116 THE FLIRT forget your relationship, and recollect her only as the false goddess of your brother Henry's worship.'* " Thank heaven he is cured of that infatua- tion," cried Mary. " Lady Germaine has sent poor Harry to Coventry." " To make room for this young hunter of the woods, I conclude ; for she was coquetting with him at a desperate rate. I forgot to ask his name and pretensions to so much gracious- ness." " Mr. Orme inquired, but Lee and Kennedy could not inform him," observed Jane in a little hurried agitated manner. « « The dog-star rages ! '" — cried Alicia. "My dear Jane, what has your nabob or your gar- dener with a double name or double nature to do with the matter? — We were wrong to let you run about like a leveret among the fern. You have certainly had a coiip-de-soleii:' " Better that than a coup-de-fusily" cried Jane Raymond, rallying her spirits, " which I thought was going to be my portion, when he stepped forward with his apology." OF TEN SEASONS. 117 «He?" " You must have seen him pass the door just now." " Him again ? I saw two men ; the Duke of Dronington's keeper, and — " '* A young stranger, with his dogs and gun," said Jane stoutly, piqued by Alicia's bantering, " whom I happened to meet one day last spring as I was assisting Mr. Or me to choose some flowers for Mamma at the Hammersmith Nur- sery Grounds." " He seems to have made a strong impres- sion," observed Alicia, provokingly. " And with reason," replied Jane ; "for Mr. Orme was extremely displeased because he chanced to be walking through the conserva- tories at the same time with ourselves; and be- cause, having very awkwardly thrown down and scattered a large bouquet which the gardener was tying up for us, he very naturally addressed me to make an apology." " I remember now that you mentioned the circumstance on our return," said Mary. " « Very naturally,' — « chanced to be walk- 118 THE FLIRT ing,' — Jane, Jane ! — this mysterious unknown is certainly some disguised knight-errant of yours. I must make an investigation into the subject. Stay ! — shall I write to Lady Caroline Ilder- field, or trust to the chance with which you say he is in league, to become his interpreter ?" " We will not trouble ourselves concerning him," interrupted Mary, in pity to the evident embarrassment of her sister. A friend of Adela Richmond is probably not worth an enquiry." " Certainly not," echoed Jane, placing the bunch of flowers she had been collecting in her girdle, but secretly hoping that Alicia would be as good or as bad as her word. The hero of the Belvedere was, however, very soon forgotten by the sisters in the hurry of two remarkable events which occurred a few days afterwards. The dunny vicar of Lang- dale departed this life, and was deposited among his predecessors, beneath the vestry over which he had so long presided ; and on the same day Henry Raymond arrived to pass a week's leave with his family, — a week, a whole delightful OF TEN SEASONS. 119 week, divided between morning readings with Margaret in the hbrary, afternoon rides in the greenwood with Mary, Jane, and their friend Miss Compton ; and evenings devoted to music and conversation with the united circle ! What could afford a more charming relief to the dulness of a London October ; a misty solitude, shared with a few Irish bricklayers and a great many barrows-full of green codlings ! The happiness derived from his presence among them was in some measure counter- acted by the mournful event immediately preceding his arrival. Not that they, or any other human creature, experienced any thing like real affliction on occasion of Dr. Docket's decease, (a man who was found to have been hoarding for fifty years the proceeds of his various benefices, for the satisfaction of adding a wing to the obscure college of which he was a fellow, to be called the Docket Wing), but because they foresaw the installation of the Reverend Doctor Fagg, and the consequent banishment of the Reverend Eiiab Rubric, the curate who, for twenty years past, had pre- W^ 120 THE FLIRT sided over the wants of the poor, the faith of the wavering, the happiness of the whole parish. He had, in fact, laboured solely and abundantly in his vocation, with the exception of collecting its tithes. The tithes were for the dunny vicar, and the Docket wing; a salary of one hun- dred and fifteen pounds being deducted for the pittance of Eliab. The Raymonds girls, familiarized by their works of benevolence with the state of the parish, — and the good old dowager, instructed by painful parental experience in the temporal and spiritual doctrines of Dr. Fagg, — were na- turally moved with commisseration towards the people of Langdale. But all discussion was useless. The living had long been promised to the tutor of Sir Burford, the protege of the Duke of Dronington. Intelligence of the death of the incumbent was duly dispatched to Bo- logna, where the Baronet and liis shadow were residing; and they now began to expect the arrival of Nicodemus's small travelling valise and snug little person, to take possession of the Vicarage. OF TEN SEASONS. 121 It was a doleful sight to Harry Raymond and his sisters to encounter poor Mrs. Rubric, or one of the Curate's fine, hard, healthy- looking boys, in their daily walks, and reflect how soon they were likely to be ejected from the decent happy little tenement in which they had so long resided, and which they had so often rendered a strongliold of defence to their poorer brethren. The gaffers and gammers of Langdale trudged songless and discontented to work, pondering over the prospect of losing the comforter of their sickness, the strength- ener of their hopes, the harbinger of their future compensation; and Rubric himself, in his rusty suit of curate's grey, was often seen scudding with the evening shadows along the meadows and coppices skirting the village, as if bidding farewell to the scene of his pastoral labours, — to the wilderness wherein he had so long folded his flock. There is something humiliating, something painful, in the sight of a scholar, — a servant of the altar — a man with furrows on his brow, and the scars of fifty years of worldly suffering VOL. I. G 122 THE FLIRT in his heart, driven forth like a hireling to seek his bread ; — bidden to resign all intercourse with those for whose sins he has offered up his intercessions to heaven, — the shorn lamb he has sheltered in his bosom, the straggler he has recalled from the waste and the wayside to the fold of God ! Rubric was too meek to com- plain, too proud to weep ; but he looked at his children, and the walls in which they had been born to him, and which once he trusted would shelter them them till the accomplishment of their maturity, in the silence of a deep-felt sorrow. Poor Mrs. Rubric already began to count her moveables ; to gather together her napery and the well-worn garments of her family; to wander round her tiny garden with a heart swelling mightily towards the gooseberry- bushes that had so long furnished her parsonic wine-press, and the crooked quince tree over- hanging the pond, that had supplied her an- nual marmalade. There was not a double daisy putting up its pert head along the oyster- shell border, which did not (as Wordsworth OF TEN SEASONS. . 123 sings) inspire her " with thoughts too deep for tears." She wandered from the little laundry to the little parlour, from the little parlour to the little kitchen ; and gazed upon her washing tubs and saucepans, saying, as the Indian tribes, on retiring to the back settlements, ejacu- lated to the bones of their ancestors, " How can we say unto you, arise and follow us ?" Every stir in the village, every rumbling of wheels in the direction of the Pig and Whistle, — the chief hostel of Langdale, — filled her with alarm. She lived in a perpetual presentiment of the advent of the Reverend Nicodemus Fagg. One evening, — it was the very evening ap- pointed for Henry Raymond's return to town, — a stirring October evening, when the autumnal winds speak with a loud voice among the branches, and the swirling eddies of crisp sere leaves smite sharply against the windows, and Rubric and his w^ife were sitting dejectedly beside their fire ; she, occupied with that ever- lasting implement of the penurious housewife, a darning-needle ; he, pondering with specta- cles on nose over a folio Chrysostom, bequeathed G 2 124 THE FLIRT him by the dunny Vicar, not " to smooth his band in," but as a handsome testimony of re- gard for twenty years' services. Both were silent, both sad. But on a sudden Mrs. Ru- bric paused, with the ravelled muslin in one hand, and the " glittering forfex" in the other : — she heard a sound, a tumult, a rumbling of wheels. " 'Tis the Doctor !" she faltered in a faint voice. " 'Tis the Vicar !" responded her husband in a grave one ; and rising with dig- nity he prepared, like Foscari the Doge, to look upon his successor. When, lo ! a tap louder than any the crack- ling leaves of the sycamores could produce, was heard at the parlour window ; the garden door was burst open with mighty violence; and, rushing into the little chamber, there appeared — (no ! not Nicodemus ! we ask pardon for the interruption) — Harry Raymond and his three sisters ; their fine eyes sparkling, their hand- some cheeks glowing with the evening air, tiieir white teeth appearing through smiles of uncon- trollable gratulation. " Margaret must read the letter, — Margaret OF TEN SEASONS. 125 is the cause of it all !" cried Jane, possessing herself of the epistle her brother was beginning to unfold, and placing it in her sister's hands. And in a moment the little party was seated, and Margaret, in a tremulous voice, reciting a pompous despatch from Sir Burford Raymond. Pompous despatches, as is well known to the junior clerks of the Foreign Office, and ju- nior attaches of foreign missions, are wofully dull of transcription ; and it may therefore be de- sirable to pass over the expletives and paren- theses of the learned Baronet, skip the long words, cut through the circumlocution, and arrive at the facts set forth in his protocol; — commas, colons, and semi-colons, would but perplex us. Besides, we have no inclination to render or admit the Baronet as ridiculous on this as on other occasions; — for the first time of his life he proved himself capable of a gene- rous action ! The letter was to his mother ; and regarded in the first instance her acceptance of an an- nuitj^ for the purpose of bestowing on William Raymond an university education, with a view 126 tHE FLIRT to his taking orders, should lie be inclined to exchange a province between Bombay and Cal- cutta, for a rector}^ in the county of Dorset. If his inclinations were seen to tend towards the clerical estate, Langdale was to be his por- tion, with the annexed condition of retaining Rubric, with a quadrupled salary, as Curate for life; who was nominated to the absolute tenure of the living till William's ordination, — a period of at least six years to come. Thus much of the letter was all that concerned the Rubrics, — all that was read in the old glebe house, — all that caused the Curate's heart to sing for joy ; all that impelled Mrs. R. to creep up to the nursery and cry over her children, as soon as the pony carriage drove away, and the four happy faces of the four happy Raymonds disappeared. But it was a point of delicacy much discussed and much approved among the sisters and brothers on their return homewards, that Sir Burford had expressly avoided acting as a benefactor on this occasion, and had left the whole agency of the affair with his mother : he seemed conscious that the Fulham family might OF TEN SEASONS. 127 experience some little hesitation at receiving a favour from his hands. There could be no doubt that he had benefited largely by Margaret's reprehensions ; that the man was improving, the pedant humanizing ; and that even in his bene- factions he was chiefly anxious to give pleasure to the obdurate lady of his love. It was well done, therefore, on his part to spare her the embarrassment of obligation. What a happy evening at Langdale-house was that which decided that William was not to be banished to India, nor the Rubrics from their village home ! 128 THE FLIRT CHAPTER VIII. Tis always with a moral end That I dissert, like grace before a feast. For like an aged aunt, or tiresome friend, A rigid guardian, or a zealous priest, My Muse by exhortation means to mend All people, in all times, and in most places, Which puts my Pegasus to these grave paces. Byron. Time passed on; — and that portion of the year which in the country we call Spring and in London the Season, shone once more upon the earth. Adela Richmond re-commenced her course of gaieties, less pretty but more beautiful than ever, — less admired, but a thou- sand times more talked of. Lady Germaine now began to think it necessary to plant her- self on higher and more ostensible ground. She took care that her daughter's portrait should OF TEN SEASONS. 129 adorn tbe walls of Somerset House, and her name be included among those of the beau- ties noticed by the Court Circular at the Draw- ing Room. Banishing all remembrance of Sir Burford and her past mortifications, she resolved that Adela's fourth season should crown her career with bridal orange-blossom. And in what, may we venture to inquire, consisted the " course of gaiety ^' apparently so warmly appreciated by both mother and daughter ; — what were their habits, their occu- pations, their means and measure of enjoyment ? To rail for the first four months of the season at the dulness and emptiness of town ; — to fume, fret, and scold for the four ensuing, at balls, or rumours of balls, from which they fancied them- selves designedly omitted ; — to grumble during the bright days of June at the multiplicity and incompatibility of their engagements; — and amid the fading pleasures of July, to grasp at every dying flower till its leaves were crushed, — to redouble every effort, every matrimonial ma- noeuvre, till disappointment became disgrace. Nor were the minor cares and occupations g5 ISC^ THE FLIRT of* Adela more edifying or more satisfactory. Up till daylight, morning after morning, yet ever hurried away from the ball-room in " the sweet o' the night," lest the grey twilight should prove a dangerous visitation, a revealer of defeatures, a beacon-light to the unwary; — chained to a mid-day couch, day after day, by headache and the apprehension not of personal fatigue, but of a careworn countenance ; — all the labours of beauty, — all the cares of designing, ordering, inspecting and altering, ball dress af- ter ball dress ; — all the dread of being surpassed by the addition of a flounce, feather, or spangle, by some mischievous rival ; — all the apprehen- sion of appearing either before or behind the fashion, — of offending Lady This by copying some irresistible peculiarity of her costume, or Lady That by flying into a contrary extreme; — all the peevish, trivial, selfish, contemptible vexations and toils of a mere woman of the wprld, were already gathei'ing round her young head ! To attract, to enslave, to form a good connexion, occupied every thought of this im- mortal and responsible being. OF TEN SEASONS. 131 At all events her exertions were crowned with success. Adela, — " the lovely Adela Rich- mond," — " the fascinating Adela Richmond," — afforded a theme for universal panegyric. Whose eyes were half so blue, — whose teeth half so pearly, — whose tresses half so redundant ? Fair, gracious, piquante, many a prudent father trembled when he saw the fashionable flirt rest- ing upon the arm of his son ; many a gentle mother grew uneasy on beholding the worldly- wise beauty engaged in conversation with her daughter. Still, there were enough of the inex- perienced, the vain, the hollow, and the frivo- lous, to applaud worship sigh tremble, — do every thing but seek to make the varnished toy their own. Among those persons who looked at Lady Germaine and her daughter with an unloving eye, was old Orme. He had once or twice crossed their path on occasion of their visits to Fulham; and would just as soon have seen a snake coiling at his feet as either parent or child. Regarding them as hard-hearted, hollow-minded, cold-blooded animals, coming 132 THE FLIRT forth among mankind to look for prey, — he shuddered when he thought of the elderly woman creeping to her grave in her rouge and perfumes and pearl-powder ; and still more of the girl, [the girl whose mind should have been as spotless as the white rose half opened to the early sun, and bright as that sun's meri- dian beam) plotting, caballing, and apparelling herself in meretricious allurements. — " I met that wriggling worm. Lady Germaine, as I was coming hither," — was with him an invariable prelude to ill-humour for the remainder of the day. Rupert had, however, a newer subject for dissatisfaction in Sir Burford's interference in the destinies of his protege, little Willie. He had long looked upon the boy as his own, and his fortune as the boy's. He, who had traversed the immense ocean, and dwelt some five-and- twenty years in a strange country, thought very differently from Mrs. Raymond, on the subject of sea-voyages and foreign banishment. Hav- ing had little to forsake worthy regret at Barley- holme, with its nine wooden skittles of human or TEN SEASONS. 133 growth, he could not enter into the sorrows of absence from an affectionate and gentle family. Great as was his love for the orphan, he loved him after the selfish fashion of mortal nature. He chose that his heir should do as he had done, live as he had lived, see all he had seen ; that he should dwell among swarthy brows, become addicted to the Hookah, and learn the flavour of kill-johns and manguasteens. It was never his intention that William Raymond should remain long in India ; but he felt satis- fied that he should love his protege the better with a complexion somewhat jaundiced, and a coat redolent of camphor-wood. And then he hated what he was pleased to call " a parson ! " — Driven from England in inexperienced boyhood, the chaplains of the presidency did not inspire him with an ad- vantageous opinion of the clerical profession. Heber — the Apostle of modern Christendom — was not of his day ; he knew nothing of such men as Rubric; and rashly concluded that Wil- lie, in taking orders, would become a mere tithe- yS4f THE FLIRT gatherer — a Sunday automaton mechanizing the duties of a preacher of the Word. The old man could not bear to think of it; and very de- cidedly informed Mrs. Raymond that he should have nothing further to say to the Rector of Langdale. Perplexed by the alternative thus presented, and anxious only to fulfil her duty to her son, she left the option to himself; when William, secretly desirous to second the pre- ference of his mother, after a consultation with Charles and Henry who declined advising on a point connected with their own interests, ad- dressed himself to Remington Compton, who pronounced without hesitation in favour of the University and Langdale Rectory. Nothing could be more natural. — Lord Soho's son, who was daily and hourly gathering laurels in the metropolis, courted among its intellectual circles, and cheered by its brilliant promises of fame and prosperity, was little likely to advocate the preca- rious fortunes of a baneful climate, or the moral extinction of banishment to the interior of India, when opposed to a handsome competence in the OF TEN SEASONS. 135 land of liberty love and enlightenment. He was precisely the sort of man who regards a metro- polis as the only arena worthy to animate hu- man exertions. After kissing the withered hand of old Rupert for the last time, William Orme accordingly took his departure for Trinity ; and very soon after his instalment his letters to Henry, Charles, and his sisters, were copiously illuminated with allusions to the wild feats, college triumphs, and personal attractions of their cousin Lord Ger- maine ; — a young scapegrace on the eve of his majority, whom no one ever mentioned without a frown upon their brow and a smile upon their lips. By William's account, the future head of the house of Richmond was the finest fellow in the world, — all joy, sunshine, and impulse ; seldom out of a scrape, and never out of hu- mour ; seldom with a shilling to pay his debts — never without a guinea to bestow on the mis- fortunes of the poor. On occasion of the first visit paid by Adela to " those Raymonds," after William's inau- 136 THE FLIRT guration at Cambridge, (but no ! they were not " those" they were only " the Raymonds'* now) she was completely puzzled by the nu- merous enquiries addressed to her by Mary, touching their noble kinsman ; his looks, his temper, his character, nay ! even those of his guardian Sir Claudius Veerham, seemed to have become matters of interest at Fulham. It was really very impertinent in such people to trouble themselves about the matter ! What was Lord Germaine to them? He was never likely to move in their circles or seek their acquaintance ; and it was nothing to the purpose that he hap- pened to breathe the same atmosphere with that stupid little dormouse her aunt Raymond's pet, the future parson of Langdale. Adela replied to their questions as discou- ragingly as possible. " She had seen Lord Ger- maine, and thought him tolerably good-looking ; very young in his manners and ideas ; and frisky and awkward as a greyhound puppy. He was going to leave college, she understood, and might improve ; but, at present, he had very little to recommend him." or TEN SEASONS. 137 Who would have guessed, who would have dreamed, from the tone employed by Miss Rich- mond in this definition of her cousin's character, that it had long been decided between Lady Germaine and herself, (should she be still un- married on his coming of age,) to make him theirs for ever ? — Or that, as the fatal period was nearly at hand and her manoeuvres in the art of match-making wholly infructuous, she was intent only upon seizing on her victim previous to his appearance in general society, that she might strike home, forestal all other impres- sions, and entangle him in a premature en- gagement ! Sir Claudius Veerham was a city knight, selected by the late Hon. Charles Richmond as his executor and trustee to his son, without any expectation that the title would so soon, or even eventually devolve to his line ; and Lady Ger- maine had calculated too successfully on the vanity of the guardian, and his anxiety to pro- pitiate her notice, to be at all doubtful of his co- operation in securing the marriage. 138 THE FLIRT From the period of her husband's death she had, in fact, never lost sight of the necessity of forming a close alliance with his successor. Whether as the head of the house, or the future dispenser of her own jointure, she regarded the little petticoated peer as a most important per- sonage ; and no sooner had she consulted her own interests by turning little Harry Raymond out of doors, than she exerted herself to the utmost to make her little lordly nephew her inmate in his room. But Sir Claudius, how- ever courteous and pliant, judged it his duty to keep the boy under his own roof; and the ut- most concession he could be persuaded to grant to the tenderest of aunts was to lend her Lord Germaine, now and then, for a week ; to be made sick with plumb-cake, and sorry with the contentions invariably ensuing between himself and the peevish pretty little Adela, who was just advanced three years in age and tyranny beyond himself. Meanwhile the epoch of birch and Latin grammar arrived ; and his little Lordship found OF TEN SEASONS. 139 the visits of Lady Germaine's sweetmeat-laden carriage to his preparatory house of industry at Parson's Green, quite as delightful as her fore- sight could desire. Yet some how or other, aunt Germaine and the ipecacuanha of Dr. Ce- rate the apothecary became inextricably asso- ciated in his reminiscences; and even after- w^ards, during his Eton vacations, her lady- ship's private supply of pocket-money to the young spendthrift was sure to produce some misadventure, in the shape of a broken cabriolet or broken collar-bone, an expedition to Epsom- races, a police-row, or a night in the watch- house. Do what she would, her indulgence to her nephew became a constant source of vexa- tion to him : — his better angel seemed to delight in scattering bitterness among the sweets of her bestowing. But what reminiscence of emetics or broken cabriolets, what shadow of past annoyances, could overpower the glow of delight and wonder with which the matured eye of Lord Germaine rested on the loveliness of his beautiful cousin ; 140 THE FLIRT a cousin who devoted all her smiles, all her affections to himself; who welcomed him so sweetly in his skulks from Cambridge to town ; and triumphed so feelingly in the success of his petty warfare against Sir Claudius Veerham of Mincing Lane ! — Gracious and animated with all the world, Adela assumed an air of tender protection, of girlish playfulness in the presence of the young Cherubino who seemed to attach himself so fondly to her side. She presented him to all the frequenters of her mother's house; bespoke for him the favourable acceptance of society, echoed his bon-mots, applauded his indiscretions. " Germaine was so young ; — Ger- maine was so handsome ; — Germaine was such a clever creature, such a good creature ! " No wonder she could scarcely be persuaded to suffer him out of her sight. Under these circumstances. Miss Richmond could not but regret that William Raymond should happen to settle at Trinity six weeks be- fore the close of Lord Germaine's last term. But there was no great harm done. The boy was too OF TEN SEASONS. 14-1 tame and insignificant to obtain any perma- nent influence over her madcap cousin; and on the whole it was far more vexatious to her that she could not manage to inspire Germaine with a taste for balls or a genius for dancing ; and that nothing would induce him to make his appearance (where it is so much the duty of young lordlings to make their appearance) in that Hall of Eblis, that paradise of earthly Peris, that scene of bliss and bale, the rooms of Willis ! No persuasions of her's could induce him to convert himself into a spinning-top ; or labour through those severe Terpsichorean exercises which provoked the Indian Rajah to inquire of a dancing English Duke, " Why does not your Highness get your servants to do this for you, as is our custom in the East?" But with very little hope of obtaining him as her partner for a quadrille, Miss Richmond entertained none of securing him as her partner for life. — He was accustomed to gaze upon her with a smile of such intense admiration ; to be her escort in the ride with such a triumphant s}'mpathy in her noble horsewomanship. There 142 THE FLIRT only remained seven months of his minority : at the expiration of which Lord Germaine would doubtless propose, and Adela's pro- jects be fully realized. Lady Germaine occa- sionally hinted to her nephew, that he was at least free to anticipate the event by a solemn betrothment; but either his extreme youth blinded him to the graciousness of her intentions, or he was unwilling to shackle his fair cousin. Adela, however, seemed determined to re- gard the connexion in as serious and religious a point of view as if already consecrated by a plighted vow. She gave up flirting, forsook the lists of coquetry, no longer waltzed, no longer whisperrd in doorways, no longer lingered in half-deserted ball-rooms when Manuna and the chaperons were gone down to supper ; no longer loitered on Lord Augustus's arm, himting for a boa which they had themselves carefully hidden under a Skiddaw of shawls and cloaks; no longer found herself intercepted by the crowd, when following Lady Germaine, in company with Henry Raymond, along the colonnade of the chair-door at the Opera. She knew Ger- OF TEN SEASONS. 143 maine to be very quick-sighted in such matters ; and conceived it her best pohcy to sacrifice every darling folly and flirtation for his sake, or the sake of his coronet and estates. Sir Claudius Veerham was probably aware of all that was going on; and either considered the connexion a satisfactory one for his ward, or that his own interference between an aunt and a nephew was unjustifiable : for he said and did nothing to forward or retard the affair. Many are the votaries of superstition even among the witty and the wise (with Byron as a brilliant leader of the list), who despond over transactions effected on a Friday. For our own part we are satisfied that the year has its unlucky month as well as the week its unlucky day ; and that a larger proportion of fashionable tears is wept during the month of August, than during any other thirty-one of the three hundred and sixty-five days of annual sorrow. August is a sort of harsh equator, dividing the trifler's year into grave and gay, lively and severe, pleasure and penance; it interposes a moral ha-ha be- tween the ornate lawn of the London season, 144« THE FLIRT and the wilder prospects of the year, to over- leap which is an exertion that startles all human beings into sobriety. August! — thou fearful epoch, when persons who have been living for the preceding hundred days without being many hundred minutes apart, must bid a hasty adieu with the certainty of eight months of tedious absence; when hearts which have been for weeks on the eve of inter- changing their tender afflictions, are suddenly chilled into prudence by the consciousness that half a step more must be decisive, — while others who have maintained a cautious silence dur- ing the season, are moved to a rash explana- tion at the moment of parting such as renders that parting final : — August ! — when the young sportsman, labouring prematurely in his vocation, passes the morning in pilgrimages from the arsenal of Purdey to that of Nock, of Nock to Manton, — his head charged with a copper cap, his heart quick of ignition as Battle powder : and when the anxious dowager, foiled in her campaign, retreats from the field with her bag- gage, opprobriating the cause she has been OF TEN SEASONS. 145 unable to render triumphant. August : — thou month of grouse and grumbling ; of moors and moroseness, — how cruelly dost thou disenchant the dream of the fashionable visionary, while teach- ing wisdom to the idler, and folly to the wise ! From the earliest day of the month in ques- tion, from the first morning on which she noticed the sunshine turning red and the leaves turning brown in the groves of Hyde Park, poor Lady Germaine found herself extremely perplexed vv'hither to direct her autumnal tour. Like most other Dowagers destitute of a country seat, she possessed a reasonable number of convenient friends who were fond of illuminating the dul- ness of their retirement with the lovely smiles of Adela Richmond, and the lively, chatty, con- formability of Lady Germaine, who was never so agreeable as when living at other people's ex- pense. But to such places it would have been impossible to allure her pleasure-loving nephew. The very mention of her own mother's beautiful coimtry house, would have sufficed to send him ptarmigan shooting to Norway ; and she found it difficult by any effi^rt of art, science, or nature, VOL. I. H 146 THE FLIRT to extract an acknowledgment of his preference for any particular bathing-place. She had al- ready managed to make him bear her company at different times to Brighton, Ramsgate, Wey- mouth; but he had shown himself dissatisfied with all three, and could not be induced to say more at present, than that " Hastings was very green and pretty" — ("Well, my dear Ger- maine; I am just thinking of taking Adela there for change of air !") — "but very dull; and that the Isle of Wight was a charming place — ("It would be very easy for us all to go to Cowes for a month or two.") — " but that nothing but a flounder or a wherryman could put up with the mud.'' In short, she was in a horrible di- lemma. It was impossible to remain longer in London without becoming particular ; and still more impossible to move without having secured her nephew's attendance. But Lord Germaine was already so much occupied with his percus- sions and flints, his rifles and double-barrels, that she began to fear there was no probability of intercepting his engagements to the preserves of my Lord this, and the Duke of the other, by a OF TEN SEASONS. 147 matrimonial engagement with her daughter. Nothing could be plainer than that Adela must give way to the partridges and pheasants ; for already he was growing far less constant in his attendance, and had almost deserted her house. At this crisis, in the midst of her fretfulness flurry and disappointment, she received a mysterious letter from Sir Claudius Veerham. — With a trembling voice she read as follows : — H 2 148 THE FLIRT CHAPTER IX. I would have thee engage in wedlock, not for the love of beauty, but for the love and protection of merit : for a companion to help thee through thy cares, and worthily and holily breed up thy children. Petrarch's Treatise on the Fanities of Life. "To THE Dowager Lady Germaine." " Mincing Lane^ August 10 — 28." " Dear Madam, " Satisfied as I am that your ladyship will agree with me in thinking that, under the pre- sent existing circumstances, that nothing could be more disadvantageous to my beloved ward, than any thing like a precipitate matrimonial engagement, I — " (Rigmarole ! — why can't the man come to the point ?)— " I am under the ne- OF TEN SEASONS. 149 cessity of troubling your ladyship with a few lines less in justification of my own conduct, than in explanation of the very underhand and " (What can he mean ?) — " unhandsome treatment 'practised against me hy all parties^ (Unhandsome, indeed! if he had exerted the vigilance necessary with a lad of Germaine's age, he would have been acquainted with the whole progress of the affair.) " Finding, in short, that it was his lordship's intentions to follow up his attachment to his fair cousin by immediate proposals of marriage, I have judged it expedient to interfere; and hy the authority vested in me hy the will of my friend, his late father, have already dispatched his Lordship to the continent under the care of the reverend gentleman who has presided over the latter years of his education ; with an un- derstanding that if he consents to postpone the completion of his views until his coming of age, no obstacle shall he raised on my part to retard the accomplishment of his wishes. In order to prevent any correspondence between the young people, such as might tend to the disarrangement 150 THE TLIRT of my plans, I have obtained from his lordship a promise that no letter shall pass between him- self and his relatives till the attainment of his majority ; an event which will occur in February next, and secure me from all implication in the affair. " Trusting that my forbearance and delicacy on the occasion, will be honoured with your Ladyship's approval, " I have the honour to subscribe myself, dear Madam, . Your Ladyship's devoted obedient humble Servant, Claudius Veerham." Lady Germaine's indignation was too big for words; and Adela's beautiful cheek became flushed with a crimson stain of suppressed rage. That a guardian who had remained so long supine, should suddenly rouse himself from his lethargy to perpetrate so vile an act of despotism, was really too provoking ! " 1 told you how it would be !" cried the mo- ther. " I told you the other night, when you chose to let Germaine sit whispering to you the OF TEN SEASONS. 151. whole evening at the opera, that I suspected the vulgar old woman opposite, in the blue turban, was Lady Veerham; but you would not be warned by me." " I had already been warned by Germaine; he informed me from the first that it was Lady Veerham ; we both knew it. But Sir Claudius never expressed the slightest objection to my cousin's visits here ; and I thought it unneces- sary to disguise the state of the case." " And a pretty state you have brought it to at last !" " I think it shows a great want of spirit on the part of Germaine, to submit to being sent abroad like a school boy. — Why could he not stay and defy Sir Claudius; or why not at least take measures to acquaint us with his route, that we might write to him or follow him ?" — " Follow him !" reiterated Lady Germaine, and in so vehement a tone that Adela fancied she was going to resent the ignominious pro- posal. " Follow him ! — the very thing ! — We have nothing in the world to do with ourselves : let us go to Paris, which is the starting-post for 152 THE FLIRT all foreign countries. We shall be sure to find out at the Embassy whether my nephew has been there, and where he was going ; and even if we do not trace him out, as we have nothing to amuse us till February next, we may just as well be in Paris as elsewhere. I shall get my partie every evening all the Autumn; and if I can persuade your guardian to advance us a little money before we go, you can be getting your trousseau together to be ready for the event." " Very true, Mamma; — do let us be off as soon as possible. I am heartily sick of London. Living such a life of penance and privation as I have done for the last four months, Paris will appear delightful." " Paris is always delightful," replied the mother, sententiously ; " it is the only place in the world where one can live without troubling oneself with thinking and feeling." And to Paris they went ; but the effort was crowned with no success in its main object. Lord Germaine had neither been seen nor heard of! It was plain that the measures of Sir Claudius were very artfully taken ; and nothing remained OF TEN SEASONS. 153 but to tame down their impatience for an event which was to free them mutually of each other, at the end of the shooting season and of his young Lordship's minority, — the fatal month of February. Meanwhile, Adela, aware that the Parisian, unlike the British metropolis, gives no encou- ragement to printed details of balls, or newspa- per panegyrics on the dancing of Lady Eleanor, or the singing of Lady Mary, felt that she was secure from being betrayed to her cousin as the brightest ornament of all the Autumnal break- fasts, all the early Winter balls. She there- fore re-commenced with eagerness her career of dancing and flirting, particularly at those man- sions of the French nobility where the English residents are less generally admitted : and soon consoled herself for Lord Germaine's absence by the adoration of a host of Barons, Counts, and Chevaliers. Her fair Saxon beauty at- tracted universal admiration; and she conti- nued to make herself happy in the day's enjoy- ment without reckoning much on the morrow. She was no longer looking out for a match. She H 5 154 THE FLIRT knew that the second week in February would crown her expectations ; and as Germaine might possibly prove as tenacious and exigeard as matrimony usually renders his countrymen, she felt that she was acting most judiciously and fairly towards herself, in making the most of the intervening time. Meanwhile, the little party at Fulham, after enjoying a happy winter, which tended to en- hance the promise of many happy summers, was preparing for a festival of considerable import- ance; — the solemnization of its first marriage. The least beautiful of the sisters was the first to invest herself in the matron duties of a wife. Margaret, the pearl of price, who from the superiority and peculiar nature of her endow- ments, might have been predicted as the last to meet with a suitable alliance, had been for- tunate in securing the attachment of the man of all England most capable of appreciating the powers of her mind, without being inclined to overlook those less ostensible but better ffifts, her gentle temper and feminine humility. Mr. Compton honoured while he loved her, and OF TEN SEASONS. 155 Still maintained above herself that intellectual supremacy indispensable to the happiness of a married life ; while Margaret Raymond's pre- ference, which had been excited in the first in- stance by admiration of her lover's genius and literary distinction, was soon lost in strong per- sonal attachment, and the contemplation of that hallowed bond which is superior to the mere vanities of life. Nor was she less fortunate in the character of her husband's family than in his own. The Sohos were people recently ennobled, and so imperfectly established in their new honours, that they still regarded literary distinction as a means of redeeming personal obscurity. Instead of feeling shocked and disgusted by the idea of connecting themselves with '' an authoress," (as would probably have been the case with a tribe of five hundred years of aristocratic duncehood,) they were as much pleased with Miss Ray- mond for commanding a certain portion of the attention of society, as for her power of connect- ing them with two ancient names, such as those of Richmond and Raymond. On similar prin- 156 THE FLIRT ciples oi ambition they had urged their son into the prominence of a public career ; and would have been far less disposed to facilitate his union with one of the Miss Dechiminis, with a por- tion of twenty thousand pounds, than with the daughter of an honourable Mrs, Raymond, boasting no dowry beyond a name, that was capable of collecting a crowd round the door of any ball-room in I^ondon. During the intimacy between the families produced by their long visit to Langdale, Lord Soho, moved by the excellent domestic qualities he discovered in the object of Remington's choice, facilitated their marriage by a handsome settlement and the gift of a comfortable re- sidence in the neighbourhood of St. James's Park; exacting only in return, that his son should relax neither his parliamentary nor pro- fessional exertions in the indolence of a mar- ried life. Next to his new coronet, there was nothing on earth he prized so highly as the public honours attained by his future represen- tative ; and in the full persuasion that the chances of time and tide would place the future OF TEN SEASONS. 157 Lord Soho on the woolsack, or involve him in public duties of equal importance, he was delighted to behold his favourite son settled in life and secured from the seductions of London gaiety, by an alliance with one so worthy to be the companion of his retirement as Margaret Raymond. He welcomed her into his family with all the partiality and eagerness her sen- sitive delicacy could desire. It is possible that his Lordship's disinterest- edness of conduct on the* occasion, might in some degree tend to rouse the spirit of old Rupert Orme, who had hitherto been so remiss in giving tangible proofs of his favour to the girl whom in his heart he loved beyond the rest of the family, and in his soul reverenced be- yond the rest of the world. She was the only woman, the only lady, he had ever known whose accomplishments were susceptible of conversion into the currency of the realm. He thought her less useless than the more showy portion of her sex ; and had some satisfaction in present- ing his young friend Compton with ten thou- sand pounds, as the marriage portion of one 158 THE FLIRT who had laboured diligently to increase the scanty revenues of her family. It was, how- ever, no surprise to the old man, to find that a handsome share of the gift was set apart by the bridegroom for the benefit of her mother and sisters. But of all the persons present on the joyous occasion of Margaret's hymeneals, who so happy, who so proud, as her brother Henry? He, who had so tenderly watched over her feeble health, at a period when no peculiar distinc- tions invested her with a degree of importance superior to the charm attending the extreme beauty of his elder and younger sister; — he, who had loved her so tenderly, so vigilantly, while Rupert Orme was still wandering among tlie mango-groves, and Remington Compton plod- ding away amid the dust and parchments of Lincoln's Inn; — he, who had maintained her dignity against the sneers levelled by Adela and Lady Germaine at literary ladies, and ap- plauded her rejection of the brilliant overtures of Sir Burford the Great; — he bestowed her upon his friend at the altar with all the heartfelt OF TEN SEASONS. 159 fervour of a father — all the exulting tenderness of the happiest of brothers. Alicia Compton could hardly conceal her sympathy in his honest pride — his genial warmth of feeling. While Lady Germaine and Adela were luxu- riating in the inebriations of the Carnival, in- toxicated or mad with those fermenting fumes of vanity which bewilder the coteries of Paris previous to the amende honorable of a Lenten repentance, the Hon. Mrs. Compton took pos- session of a handsome mansion in Spring Gar- dens, happy in the affection of a husband who had no objection to her seeing as much of " those Raymonds " as she pleased ; and who neither affected nor felt any peculiar horror on perceiving that the facilities thus afforded to a more intimate friendship between his own sister and the brother of his bride, had the singular effect of rendering the giddy Alicia grave — the sentimental Harry a rattler. He was not blind to the fact that they were falling in love, with the headlong obstinacy that sometimes attends the growth of that amiable passion, with both the wise and foolish ; but after having warned the 160 THE FLIRT young Guardsman that his sister had nothing to depend on beyond the shallow settlement pro- vided for one of six younger children, and re- minded Alicia that she had been too long accus- tomed to the ostentations of life to limit her inclinations to a barrack-room and the prece- dency of a subaltern's wife, he conceived that he had done his duty. Perhaps the discerning Remington was aware that his predication had been rendered superfluous by the previous in- fluence of those daily walks among the Lang- dale woods, and daily rides among the Lang- dale lanes, which had increased the measure of Alicia's sighs, and animated the mirth of Henry. Perhaps he was aware that they were already desperately in love ; and having neither Puck nor Ariel at command, did not attempt to "put a girdle round about the earth," or to dam up the flow of the Ganges, or to arrest the progress of a tender passion between a pair of weak-headed, strong-hearted young persons, who had been sentimentalizing together among the groves and the nightingales, in all the charming bewilder- ment of knowing they had not a twig whereon OF TEN SEASONS. 161 to build a nest for the turtledoveship of their own unprosperous destinies. During the latter weeks of Margaret's court- ship, from the period when Lord Soho had come forward so liberally in favour of the esta- blishment of his son, it was frequently raised as a question of some interest in the Fulham circle, whether Sir Burford ought to be formally ap- prized of the approaching event ; or whether it might not be unwise to irritate him by an an- nouncement so fatal to his own projects of hap- piness ; and it was finally resolved by Mary, who had seen most of their cousin, and there- fore liked him least of the family, that his pre- tensions to Margaret's hand having arisen merely from the vanities of her literary success, he was very little to be pitied for his disappoint- ment. Had it not been for Mrs. Raymond's grateful recollection of his interference in favour of her darling Willie, he might have been left to the disrespect of learning this important family event through the medium of Galignani's Messenger, or of an inconclusive epistle from his mother, which contained the following hint: — 162 THE FLIRT " Yours, my dear Burford, came safe to Hand, and glad to learn of your Rheumatism. My Rug is come back finished last Saturday was a Fortnight, and now made up from Town, looking very rich and comfortable^ with our good neighbour Soho's Son Remington's Wed- ding Cake. All much pleased with Margaret. Mr. Orme's Generosity being the universal Theme. Mr. Rubric writes by this post; so will only conclude from Your affectionate Mother, Dorothy Raymond." But Mrs. Raymond thought it necessary to communicate the event in a more detailed man- ner to the son of her benefactor. Sir Richard — to the benefactor of her own son William ; and after bestowing prodigious pains and considera- tion on the composition of a despatch addressed to so critical an eye as that of the pupil of the Rev. Dr. Fagg, she put him in possession of all the circumstantialities of the case. It is probable that the acquisition proved un- acceptable—for not one syllable did the Baronet OF TEN SEASONS. 163 vouchsafe in return; although on one point of her communication, — a point intimately connected with the interests of another member of her little family, — she had judged it advisable to solicit his advice and opinion. He had either become indifferent to the matter, or was offended past conciliation ; and Mrs. Compton was seriously distressed to perceive, on Henry's account, that the former feuds between Langdale and Fulham were likely to be renewed, and that her brother must give up all chance of succeeding at some future time to the estates of his family. The prospect did not, however, avail to damp the courage of the pretty Alicia, who expressed her- self perfectly content with Mapleton and its four hundred per annum, the reversion of which was already settled on the young Guardsman. They would then be able to make up between them nearly eight hundred a year ! — Eight hundred a year, and a cottage in Kent ! — What could exceed the delights of such a prospect ? The young couple already looked confidently forward to a life of honeymoon and elegant economy. 164 THE FLIRT CHAPTER X. When I consider the false impressions which are received by the generality of the world, I am troubled at none more than a certain levity of thought, which many young women of quality have entertained, to the hazard of their characters, and the certain misfortune of their lives. Steele. It excited no little surprise among those higher circles of the French nobility in which Lady Germaine and her daughter were passing the winter, to observe the perfect independence of tone and action assumed by the beautiful Adela. They, who were habituated to the sight of the mute damsels with downcast eyes and mechanical docility, who constitute and represent the spinster estate in France, were amazed to find a girl, an unemancipated girl, invested in the splendours of attire and levities of OF TEN SEASONS. 165 speech and demeanoiu", characteristic of the married Frenchwoman. Many enquired if she were not a widow; and all, while they wor- shipped her beauty and applauded her sallies, agreed that she must have renounced every prospect of matrimony, and made up her mind to retain her independence for life. They could not conceive it possible that attractions of such a nature were put forward to engage any man in his senses to make her the mother of his children, the companion of his fireside. " Since she already assumes such liberty of conscience," cried the young Due de Villeroi, " what will she be when marriage renders her her own mistress ? — what will she be as a wife ? — Dieu Wben prt serve.'' But even had Adela been aware of the opinions thus freely expressed, and the still severer ones which remained unspoken, the tenour of her conduct would have been unchanged. She re- garded herself as beyond the influence of public opinion, as tacitly affianced to a young noble- man of considerable property, and therefore privileged to defy the prej udices of society. 166 THE FLIRT " Qjtie voulez vous ? " she exclaimed to her giddy friend, the Marchioness of GirastoUe ; " you say it is the custom in Paris for none but married women to flirt in a ball-room or a ride in the Bois de Boulogne. In England we girls are the favoured order. How can you blame me for insisting, so long as I am able, on the privileges of my caste t^ — depend on it I will not neglect those of yours, as soon as I am entitled to exercise them. After all, London is the place for Mademoiselle, — Paris for Madame." — " Were you one of us, ma belle Ad^le, you would run some risk of never becoming Ma- dame !" cried the Marchioness pettishly; and Miss Richmond attributing her remonstrance to the vexation of finding her privileges en- croached on by a stranger, determined to persist in the career so consonant with her own inclina- tions. Lady Germaine, in all the hurry of her tcarte, and her anxiety to see her apartments crowded by a weekly reunion of the distingues of Paris, was either unobservant of the astonish- ment excited by her daughter's freedom of action, or indifferent to the indiscretion which OF TEN SEASONS. 167 she considered a main source of their popularity. She knew that Adela was guiltless of any thing " really wrong ;" and had no notion of subject- ing herself to the absurd customs and prejudices of any foreign country. Meanwhile, the portentous month of February drew near : — when one night, on ascending the illuminated staircase of the chateau to a ball given by the Duchesse de Berri, they were met by Lord Augustus Cecil, an intimate friend of the noble minor, whose arm Lady Germaine caught in passing that she might assail him with a few hurried interrogations concerning her nephew. But his Lordship, who was flying off in attendance on the beautiful Lady Avenmore (who was going away overcome by the heat of the ball-room, or the presence of a sister of her Lord, said to exercise a very jealous scrutiny over her movements) could not be detained. He promised to call next day at Lady Germaine's hotel ; but even his brief intelligence that he had " only just quitted his friend Germaine," excited Adela's curiosity and interest to so high a pitch, that for the first time she forgot to exult 168 THE FLIRT in the triumph of finding herself the prettiest woman, and the best dressed English woman in the circle of Madame ; for the first time the reserve and tranquillity of her demeanour insured the approbation of the assembly. But the following morning brought no Lord Augustus. Lady Germaine, after pacing her gorgeous saloon for three anxious hours, dis- patched her chasseur to the Hotel Castiglione ; and instead of seeing him return, followed by the truant dandy, had the mortification to receive the following billet, left by his Lordship to be delivered to her after his departure for England ! "Dear Lady Germaine, " I am off' to Calais, — and am therefore under the necessity of apologizing for the impossibility of waiting upon you according to my engage- ment. Let me, however, fulfil the most impor- tant purpose of my intended visit, by informing you that I quitted Germaine a fortnight ago at Naples, on the point of beginning his journey homewards. He is in high spirits, but growing a bore ; for he thinks and dreams, and of course OF TEN SEASONS. 169 talks only of the enfranchisement of his ap- proaching majority, and the delight of renoun- cing his freedom by an immediate marriage with his beautiful cousin. — I never saw a fellow so miserably in love. — I should imagine he would be at Paris in ten days. Your Ladyship's most Obedient Servant, A. C." " Well, my dear mamma," cried Adela, who had been watching Lady Germaine's perusal of the portentous billet; but unable to decypher through the mask of her Ladyship's cosmetics, the effect produced on her countenance by Lord Augustus's intelligence ; " What news of poor Augustus ? — Has Lady Avenmore reduced him to the desperation of drowning himself in Cu- ra9oa; or what has become of him this morning!" " Augustus !" cried Lady Germaine, laying down the billet with an air of contemptuous vex- ation; " What on earth is Lord Augustus to you?" — "Not much certainly! — yet I don't think I should have hurried Madame Deschamps VOL. I. 1 170 THE FLIRT SO violently for my new pelisse, had I not fancied he was coming here to day. Lord Augustus is the only Englishman I ever knew on whom the advantage of a pretty dress were not thrown away. He has almost as much ima- gination as Herbault." " Well then," exclaimed Lady Germaine, unable to repress her satisfaction at the informa- tion imparted b}^ Lord Augustus sufficiently to chide as it deserved the flippancy of her daughter, '' you cannot do better than write and consult him about your trousseau ; for it appears that Germaine*s impatience will leave you very little leisure, after his arrival, to make your prepa- rations." "Preparations?" cried Adela, eagerly snatch- ing the letter, and perusing it with glowing cheeks, and affecting an air of unconcern as soon as she found that all was safe. " I really wish Lord Augustus had managed to bring us this news himself,'* said she with nonchalance, returning the billet to her mother. " I should like to have learned from him by what art old Veerham contrived to kidnap my cousin, and prevent him from corresponding OF te:n seasons. 171 with us. There is something very mysterious about it." " Have patience, and Germaine will explain the whole affair. He will be here, you see, in less than a fortnight ; and as the period of my location will expire by that time, I shall propose our immediate departure for England." The ten days intervening between Lord Au- gustus and Lady Avenmore's departure and this anxiously expected event, would have been un- speakably tedious both to Adela and her mother, had they not managed to fix their attention on the various purchases which Lady Germaine judged it prudent to effect in Paris, in order to economize the expenditure indispensable for the wedding clothes of a Viscountess. Day after day, the triilers were engrossed by the task of selecting laces, measuring cambric, exa- mining embroidery ; and any one less compla- cently self-disposed than Adela Richmond, might have become weary of contemplating her own blue eyes in the glass, and of trying on hats, bonnets, toques, berets, and a thousand other fripperies, elevated into importance by those I 2 172 THE FLIRT magniloquent titles by which the Parisians con- trive to impart dignity to a shaving brush, or a patent corkscrew. Yet every evening found her unabated in ardour to increase her store of treasures; and, but for the limitation of Lady Germaine's jointure and generosity, it is probable that not a novelty-shop from the Rue Vivienne to the Isle St. Louis, would have been left un- explored by the restless vanity of the bride- expectant. At length the ten days specified by Lord Augustus Cecil were brought to a close ; Lady Germaine deposited especial instructions at the Hotel of the British Embassy that intelligence of her nephew's arrival should instantly be for- warded to herself; and was even at the trouble of bribing the municipal officer stationed at the Barriere d'ltalie, to take charge of her card of address, and deliver it to the first English Milor bearing the same name, whose travelling carriage and passport should present themselves to his re- cognizance. At the end of the fortnight, when every day, every hour, every minute, threatened to produce the happy crisis, she would no longer OF TEX SEASONS. 1T3 quit the house lest they should miss the hour of Lord Germaine's arrival ; and every evening a dinner consisting of his favourite dishes was served up to the two disconsolate ladies. No in- vitations were accepted, no invitations given, lest they should interfere with the fii'st meeting between the lovers. Three weeks expired, and no Lord Germaine ! — It was useless to write, for the truant had certainly quitted Naples, and was probably loitering by the way at Florence, or Geneva, or some other gay resort of his countrymen ; and nothing could be more embarrassing than to invent excuses for the numerous querists, who were continually flattering Lady Germaine by inquiries after the dear nephew she was so anx- iously expecting; and whom the whispers of certain milliners and embroiderers respecting the coronettization of the trousseau de Made- jTwiselle de Rougeinont^ naturally pointed out to their suspicions as the future husband of Adela. It was equally vexatious to her ladyship to ac- knowledge that she was completely in the dark ^ to the cause of his delay, and to dawdle away 174 THE FLIRT her time in the Hotel she had been compelled to re-engage for a month, on the prospect of his arrival. It was already Lent. Every thing at Paris was dull and desolate ; and probably, amid the million and a half of penitential souls, sigh- ing away their sins over their soupe maigre^ not one was smitten with a more profound sense of the vanities and vexations of human life, than poor Lady Germaine, — surrounded by bills for the paraphernalia of a wedding that was be- ginning to look so very problematical. But her Ladyship's perplexities were al- most at end! — She had been too frequent and too circumstantial in her investigations at the Embassy, not to have excited the sym- pathy of one or two of the attaches, who had been somewhat predisposed against Adela by her well-known antipathy to younger brothers. Anxious, therefore, to terminate a dilemma which they had pretty nearly traced to its ori- gin, Mr. William St. Leger was at length deputed by his confederates to favour her Ladyship with the intelligence that Lord Ger- maine and suite, instead of traversing France^ OF TEN SEASONS. 175 had taken the Tyi'olean and Rhine road to England; and that his Lordship had crossed from Rotterdam to London five weeks before ! StartKng as were these tidings, Lady Ger- maine had scarcely breath to read aloud to Adela, (from a copy of the Courier transmitted with the attache's polite despatch) the following astounding paragraph : — " MARRIAGE IN HIGH-LIFE." " On Thursday evening last were married, by special license, by the Lord Bishop of Lon- don, at the residence of the Hon. Remington Compton, M. P., the Right Hon. Viscount Germaine, to Jane, youngest daughter of the late Charles Raymond, Esq. After the cere- mony the happy pair set off for Richmond Hall, in Westmoreland, the seat of the bridegroom. The bridesmaids officiating on the occasion were the Lady Caroline Ilderfield, the Hon. Miss Compton, and the beautiful Miss Raymond, sister to the bride.** "Those Raymonds!!!" IT 6 THE FLIRT CHAPTER XIL Painted for sight, and essenced for the smelly Like frigates fraught with spice and cochineal. Sail in the ladies ! How each pirate eyes So frail a vessel and so rich a prize ! Donne's Satikes. Very willingly would Adela have renounced the project of returning to London, and en- countering anew the joys of " the Season/* She was not heart-struck, indeed ; she had ne- ver regarded her cousin Germaine more ten- derly than as a good-natured, pleasant creature, whom it would be very convenient to her to marry, and who would probably prove extremely indulgent to his wife. But she was mortified — injured — irritated — angry with everybody. She felt that she should have no patience to hear of Lady Germaine 's diamonds, and Lady Ger- maine's equipages ; nor to listen to Mrs. Ray- OF TEN SEASONS. 177 mend's prosaic self-gratulation on the domestic happiness of her daughter Compton. It was some comfort to her that Mary was still unmar- ried ; but, after seeing greatness so strangely thrust upon her sisters, ivho could predict what might happen to the eldest and handsomest of her three cousins. But, though the announcement of Lord Ger- maine*s alliance with his pretty cousin proved so sudden, so terrible a blow to Adela and her mother, there was nothing either sudden or terrible in the arrangement of the connexion. His passion for Jane had originated, indeed, in one of those childish fancies denominated "love at first sight." Two accidental meet- ings — one at the Hammersmith florist's, the other in the Langdale shrubberies, — had im- printed her image on his imagination as that of a divinity. The attractive countenance and elegant form of the unknown fair one haunted his dreams as those of some wandering wood- nymph ; and no sooner did a visit to his new friend William Raymond, discover to him, late in the preceding season, the object of his I 5 178 THE FLIRT idolatry in the person of that sweet cousin, that " darling Jane" of whom Raymond had been so apt to rhapsodize, — than he tendered himself and his possessions to her acceptance. It may readily be supposed that the myste- rious hero of poor Jane's romance, the "him" in whose honour she had been blushing for six months past, did not prove unacceptable ; and from the moment he had the happiness of hear- ing their engagement confirmed by Mrs. Ray- mond, the young Lord found it very diffi- cult to return to the heartless frivolity of Lady Germaine's circle. The Fulham family, indeed, were anxious that the connexion should be gra- dually dropped ; and, in truth, he had never much liked Adela or his aunt. The former, he admired as a very handsome, fashionable girl, a most decided flirt, who had not sufficient generosity of mind to qualify her as the confi- dante of his passion for his charming Jane ; — while in the latter he beheld a woman fright- fully and unfemininely worldly — sickening to his reminiscences as the authoress of his first emetic — ^sickening to his heart as a match- OF TEN SEASONS. 179 making mother. He entertained no suspicion of their immediate projects on himself; fancy- ing that he had made the kinsmanly natm-e of his attentions too apparent to sanction any thing resembling a matrimonial cabal: nor had he the least idea that, in giving his hand to his be- loved Jane, he was doing more than stimulating Lady Germaine's old antipathy to " those Ray- monds!" — of whom she had always spoken to him as low, designing people, — uniting the odium of being poor relations with every other species of vileness. The interposition of Sir Claudius Veerham, which was the consequence of a formal intima- tion given him by his ward at the instigation of Remington Compton, has already been alluded to : and as to the delight, the ecstacy with which the boy-lover flew, at the close of his probation, to claim the plighted hand of the pretty little fairy who seemed to have opened her eyes on the world of men and women, only to fix them on the being destined to be eternally her own, the subject would exhaust the superla- tives even of the most experienced novelist. 180 THE FLIRT Fortunately for the tranquillity of Adela, Lord and Lady Germaine were still in West- moreland, when she found herself installed once more in her mother's residence, to experience anew the mortification of sending round their visiting tickets for the season as the Dowager Viscountess Germaine. Miss Richmond, Cuv3on .Street. It was some consolation to be spared for a time the spectacle of the young Viscount's raptures, and the awkward and vulgar airs of his bride. Her only remaining source of tri- umph was, however, the certainty that they would be awkward and vulgar ; for how could one of " those Raymonds' living at Fulham, and repudiated by the great world, form an accurate conception of the forms and etiquettes of fashionable society? Lady Germaine must inevitably commit herself, and be dismissed to that paltry class of the little great, the tritons of the minnows of second-rate London. OF TEN SEASONS. 181 Meanwhile, her own best chance of happiness was to direct her thoughts as much as possible from the prosperity of her cousins, and assume a new line of attraction, such as might serve to varnish over the true motive of her residence in Paris, and render her return triumphant. Sus- picious, perhaps, that the refined delicacy of her beauty was somewhat faded, she strove to repair the injuries of time by intense affectation, and by Frenchifying her costume, manners, tone, and dialect, to the utmost extent of absurdity. Instead of renewing her pretensions to be con- sidered the prettiest girl in London, she affected to be the best dressed ; w^as agonized by the horrors of the English toilet, as they were ex- hibited by some of the most elegant women at Almacks ; and could no longer talk, walk, or even think, except after the exact pattern of the frivolous dolls among whom she had been pass- ing the winter. The thing succeeded for a time, succeeded amonfr that noveltv-seekino- class to which Miss Richmond's efforts were addressed. But, wonderful to relate, the success of so 182 THE FLIRT paltry a stage trick was not limited to the Lady Julianas and Lady Marias whose imaginations were taken prisoners by the strangeness of her coiffure^ or the nicety and freshness of her ball dress. While taking aim at the Almack's covey soon after her arrival in town, a random shot glanced oflP, and like the bolt of Cupid, "lighted on a little western flower !" A certain Mr. Courtenay, the eldest son of a rich Devonshire baronet, having been honoured by a chance presentation to the flirt of five sea- sons, was so much struck by the new world of foppery unfolded to him by the Parisian helle^ that he immediately attached himself to her side. He was quite a young man; junior by three years to the experienced Adela, having only just quitted the University, with precisely that reserve of mind and shyness of demeanour, which so often place a man at the disposal of the first pretty woman who chooses to exert her arts for his captivation. Adela did choose. He was not, it is true, so brilliant a match as her young cousin, or even as Sir Burford Ravmond ; and was manifestly OF TEN SEASONS. 183 inferior in pretensions to the Colonel Rawford and Browze, Esq., rejected in her first sea* son. But her kinsfolk and acquaintance were marrying around her ; innumerable girls of far inferior pretensions, who had made their debut at the same time, were already advantageously settled in life ; and she was well aware that the woes experienced by " the last Rose of summer" are no less true than tuneful. She judged it wise, therefore, to descend two or three steps from her original altitude, fancying that, thanks to the mincing affectation which now characterized all her movements, the derogation would not be noticed by the spectators. There cannot be a more vexatious sight in tlie eyes of the hard, cold, uncompromising class of rationalists, such as Rupert Orme, than that of a fine, open-hearted youth shipwrecked on the rocks of fashionable society, to be made an easy prey by the sharks, male and female, who haunt its perilous shore. Frederick Courtenay was a most accomplished scholar, not after the fashion of a Sir Burford Raymond, but in the highest sense of the word ; but he was very 184 THE FLlRT timid ill female society, destitute of know- ledge of the world, scarcely knew the mean- ing of the word flirt, — and above all, found it impossible to fancy that the graceful, beauti- ful Adela, who smiled so sweetly in his face, listened so graciously to his sighs, and preferred him to all the host of danglers aspiring to her hand in every ball-room in London, had existed previous to the happy moment which introduced him to her acquaintance. He had not been idling away his time in club-windows, or giving ear to all the flippant slanders which circu- late from coterie to coterie concerning every woman who attracts the attention of the world. A man of such refined and sensitive delicacy would have shrunk from yielding the rich trea- sure of his affections to one who had been so often wooed ; and how much more to one who was known to have exerted her captivations for such and such a purpose — to entangle an heir- apparent — or conquer the hand of a boy vis- count ! Poor Courtenay ! — how fondly he fell into the snare ; how confidently he entrusted to the ear OF TEN SEASONS. 185 of Adela all the vagaries of his romantic enthu- siasm, all his projects of happiness, without the slightest suspicion that she could be so base as to render his ingenuousness the scoff of Lord Augustus Cecil, and the secret object of her own unlimited contempt. And yet she rejoiced in the rash candour of her lover, — for it convinced her that a man so unsophisticated would be the most amenable and docile husband in the world. Fortunately for Frederick, there were many circumstances to intervene previous to reducing Miss Richmond's theory to practice. His father was a rich but a cautious man ; and though rarely an inhabitant of the metropolis, had con- nections there of sufficient discernment to see all that was going on, and sufficient proficiency in West End lore, to know that Lady Germaine's daughter was a fashionable coquette — the mother a manoeuvring matchmaker. Sir Frederick Courtenay, angry to find that his son and heir was seeking engagements so important without testifying his respect by confiding them to his parents, now thought 186 THE FLIRT proper to forestal his confessions by a letter taxing him, in a very paternal tone, with folly and disingenuousness ! — Even these charges might have been endured with submission by the sighing Strephon; but unfortunately the Devonshire Baronet existed beyond the circle of Adela*s enchantments ; and unbiassed by her Parisian graces, or even those of nature, actually presumed to discuss the fashionable Miss Richmond in a tone almost as fatherly as that which characterized his apostrophe to his son. He called Frederick a fool, and Adela a Mr. Courtenay's reply exhibited of course a very proper spirit of filial resistance and lover- like indignation. He acknowledged, indeed, the justice of one half of his father's charge, in the avowal that if not a fool, he loved like one ; but as to the vile aspersion on Miss Rich- mond's character, words failed him in rebutting the calumny. — " Adela, a flirt ! — Adela, from whose side he had scarcely stirred for six weeks past ; who loved him so affectionately ; who so generously confessed that she found in his so- OF TEN SEASONS. 187 ciety, in his conversation, that charm, that kin- dred sympathy, she had despaired of meet- ing among the heartless circles to which she was restricted. Adela, who talked with him about the moonlight and the twilight ; the flowers and the showers ; the bright intelligence of com- mingling minds, — the exquisite anticipation of an eternal union, an united eternity ; who died with him of a rose in aromatic pain, and re- vived to live with him in a chaos of bright con- fusion, — stars, enchanted islands, golden vio- lets, Goethe, the devil, and Dr. Faustus ! " But Sir Frederick was not to be blinded nor deafened, nor above all silenced by these rhapso- dies. He saw with the penetrating eye of fifty- five, heard with the vigilant ear of paternal solicitude, and finally spoke with the paramount authority that showed him master of the des- tinies of his son. He threatened the suspen- sion of Frederick's allowance, unless he con- sented to quit London ; and refused to settle a single shilling on him, in the event of his mar- riage, unless he would put the strength of his attachment to the proof, by absenting himself for 188 THE FLIRT two whole years from the society of Lady Ger- maine and her daughter. " You are only twenty-one," wrote the matter-of-fact Baronet, ** / did not marry till twenty -five ; and yet you see how much too closely you tread upon my heels ! — Take my advice, Fred, and give your- self time to grow gray before your eldest son writes to acquaint you that he is about to pro- vide you with a daughter in-law, towards whom you entertain a strong antipathy." It was impossible to exhibit this insulting pro- tocol to Lady Germaine; and it was even very difficult to modify its contents with any chance of making his father's intentions intelligible, and escaping being forbidden the house. The crisis was imminent; and poor Frederick Cour- tenay executed a very perturbed rap at the door in Curzon-street, when he betook himself thither with a view to explanation. One only alternative suggested itself to his mind, — which he hastened to attach to his preliminaries. He had already learned from Lady Germaine, that Adela was entitled on her marriage to a fortune of five thousand pounds ; and would she but con- OF TEN SEASONS. 189 sent to become his own in defiance of the me- naces of his father, they might appropriate this sum to their expences, and continue to reside with Mamma in Curzon-street, till Sir Fre- derick Courtenay could be wTought upon to listen to their proposals. What a notion ! — what a scheme to propound to a cunning Dowager ! — To be sure poor Fred. was the son of " a De'nshire clown," and more addicted to the perusal of Plato than the maxims of La Rochefoucauld ! Instead of acceding to this proposal of be- coming a resident in her house, Lady Ger- maine conceived very strong inclinations to order him to be turned out of it on the spot ; but frequent disappointments and the untoward state of Adela's affairs rendered her cautious; and after begging time to take his project into consideration, she arranged the business very much to her own satisfaction, by one of those curious specimens of epistolary circumlocution, by which fashionable ladies contrive to do the rudest things in the most gracious manner. The original document occupied a sheet and a half 190 THE FLIRT of wire-wove paper. In print, and divested of its courtsuit of flummery and deprecation, the heart of the matter may be contained in two lines,^ — that he must not again enter her doors till sanctioned by Sir Frederick Courtenay's consent to his union with Miss Richmond. OF TEN SEASONS. 191 CHAPTER XIII. It is a miserable thing to live always in suspense : 'tis the life of the spider. Swift. It was just two days after this catastrophe, and Adela sat moping over her breakfast, wearied to death by the vigils of a dull ball at the mansion of the old-fashioned Duchess of Rackwell's, which she had exerted herself to attend in order to silence the ill-natured rumours already current respecting Mr. Courtenay's sudden departure for Devonshire; while Lady Germaine, attired in those fatal spectacles which she never ven- tured to use unless in the confidential privacy of domestic life, pored over the columns of the Morning Post. At the opera, or in the park, she was near-sighted, and required a glass : — in Curzon Street, over the morning papers, she 192 THE FLIRT condescended to be old and blind enough for spectacles. " Yes ! here it is," said Lady Germaine addressing her daughter — * Frederick Courte- nay, Esq. for the seat of his father Sir Frederick Courtenay, Bart. Brooklands, Devonshire.' — How I hate the tittle-tattle of the English newspapers ! Why cannot they allow people to go in and out of town without flourishing the trumpet of Fame, like the clarion for a royal entree in a tragedy." " Announced among the departures ? — What a bore ! — The Howards asked me so many questions last night about the cause of his absence ; and insisted he was gone into the country to look for a house for our future resi- dence. Of course I did not deny it ; and I am sure I looked guilty and conscious enough." " And should you meet them to night at Lady Westerham's j'ou will have some new pretext to invent! But what have we here?" continued her Ladyship, running her eye along a column of dates and proper names, — " Something about ^ those Raymonds ;' yes ! — the genealogy of the OF TEN SEASONS. 193 Raymond family,—' distinguished antiquarian ; researches in the Morea ; island of Cerigo, — Naxos, — Homer's School ;' — Good heavens ! my dear Adela ! how very lucky ; after all, every thing has happened for the best ! — Sir Burford Raymond is dead ! " — " Indeed!" exclaimed Adela, not immediately perceiving the nature of her good fortune in the event. " Probably he caught a malaria fever, poking among the foundations of the Eternal City; and has bequeathed his remains to be converted into a mummy by the hands of that conservator of learned lumber, Nicodemus Fagg." " His remains ! — To whom do you think he has bequeathed his estates ?" " Some college, or public institution ? " " No, Adela, no ! — fourteen thousand a year, Langdale, and the house in Seamore Place ! God bless my soul ; who would have thought it!" " To me ?" interrupted Miss Richmond, as- tonished by her mother's agitation. '^ To you, if you will condescend to play your VOL. I. K 194 THE FLIRT cards according to my advice/* said Lady Ger- maine. " To Harry Raymond, Adela ; to our own dear Harry ! — Lord Germaine's godson, the playmate of your infancy !" " Whom you drove from your house, and / from my heart !" cried her daughter with bitterness; "the only man for whom I ever really cared ; the only man who ever really cared for me ; the man who of all others has a right to detest me !" "Nonsense !" cried Lady Germaine, greatly shocked by this unbecoming ebullition of feeling or temper on the part of her daughter. " Harry Raymond is well aware of the strictness of my sense of maternal duty, and yours of filial sub- mission. He is not silly enough to imagine that I should think of allowing my only daugh- ter to starve as the wife of a beggarly ensign in the Guards ; or to fancy that you would re- nounce your duty to your mother for his sake." " It must be owned he has had strong evi- dence to the contrary,'* cried Adela; "and if he have but a thousandth part of the spirit for which I give him credit, nothing will induce OF TEN SEASONS. 195 him to renew the offer of his affections where they have been so injuriously treated. I know, I feel, I loathe the full extent of my heartless conduct towards my cousin. I know it by the greatness of my original repugnance in at- tempting the task !" " Well, well, do not let us whimper over our repentance of the blunder," said Lady Germaine, perceiving that the tears stood in her daughter's eyes. " It may not yet be too late. I have half the morning to dispose of; let us drive to Fulham and see what we can extract from your Aunt Raymond. Good Lord, to think how that woman has got on in the world ! — I wish she would teach us her secret." Some glimmering of the truth flashed at that moment across Adela's mind; but she dared not give it utterance. She dreaded the irony of her fashionable mother too much to express a conviction, that rectitude of purpose and conduct, formed the arcanum by which " those Raymonds" had contrived to ensure the respect of society, — the favour of God and man. They were disappointed, however, in their K 2 196 THE FLIRT hope of worming the secrets of the family out of Mrs. Raymond's guileless heart. She had driven into town in her pony-chair to visit the person by whom it was originally presented to her,— the kind thoughtful Margaret,— and to provide mourning for the rest of the family. Although her son, her pride, her Harry, was a gainer by the event to an extent little less than miraculous in the widow's estimation, she re- ceived the announcement of Sir Burford's death with decency and respect. The deceased had been a true friend to her; had rescued her William— her last-born — the child who had nestled in her bosom as she bent over its father's deathbed — from the miseries of foreign banish- ment. — Mighty and various are the sources of good and happy feeling that rise in the bosom of a parent ! During her mother's absence, they were wel- comed by Mary ; and Adela Richmond, among all her woes, had the comfort of perceiving that if the hand of Time had operated disadvantage- ously on her own countenance, it had not alto- gether spared that of her lovely cousin. Mary OF TEN SEASONS. 197 was paler, thinner, more subdued in tone than during her triumphant days of beauty; and while it occurred vexatiously to Lady Germaine that her niece had gained in elegance all she had lost in freshness, Adela did not hesitate to attribute the alteration in her appearance to envy of the superior fortunes of her sisters. Mary's rash rejection of the Duke of Droning- ton's son had not yet travelled so far as Curzon Street. Her reception of her aunt and cousin was courteous but constrained. Adela and Adela's mother were now thoroughly seen through and appreciated at Fulham. Lord Germaine, Harry, poor Sir Burford, old Orme, had each contri- buted his contingent of intelligence, in addition to the ordinary accusations of society ; and the " young ravens" were at length on their guard against the bland amenities of both. Lady Ger- maine, on the present occasion, was eloquent in expressing her regret that she was so seldom able to get as far as Fulham, while Mary re- gretted that she found leisure to come at all ; nor could the visitors extract more from her 198 THE FLIRT concerning either the last Baronet or the pre-^ sent, than that Harry was with his regiment in Dublin when the news arrived, and was now on his road to Langdale ; and that Sir Burford had been attacked by banditti while prowling with Nicodemus in a ruined amphitheatre at Gir- genti ; that the patron had been only frightened, the divine seriously injured, — that Dr. Fagg had recovered from his wounds, while the Baronet died of his fright ! She did not think it neces- sary to gratify the curiosity of the two guests, who were A little more than kin, and less than kind, by acquainting them that Sir Burford, on ex- cluding his ex-tutor from the family living, had enriched him in lieu, with an annuity of two thousand a year, partly as an act of compensa- tion, and partly to ensure his services to the cause of those scientific researches so important in the estimation of both ; or that he had be- queathed a legacy of twenty thousand pounds to her mother, a plain gold ring bearing his initials to Margaret Compton, and to her OF TEN SEASONS. 199 brother Henry the whole residue of his fortune, real and personal ! The will was dated on the day he heard of Remington Compton's union with Miss Raymond ; so that it was not sur- prising he found no time to write and acknow- ledge his mother's letter containing the intelli- gence. " This will never do," cried Lady Germaine, as she got into the carriage to return to town ; " we shall make nothing ont of these cold formal people. If I can ascertain the newspaper re- port concerning Sir Henry to be well founded, we must be ready, on his return to town, to welcome him with the greatest frankness and cordiality, and you will soon find him replaced on the old footing in Curzon Street. His bri- gade has been in Ireland for the last year, and you are as well aware as myself that he had formed no particular connections in society pre- vious to quitting London." But Sir Henry Raymond was destined to dis- appoint all the prognostications of that tender aunt who had so magnanimously dismissed her husband's favourite in his little hussar jacket, to 200 THE FLIRT Starve in the bosom of his family. He had not the least thoughts of returning to town. All his wishes, all his anxieties were centered at Lang- dale, and all his family and friends had promised, in the course of the summer, to centre there too; — from old Rupert Orme to Margaret's expected baby. It is true poor Lady Raymond, now in- firm and nearly doting, had a right to retain it as a jointure-house for life; but she had just sense enough left to feel that she should be more comfortable at Mapleton than in the desolate old mansion ; and good nature enough to wish to leave Langdale free from the gratification of her dear Harry's happy projects. She loved the successor of her unfortunate son because he was the favourite of her own Sir Richard ; and found in the premature decease of Sir Burford rather a topic for lamentation and wonder and discus- sion, than of intense affliction. In truth he had been a most uncomfortable son to her ; trans- formed into a pedant before he was breeched, she had to thank the officiousness of the Duke of Dronington for depriving her of half the enjoyments of maternal love. She could not OF TEN SEASONS. 201 but be sensible that Harry, in assisting her re- moval to her pretty cottage at Mapleton, and studying her pleasure, and caprice, and conve- nience in every trifle, showed more activity in her behalf in the course of eight and forty hours, than the F.S.A. in the course of the whole eight and forty years of his existence. Meanwhile Adela was drinking the dregs of the season, with a nauseated palate and tremu- lous hand. Every successive Wednesday she flattered herself with a hope of seeing Henry glide into the ball-room at Willis's, in The customary suit of Stulz's black, and the graceful urbanity characteristic of the popularity of a man of twelve thousand per annum. — But still he came not ! — Every week the assembly grew thinner and thinner, till at lengdi nothing remained by way of partner but the abhorrent congregation of nobodies ; — the subalterns of the Guards or household brigade, — the Whitehall and Dowming-street pen- menders, and a few second-rate men of first-rate fortune, who found it impossible to buy their K 5 202 THE FLIRT way into society so long as the higher class of exquisites and inefFables were on the spot to quiz them down : — but not a glimpse, not a prospect of the young Baronet. At length Lady Germaine grew desperate. " This will never do." mumbled she, as Miss Richmond and herself were returning home from a ball in the bright dawn of a July morn- ing ; — their flowers and tinsel, the envy of every Welsh milk- maid swinging her pails through the empty streets, — their haggard eyes and glar- ing rouge the scoff of the artizan plodding to his daily labours. " There is no chance of Harry coming to town so late in the season. Your trousseau will be out of fashion if the match happens to be put off till next year; besides you are gradually running through all the ball dresses, and to no purpose ; — I must take some decided step !" " I am sure you would not talk of steps just now, if you were as tired as I am," faltered Adela, yawning and closing her eyes. " I trust I am too much of a mother to con- sider my own selfish ease before the interests of OF TEN SEASONS. 203 my family,'* said Lady G. with a significant sneer. " I have made up my mind to set off' for Southampton in a day or two ; and I will write in an off*-hand sort of way to Sir Henry, and let him know we think of taking Langdale in our way. I shall talk of my abhorrence of inns, and claim his hospitality for a single night ; and when once we are fairly lodged, he cannot: avoid asking us to prolong our stay. Besides, the Droningtons have frequently begged me to visit them should I find my way to that part of the country : and when your friend Lady Caroline Ilderfield learns you are so near, it will be im- possible not to invite us to Dronington Manor." " I have nothing to say against the project," replied Adela, " except that it will never be realized. Harry will doubtless make some ex- cuse to avoid receiving us." " And do you imagine I would give him the opportunity? I shall get a frank to-day and delay sending it till to-morrow, as if through a a blunder at the post-office ; which will give me a decent apology for following my letter ^04 THE FLIRT without waiting his reply. His silence, you know, will be supposed to give consent." From that moment till Lady Germaine's tra- velling carriage with its imperials, chaise-seats, drop-seats, wells, and cap-boxes, made its ap- pearance at the door, all was confusion in Cur- zon-street. Jewel-boxes were to be stuffed with cotton, — caps, bonnets, and garlands suspended on tape in their appointed recepticles ; the con- venience of a favourite gown studied like that of a favourite child, and the comfort of a plaited collerette watched over like an infirm parent. " Pray take care of my blue toque," cried the mother to her poor, fagged, panting lady's maid. " Remember I cannot allow anything to interfere with my pink pelisse," echoed the daughter. All proceeded prosperously. An unintelli- gible fi-ank was scrawled by Lord Augustus Cecil for the occasion, duly delayed, duly dis- patched, like a balloon sent up to try the course of the wind ; and four-and-twenty hours after- wards, the grand machine, the dowager chariot OF TEN SEASONS. 205 with its appurtenances (the sober butler and flashy femme de chambre grumbling a duet in the dickey behind), followed in the same direc- tion. The journey, like July journeys in general, was hot, dusty, and irritating. The vile odours characteristic of the dog-day atmosphere of all country towns, with their tan-pits and chandler's melting pots, pursued them from Kensington to Guildford; from Guildford to *= * ^ *, where they descended from the carriage for the beauti- fication of half an hour. Lady Germaine re- freshed her complexion, Adela her tresses; while the sober butler washed down the fiery atoms of fifty-five miles of road dust, with a pint of still more fiery fluid, looking like water and smelling of prussic acid. At length a direction post 1^° To Langdale House, greeted their longing eyes ; and on turn- ing through a swing-gate into a handsome private approach leading to the lodge, the great staring dwelling house of the Raymonds stood before them. Its former ardent hue was reduced in- deed to the paleness of the butler's ardent decoction ; but in spite of a coating of Bernas- 206 THE FLIRT coni, the Baronetal residence looked as hideous as ever. " I shall certainly have it pulled down, and make Harry build one nearer to the planta- tions," drawled Miss Richmond, as they ap- proached the house. " Upon my word, this business begins to be a little nervous," observed her mother, stretching on her gloves as they passed the drawing-room windows, and drew up before the hall door; ^'but thank goodness, / can put a good face upon any thing." A bold one, she certainly could; nor was her Ladyship the least moved by the consternation apparent in the countenances of the footmen and grey-headed house steward, who made their appearance on the announcement of visitors. A parley ensued between them and her own man, whose complexion now emulated all the former fierceness of Langdale House. "Is Sir Henry Raymond at home?" cried Lady Germaine from the carriage window, growing impatient at the delay. " The servants say, my Lady," replied he OF TEN SEASONS. 207 of the glowing visage, " that their master can't see nobody ; Sir Henry is engaged werry par- ticlar." " Bid them take in my card," said her Lady- ship, becoming a little nervous ; which sensation was considerably increased during the pause that ensued. At length, with a most perplexed counte- nance, Sir Henry Raymond made his appear- ance, and ordering the carriage door to be opened, leaned into it in an attitude plainly evincing he had very little intention the steps should be let down to facilitate Lady Ger- maine's invasion of his family mansion. For several minutes, however, she took care that nothing should be heard but her warm congra- tulations on his recent good fortune and invaria- ble good looks ; while Adela, on whom the lat- ter were not thrown away, threw herself back in the carriage and said not a word. For once her feelings were genuine. Her heart throbbed less at the sight of the Baronet than of her cousin Harry. " I am half afraid your Ladyship has not 208 THE FLIRT received my letter," said Sir Henry at last, and with tolerable firmness, " or you would scarcely brave the want of accommodation I was un- fortunately compelled to announce. The truth is, my dear Lady Germaine, 1 have not a bed I can presume to offer to you or Miss Richmond, My mother, the Comptons, and Germaines, — my whole family indeed, — are united here for the ceremony of to-morrow, and — " " Ceremony !" reiterated the Dowager, with a horrible presentiment rattling in her throat. " I was not aware — " "And as my marriage with Miss Compton will be solemnized in the family chapel at Compton Park, I am of course not at liberty to issue invitations to such of my own family as are strangers to Alicia's. Perhaps, on your return, your Ladyship may favour us with a visit at Langdale ; but at present I can scarcely hope to induce you to put up with the inconveniences and irregularities attending events of this de- scription. We are in a sad state of confusion !" Not half so sad as that of the Dowager. Even the excellent " face," the subject of her recent OF TEN SEASONS. 209 boasting, was put to the blush. Her congratu- lations, and apologies, and explanations, were blended into a general stammer; while Harry stood bowing and smiling over the carriage steps, whose compact economy he was so in- hospitably careful to avoid disturbing. The only intelligible words of her oration formed its concluding phrase — " Pray tell the postboys to drive to the Dolphin at Southamp- ton." Adela meanwhile said nothing. She was crying bitterly under her Mechlin veil. 2J0 THE FLIRT CHAPTER XIV. How great soe'er your rigours are, With them alone I'll cope ; I can endure my own despair, But not another's hope. Walsh. From Southampton, induced by the restless- ness, partly of indisposition, partly of vexa- tion. Lady Germaine was tempted to cross to Dieppe ; and after a summer and autumn un- profitably passed in dancing attendance on the Duchesse de Berri, and avoiding the dancing attendance of the very unacceptable throng of her countrymen assembled in that bone-carving town, she was compelled, by the advice of the physicians, to repair for the winter months to the south of France. The health of the over- excited, over-fedj over-heated, over-fatigued woman of fashion, was already broken by a OF TEN SEASONS. 211 thousand infirmities. Her temper (or as she termed it, her mind) had been long preying on her body ; and she became daily more fractious and more unamusable than ever. There is perhaps no moment in which the virtuous mother enjoys so plentifully the product of the good seed she has sown, as during those irritable years which precede the approach of age. Not yet wholly weaned from the world, she requires amusement, combined with forbear- ance towards the listless discontent with which the hollow diversions of society begin to inspire an immortal spirit, verging towards the confines of eternity. At such a time, the soothing at- tentions of a daughter form a gentle solace to the " cradle of declining age." Affection never speaks so cheeringly as with the still small voice it assumes to comfort the sick and the sorrowful. But Lady Germaine had sowed the wind, to reap the whirlwind. Adela had never learned to respect her mother in health, and took little heed of her indisposition. She grumbled with- out intermission during a drizzly winter at Tou- louse, where nothing presented itself available 212 THE FLIRT to her views, or cheering to her despondency. The Prefet was an old beau of seventy -five ; and the only English residents were a married cler- gyman, a medical student dying of a decline, and a half-pay captain in the navy, who called her " Miss." Her prospects brightened, however, with the spring. Lady Germaine's medical attendants insisting that a return to her native latitudes must be fatal, thought fit to suggest the baths of the Pyrennees; and away they went to Bag- neres, to regret they had not preferred Barege ; and after quitting it, and establishing themselves at Barege, to pine after Bagneres. Discon- tented with themselves, they were out of humour with every thing else. There was one advantage, however, at Bag- neres, which reconciled them to a thousand de- ficiencies. There was an English lord ! — unmar- ried, rich, good-looking — with an air of senti- mental misanthropy, a pair of large mustachios, and of small Andalusian ponies. Adela had not been there a week before she made up her mind to find her way into his char-a-banc ; and to the great delight of mother and daughter, their OF TEN SEASONS. 213 advances were met cheerfully and a great deal more than half-way, by the Marquis of Stone- ham. The heir of Dronington Manor was now a very different person from the puny, effeminate, self- conceited lordling rejected by Mary Raymond three years before. A tour of Europe had strengthened his mind and weakened his self-con- fidence—darkened his complexion, and bright- ened his understandinsf. Nothinfr can be more ungenerous than to infer too much of a man's character from his days of whelphood. The dullest youths are often fathers to the most intelligent men ; and the schooling of society has converted many a boor and many a bore into refined and entertaining companions. But it was not the improvement visible either in his physical or moral aspect, which rendered so delightful to the Richmonds his undisoruised pretensions to their favour. They had not for- gotten the impression produced on their minds during their disastrous journey through Hamp- shire the preceding season, by the fine woods and venerable turrets of Dronington Manor. 214 THE FLIRT What a world of enjoyment was centred in its thriving timber ! — What a life of luxurious ease, of velvet and ermine, of diamonds and gilt-plate, might be passed beneath that lordly roof ! — What splendour, what pomp, what adu- lation, awaited its future Duchess ! — As they drove through many a village and town, mani- festly dependencies of the feof, and graced by countless copies of the " Ilderfield Arms," each illustrating some variation in a village Landseer's notions of a salamander (the crest of the family), or a brace of gryphons (its sup- porters), the Dowager had vainly tried to call to mind all that she had ever seen or heard of the heir- apparent of the Droningtons. But Adela remembered only, that Lord Stoneham was a short-sighted, long -backed young nobleman, who never could manage to manoeuvre more than the right leg in dancing a quadrille, hopping about on the left like a Nu- midian crane ; and Lady Germaine could recall to mind nothing but that his younger brother Horace Ilderfield, in proposing for her daugh- ter's hand, had assured her it was very unlikely OF TEN SEASONS. 215 the Marquis should ever marry. But this she knew was an assertion which younger sons of the nobihty usually append to the parchment of their commission, or the stock receipt for their ofoOOO. The Dowager's recovery outstripped even the predictions of the physicians. Whether the air of the Pyrennees or the heir of Dronington Manor was chiefly concerned in her amend- ment, it might be difficult to decide ; but she was now able to ascend mountains, descend into vallies, — defy sun, wind, and dust, whenever her chaperonship was in request. Even Adela, whom a year's do-nothingness had in a great measure restored to her original freshness of complexion, grew every day more handsome and more graceful under the influence of the Marquis of Stoneham's attentions. " La Belle Anglaise " was the boast of the baths ; and his Lordship, who had been peregrinating among the dark-browed beauties of Spain, and the dingy Sultanas of Morocco could not suffi- ciently admire the snowy purity of her com- plexion, the effulgent lustre of those soft blue 21G THE FLIRT eyes, so benignantly bent upon himself. The young Lord must have been a monster to re- ceive the advances of his fair countrywoman with ungraciousness. But there was unquestionably something more than mere graciousness in his mode of seizing Adela's hand, a T Anglaise, whenever they met ; and of tendering his arm to her in all those rural excursions and evening pic-nics, which the early hours of the Pyrennean watering-places render so charming a source of amusement and sentiment. Lord Stoneham and Miss Rich- mond were continually rambling together in the twihght, collecting glow-worms and quoting By- ron ; he taught her Spanish, while she affected to rhodomontade about eternal attachments, and indulge in a world of romanticisms. Nor did his Lordship ever seem weary of listening to her shallow discourse, which he probably construed into naivete. He seemed to glory in hearing her reiterate, again and again, that the cot- tages they passed, sheltered among branching cork-trees, with bee-hives basking against their white walls, and dirty little children basking at OF TEN SEASONS. 217 their open doors, afforded just such a home as the presence of those she loved could render delightful. Of course the Marquis was equally at liberty to hope that '' the presence of those she loved " alluded to that of a happy individual with a salamander crest and gryphon supporters; and to exercise his eloquence in inducing her to believe that Dronington Manor might be ren- dered a charming residence under similar in- fluence. But Lord Stoneham was no lonsfer the lump of inanity and affectation, the self-con- ceited dandy which had deigned of old to nod its notice to Mary Raymond in the Langdale parlour. He was now gentle, gentlemanly, well-bred, and consequently diffident; and evi- dently hesitated in applying to himself the allu- sions of Adela, and the maternal encourage- ment of Lady Germain e. Once or twice, in- deed, he alluded to the marriage of her cousin Lord Germaine, with whom he had been at col- lege, and uttered something very like an expres- sion of doubt and anxiety lest they might ne- ver become more nearly connected ; an appre- hension which his fair auditresses would have VOL. I. L 218 THE FLIRT given worlds to soothe with an assurance that the measure of their relationship depended wholly on himself. The summer wore away in rides, drives, ex- cursions, fetes, and sentimentalization by hill and dale, — among the mountain forests or in the deep valleys; — and the Dowager, finding her own inauspicious month of August approach, arrive, and pass away without any definite proposal, began to grow fidgetty, and attempt to acce- lerate his Lordship's movements by frequent allusions to her return to England. Nor were her anxieties decreased, when one day Adela, returning from her daily ride with Lord Stoneham, assured her that an epistle ad- dressed in her cousin Harry's hand-writing had been put into her lover's hands as they stopped to inquire for letters. " You may rely on it, my dear," cried Lady Germaine, throwing down the French novel she was reading, "tiiat Lord Stoneham has thought it necessary to apply to Sir Henry Raymond as the head of your family. It is quite a piece of old-fashioned Ilderfield politeness." OF TEN SEASONS. 819 " It seems they have been long acquainted," said her daughter. " But really I think he might have been satisfied with your approval. What has the head of the family to do with the business, so long as my own mother sanctions his proposals ? " " Very true, my love ; but I have no doubt he means it as a mark of respect. You know the Droningtons were always considered quizzy good sort of people." " And yet I think my friend Lady Caroline, and more especially my old flirt Horace Ilder- field, know more of the world than to maintain this sort of frozen formality. I really expected their brother to demean himself a little less like Sir Charles Grandison in the cedar parlour. I don't half like his writing to Harry Raymond without saying a word to us on the subject." " Why, it is not quite impossible he may have thought proper to ask his advice as a friend. And really Sir Henry's conduct has been so very strange, has exhibited so little gratitude for the kindness I showed him during his child- l2 220 THE FLIRT hood, that 1 scarcely know what reliance may be placed on his good-will. He may insinuate to Lord Stoneham a thousand ill-natured things concerning you." « That I am satisfied he would not !" cried Adela. " I know Harry ; that is, I did know him, and have little reason to believe him changed. I am persuaded that even my abo- minable conduct towards him, would not in- duce him to act injuriously towards me. Harry was always the kindest creature in the world." " Lady Raymond may have produced a re- volution in his character. Remember all your Aunt Raymond's letter said concerning his dear Alicia's influence over him." " She would not render him an evil speaker or a backbiter, were it twice as great ! " cried Adela Richmond in a more animated tone that she was apt to assume. " But how shall we find out the purport of his correspondence with Stoneham ?" said Lady Germaine, startled by her daughter's petulance. " Did you observe any thing in his manner OF TEN SEASONS. 221 affording a hope that the explanation will soon take place ?" " No, he placed the letter in his pocket ; and was only twice as silent as usual during our short ride home." Strange to relate, this uncommunicative mood seemed rather to encrease than to diminish. For several days, for a week, for ten days, for a fortnight. Lady Germaine laboured without ceasing to provoke an explanation, and never lighted upon the propitious vein ; while poor Adela sighed away her time, and began to wax exceeding weary of the procrastinations of her lover. Every day he grew more silent, more ruminative ; and had he not been heir-apparent to a dukedom, and unmarried, she would have voted him a horrible bore. At length even the Dowager, who had been a preacher of patience throughout the affair, grew positively indignant at the man's stupidity ; and having determined to rouse his dormant faculties by a coup de main, affected a sudden change of plan. In- stead of persisting in her return to England, she announced her intention of proceeding to Italy 222 THE FLIRT for the winter. She entertained very little doubt that the young Marquis would be at Adela's feet within four and twenty hours after this horrific intelligence. To her Ladyship's unspeakable consternation, however, Lord Stoneham with a gentle smile and tranquil voice expressed infinite regret at hearing they were to part so soon ; and his " in- finite regret" was set forth with a degree of listlessness which would have better become an apology for having trod on her poodle's tail. — What could he mean by such insouciance? — what could he mean by alluding to his approaching voy- age from Bordeaux to Southampton, while she was talking of hers, from Marseilles to Genoa? — What possessed the man, or rather what had so long possessed herself, to allow him to dawdle on without an explicit declaration of his inten- tions ? — She resolved to bring the business to a crisis : and fancying that the sight of the travel- ling carriage and trunks might be more effective than a mere threat, Lady Germaine actually proceeded in her preparations for departure ; or TEN SEASONS. 223 her passport was vise for Italy, and she went so far as to take leave of her Bagneres friends. The evening preceding the fatal day of her journey arrived ; and all her guests having ut- tered their adieux, — in order to leave an op- portunity for what they regarded as a fare- well between two young people actually be- trothed, — Lady Germaine and Adela grew ex- tremely nervous — breathed short — spoke inco- herently. They saw from Lord Stoneham's brightened eye and flushed cheek that he was on the brink of a declaration ; — pitied his tre- pidation, and strove to lessen it by increased urbanity and an air of tender protection. His Lordship's scruples probably gave way before such an excess of kindness and considera- tion ; for after much stammering, blushing, and breathlessness, he at last found courage to arti- culate that, "it gave him infinite pleasure, — that nothing on earth could be more gratifying to his feelings, — than to know, on parting from such esteemed friends as Lady Germaine and Miss Richmond, — that when they met again it would 224i THE FLIRT be under a mutual connexion so much more in- teresting/' His esteemed friend Lady Germaine natu- rally thought this a very singular mode of ten- dering his hand to her daughter's acceptance ; and his esteemed friend Miss Richmond voted him very cool and very self-assured. — But then Jie was heir to a dukedom ! " When I received Sir Henry Raymond's first reply to my proposals," persisted the agi- tated Marquis, " I scarcely thought myself jus- tified, my dear Madam, in referring the matter to yourself. But from his second letter, which reached me only this afternoon, and is of a far more satisfactory nature, I now venture to trust that all is settled, and that I am the happiest of men!" Lady Germaine naturally conceived that her daughter had been playing her false, and had chosen to conceal Lord Stoneham's previous proposals from her knowledge; while Adela secretly opined that her lover's mind was be- wildered, and that he understood not the meai\- ing of his own words. OF TEN SEASONS. 225 " Having been so fortunate as to succeed in dispelling the prejudices of the woman of my heart," cried he, " I am not, I trust, too bold in expressing a hope that your Ladyship will adopt as a relation one whom you have kindly per- mitted to aspire to the title of friend." " My dear Stoneham !" ejaculated her Lady- ship maternally, — applying her handkerchief to her eyes, and deciding that her future son-in- law was a tedious fool. " When I quitted England under such mise- rable auspices," he continued, " I had very very little hope of returning to it the happy man I now feel. Nay ! — even when I arrived in the Py- rennees, how little did I anticipate that an acci- dental encounter with your Ladyship would re-assure my anxieties ; — would satisfy me that she was still unmarried — that half my fears had been proved groundless by her refusal of those brilliant offers which have doubtless done ho- mage to the loveliness of so exquisite a being." " Yes ! indeed," replied the Dowager, greatly mystified, but feeling that some sort of reply was indispensable. "I hope I may acknowledge, L 5 226 THE FLIRT without indiscretion, that she has refused some of the most advantageous matches in England." " My dear mamma V* interposed Adela, with a very proper blush. " I knew it — I was sure of it !" cried the young Marquis with enthusiasm. " Permit me. Lady Germaine, to gratify my pride, — my vanity, — my selfishness, — by the confession ; for till I perused Sir Henry's letter this evening, I was of course unaware of the sentiments I have been so fortunate as to excite.'* " Sir Henry Raymond ?" — exclaimed Adela, still more and more amazed. " What can have given him grounds for such an insinuation ?" — " He assures me," replied Lord Stoneham, modestly, " that it has long been the opinion of his family, — nay ! — Mary herself has at last been wrought upon to acknowledge, that she has long repented her precipitate refusal of a man so af- fectionately devoted to her ; and Miss Raymond deigns to confess, in a postscript to her bro- ther's letter, that it did not need the alterations effected by time in my boyish absurdities, to dispose her in my favour. In short, my dear OF TEN SEASONS. 22T Madam, the whole Raymond family have given dieir consent to our marriage.'' " Those Raymonds ! *' faintly articulated Lady Germaine. as she fell back in her chair. 228 THE FLIRT CONCLUSION. Happy they — the happiest of tlieir kind I Thomson. It was a very happy party that assembled at Langdale the following Christmas to cele- brate the christening of little Rupert Compton, heir to the new-fangled house of Soho. Mrs. Raymond had the happiness of seeing her- self surrounded by the smiling faces of her sons and daughters, — by affectionate and grate- ful hearts. Amidst all their prosperity they had not forgotten, and could not forget, the per- sonal privations by which she had managed to secure to their childhood the comforts bestowed on the offspring of more fortunate parents. They remembered what a mother she had been OF TEN SEASONS. 229 to them ; and vied with each other in respect and tenderness. Harry — for none of them could ever manage to regard the thoughtless, free-handed, frank- hearted young Guardsman as " Sir Henry," — was still no less the lover than the husband of the giddy Alicia. Margaret and her grave and studious Remington, who, in spite of his early years, was already considered the leader of his party in the House of Commons,— had some difficulty in repressing the sallies of the new master of Langdale and Lord and Lady Germaine, so as to suit the sobriety of old Ru- pert Orme ; while the bride and bridegroom, the Marquis of Stoneham and his beautiful Mary, whose course of true love had run the roughest, or at least the slowest of the whole family, divided their leisure between Droning- ton Manor and the less formal circle where they were still at liberty to select each other from the rest of the company. Four happier or more cheerful couples it would have perhaps been difficult to find ; nor was their youthful gaiety 2S0 THE FLIRT moderated by the presence of Charles, (the young artillery man, who, as the only bachelor of the tribe, was beginning to be a first favourite with Mr. Orme), or William, who had not yet assumed the graver aspect and sterner duties of his future profession. Well might Mrs. Raymond exult in the mercies of Providence, and the good fruits brought forth by her maternal culture ! The name of Adela was occasionally men- tioned among them with regret; and if some little portion of blame was permitted to mingle with the observations of the female moiety of the Langdale circle, it attached itself exclusively to her odious mother. They were all willing to admit that their pretty cousin was a charming creature before the precepts and example of Lady Germaine transformed her to a match- making coquette ; and to hope that the unsuc- cessful flirt of so many seasons would at last secure some eligible establishment, calculated to set her mother's manoeuvres at rest, and restore her to the peace of mind and respecta- bility of her early years. OF TEN SEASONS. 231 But Providence, which had so long furthered the wishes of " those Raymonds," was in this in- stance inexorable ! — On the following Christmas, they had precisely the same cousinly prayer to put forward; and with the greater zeal, that Adela and her mother were said to have ex- posed themselves to the ridicule of a large circle of Italian friends, by their ignorance that the wife of Prince Borghese was still living, and their anxiety to supply her rank as " absent without leave." But neither Naples nor Florence, — neither Rome nor Vienna, — have proved more satisfac- tory than the original orbit pursued by the cun- ning dowager. Vainly has she spread her nets in every climate, extending her blandishments throughout all nations and languages ; — " Jews, Christians, and Turks," members of the Greek and Romish churches, Lutherans, Calvinists, Unitarians, or Presbyterians, — it mattered no- thing to her Ladyship. Having discerned the hopelessness of seeking a British coronet for the notorious flirt, she is becoming doubly solicitous 232 THE FLIRT to insure a place in the aristocracy of some other country. Even Sir Frederick Courtenay is disposed of to one of tlie giggling Miss De- chiminis, who fell in love with his heroics ; and whose vulgar brother was the object of one of Adela's unsuccessful manoeuvres in the course of her Italian tour. In short, though Mary is now Duchess of Dronington, and Margaret, Lady Soho; — though the Hon. Lady Raymond and the Right Hon. Lady Germaine are leading members of the fashionable coteries, Adela is still " Miss Rich- mond,'* and her mother an infirm, peevish, and obscure dowager; hopeless in their present dilapidated aspect of exciting even the no- tice of Captain Raymond Orme, M. P., or even of the Reverend William, the young Rector of Langdale. " The flirt of ten sea- sons" is now wintering at Brighton, laying active siege to the heart of a jaundiced Bhurt- poor, K.C.B. while Lady Germaine not only de- spairs of the result, but can scarcely endure to sanction a scheme, the utmost success of OF TEN SEASONS. 233 which would leave the destinies of her daugh- ter so immeasurably below the level of even the least fortunate of " those Raymonds!" THE END. THE SEPARATE MAINTENANCE, Those whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder. Ritual of the Church of England. CHAPTER L It Is observed of over cautious generals, that they never engage in battle without securing a retreat; on the other hand the greatest conquerors have burnt their ships or broke down the bridges behind them, detern.ined to succeed or die in the engage- ment. In the same manner, I should very much suspect a woman who takes such precautions for her retreat, and contrives methods to live happily without the aifection of one to whom she joins herself for life. — Addison. It was a bright sunshiny day that beamed upon the solemnization of Henrietta Brough- ton's wedding. Her Hfe had been all sunshine ! She was one of those happy beings which nature sometimes creates in her holiday moods ; blest with good looks, good health, and a tolerably good understandings But like the Fairy Princess, said to be endowed by an evil genius at her birth with some malignant quality rendering negative all the good gifts previously bestowed, Henrietta 238 THE SEPARATE was deprived by circumstances of the happy results to be anticipated from so rare a combina- tion of merits. We are all aware that in this world (according to our terse English translation of the French proverb " Tout est heur ou mal- heur,") " Luck's all !" and it was Henrietta's luck to lose her parents in her infancy, and to be placed under the care and guardianship of her mother's widowed sister; by whom all her faults were transformed into virtues, — her virtues suffered to dwindle into feeble enerva- tion of mind. The prosperities of life fanned the fair orphan with their golden wings from her very cradle ; and with so incapable a moni- tress as Lady Mandeville to counteract their evil influence, it was only wonderful that as she advanced in life her mind grew no softer, her heart no harder. A disposition naturally generous and cordial counteracted the indurative power of the great world — the petrifying spring whose showers incessantly besprinkle the path of fashion ! Nor did the propitious genius which pre- sided over Miss Brough ton's destinies, desert MAINTENANCE. 239 her on the threshold of the gorgeous temple of pleasure into which, under the auspices of Lady Mandeville, she was initiated in all the inexpe- rience of seventeen, — all the bewilderment of a novice accustomed from her childhood to the in- cense of weak partiality. It would be difficult indeed to ascertain in what year of her babyhood Lady Mandeville first began to utter in her hearing the most exaggerated panegyrics of her wit and beauty, and the most sanguine predic- tions concerning her future establishment in life. The nurses promised her she should be a Duchess, that she might be persuaded to allow them to clasp on her red morocco shoes ; — and there was no surer bribe by which the young lady could be induced to study her alphabet and apostiophize that "busy bee" which Dr. Watts has rendered so edifying an insect to many a rising (or falling) generation, — than to assure her she should marry a lord, and ride in that summum bonum of story-book happiness — a coach and six. From infancy to girlhood, (the age when Dr. Watts's bee was displaced by Mr. T. H. Bay- 240 THE SEPARATE ley's butterfly) Henrietta experienced the se- rious misfortune of having all things her own way, — all persons at her own disposal. Miss Broughton was not to be contradicted; Miss Broughton was not to be punished ; Miss Broughton was not to be made uncomfortable. The consequence was, that she rendered every one else so. Nurserymaids, governesses, masters, found it useless to expect subordination or pro- ficiency from a person thus wondrously elevated above the common accidents of humanity ; and had not the spoiled child been so pre-eminently pretty, and naturally of a kindl}-, affectionate disposition, she would have become as hateful to all around her, as she was adorable to the silly aunt who beheld in her all that remained of a beloved sister. Even in society, — that stream whose unsparing friction so soon reduces the angles of every re- sisting fragment of rock, and rounds it to a pebble, — Henrietta was destined to a far less severe schooling than usually attends the heirs and heiresses of clay; — and precisely because she was an heiress. A lovely girl with sixty thou- MAINTENANCE. 241 sand pounds is very unlikely to be severely handled, unless when her absence renders die lesson profidess. While she was away, many rival beauties decided her to be affected ; one or two discarded suitors declared her to be peevish and selfish ; the elderly spinsters frequenting her aunt's card table, whispered that she was very high ; and certain of the female com- panions of her youth, on whom she had turned her back in all the delirium of her new jewels, her presentation, and debut at Almack's, pro-^ nounced her to be very cold : — but none of these strictures were made audible, none of these dis- approbations ^^sible to Henrietta. Her smile, when it did make its appearance, was so sweet, that those around her forgot, in the delight of hailing the tardy dawn, how long it had been withheld; her voice was so soothing, her de- meanour, when she chose, so ingratiating, that every one was pleased with Jier whom it pleased her to conciliate. From this excess of good and evil fortune, it naturally ensued that Miss Broughton became occasionally fractious, and always fanciful. Every VOL. I. M 242 THE SEPARATE day she grew a more decided angel in Lady Mandeville's estimation. The poor foolish wo- man could do nothing but quote the list of Henrietta's conquests, and deplore the difficulty she would experience in deciding among such a congregation of suitors. Who, — after all, — was worthy of Henri- etta? So very pretty a girl could have afforded to be portionless — so very rich a one to be less delicately lovely. She had every thing to ren- der her a desirable connexion ; but where was she to find a prospect sufficiently alluring, or the promise of a life of unalloyed and unalloyable happiness, to induce her to resign a home where she was worshipped, — a liberty which fortune enabled her to embellish with so many fortuitous attractions ? Miss Broughton danced at all the balls of the season, smiled and chatted at all its pic-nics, gazed unmoved at the tlite of the army and navy list, the roues of Crockford's, the ennuyes of the Travellers. It would not do ; — not one of them was worth a sigh ! — She quitted Paris at the close of the Carnival, leaving two Marquesses and a Colonel of Hussars to be MAINTENANCE. 243 dragged for in the Canal de V Ourcq ; and left London for Tunbridge at the end of the season, having expended divers quires of satin paper, in expressing her regret that it was out of her power to return the flattering preference of Sir Thomas R., Captain B., &c. &c. &c. Poor Hen- rietta began to sigh over her own prospects ; she was very much afraid she should never be able to fall in love ! — But her apprehersions were premature. Tunbridge Wells, be it known to the untra- velled reader, is a spot where visitors of the mas- culine sex are accounted rare and valuable acquisitions. It is essentially a tea-drinking, gossipping, carpet-working place, extremely ob- noxious to that wayward moiety of the creation which insists on being amused ; and whenever a solitary man drops from the skies upon its furzy, breezy, browsy heath, he is observed to smile for a whole day, yawn through the second, and disappear on the third. Charming as the place is held by that simple sex which can content itself with a vegetative, indolen t mode of happi- ness, it must be acknowledged to be wholly un- M 2 244 THE SEPARATE acceptable to the sin- loving and sorrow-working portion of mankind. Yet it was at Tunbridge that Henrietta Broughton, literally and figuratively speaking, met with her match. At Church one Sunday, and on the Pantiles one Monday, she chanced to encounter one of the handsomest faces, united with one of the most distinguished figures, she had ever beheld; and whereas the solemn occa- sion of his first appearance prevented the stranger from exhibiting the established Tunbridge smile, he neither yawned on the Monday nor disap- peared on the Tuesday; nay! even another Sunday and another saw him still wandering among the green shades of Mount Ephraim, or sauntering on his brown mare towards the woods of Summer Hill. — It was plain that the myste- rious solitary found some peculiar charm in the place ; that he was either wooing the Muse, the Egeria of the Chalybeate Springs, or some other nympli of the river Ton. A very slight inquiry sufficed to unravel the mystery. At Lady Mandeville's next tea-party, it afforded considerable delight to the maiden MAINTENANCE. 245 coterie of the place to be called on to explain that the proprietor of the handsome face and distinguished figure, who had not yet arrived at the yawning epoch of his residence at Tunbridge, was a certain Sir Henry Wellwood; that he was on a visit to an invalid sister ; and w as sup- posed to be attached, or engaged (or sticking at some other of the preliminary steps of being married) to a Miss Rodney, " a very beautiful Miss Rodney, also resident with Mrs. Delafield." Here was — Food for meditation, e'en to madness, for Henrietta Broughton. The only man who had ever so far encroached upon her per- sonal interest as to excite her curiosity, was . already pledged to another !— She became in- quisitive concerning the lady; followed the veiled Isis into a music shop on the pan- tiles ; and even put her horse to a canter one ot day in July to catch a glimpse of Miss Rodney's face, as she rode with her veil thrown back, side by side with her lover, along the Eridge road. But that single glance sufficed o assure Miss Broughton that Mrs. Delafield's 246 THE SEPARATE friend must be one of the most piquante or most meritorious women in the world; since, according to La Bruyere : " When an ugly woman produces a tender passion, it must be in proportion to some quality she possesses superior to that of beauty." — It was plain, therefore, that Miss Rodney was either a Mrs. Montagu or a Hannah More ; for she had red hair and was slightly pitted with the small-pox : — a female whose face is usually covered with a veil, may indeed be safely predicted as either inordinately ugly or miraculously handsome. Henrietta was satisfied that Sir Henry Wellwood must have found all the beauties of his sick sister's visitor in her mind. But even this discovery was far from conso- latory to Henrietta. It mattered little how un- attractive the object of Sir Henry's engage- ment, it precluded him from the possibility of adding his name to the list of her own adorers. Again and again she met him, and as often decided that since the days of Theseus of the Phidian Torso, no " mortal mixture of earth's mould" (or marble) had ever been so handsome ; nor, since those of George the Prince, none MAINTENANCE. 247 ever half so graceful. He looked intelligent — he seemed courteous; — Miss Pinchet and Miss Winchet, Mrs. Drone and Mrs. Crone, occa- sionally alluded at Lady Mandeville's cassino- table to the superior elegance of his manners, the peculiar amiability of his disposition, and the charm by which his presence enhanced the tea and toast of poor dear Mrs. Delafield. In short the man was a paragon, — as complete a paragon as Henrietta's self; but, alas ! his merits were rendered as negative to her by the claims of that inexpressibly odious Miss Rodney, as if he had been Grand Master of the Knights of Malta. Wondrous are the coincidences of human destiny ! — Had Miss Brough ton's introduction to Sir Henry Wellwood chanced amid the glare of a London ball-room, it is highly probable that she might have noticed nothing striking in his appearance, except that he was rather grave for his age, and danced abominably ; nay ! even if at the close of the season Lady Mandeville had betaken herself to Cowes instead of the hum- drum latitudes of Tunbridge, and launched her lovely niece among the fashionable yachts and 248 THE SEPARATE yachters, Henrietta might have looked upon him, among the multitude of Lord Roberts and Lord Harries, as a man of very secondary im- portance. It was only at dandyless Tunbridge, and about to be married without having been warned by preternatural suggestions of the ex- istence of a Miss Henrietta Broughton, that she fancied him into an idol. And when, at the expiration of a fortnight, providence and a light calash brought down to Mount Sion a pretty lively little Mrs. Etherington (who had become a widow so early that she scarcely remembered having been a wife), — a half-sisier of Mr. Dela- field, and half and half friend of Lady Man- deville's, who soon managed to gossip, push, and carry on an acquaintance between the two families, — Henrietta was as ready to be fallen in love with as it was possible to conceive. She looked in the glass, and remembered Miss Rod- ney's tawny locks ; till she trembled either for Sir Henry's steadiness of purpose, or the ac- complishment of her own projects. MAINTENANCE. 249 CHAPTER 11. To ask the reason why thou art in love, Or what might be the noblest aim In love, Would overthrow that kindly rising warmth That many times slides gently o'er the heart. Beaumont. " Well, Hatty my dear, what have you to amuse yourself in this dullest of dull places ?" cried the fair widow, extending her hand to Miss Broughton, who had panted across the heath one morning to pay her a visit, in the vain hope of meeting Sir Henry. " I do not find it dull. We have charming walks, and the air on the Heath is the purest in England," replied Henrietta, repeating the es- tablished phrase of the Pinchets and Winchets, the Crones and the Drones ; and illustrating the M 5 250 THE SEPARATE assertion by exhibiting her soft blue eyes scorched into an inflammation. " The Heath ? — nonsense ! — Good only for donkies and nursery maids !— Do you suppose / came here to stroll about on the heath, or take the dust in a fly, like my estimable friend Lady Mandeville?"— Miss Broughton accepted the hint to say something that intended to be civil, about the cause being unimportant since the effect was so desirable ; but she did not make the case out very clearly. " Well, never mind all that," cried the giddy Mrs. Etherington, who was too wholesale a dealer in phrases herself not to mistrust them when uttered by other people. " I take it for granted you are very glad to see me. But tell me what you intend to do to amuse me ?" " I concluded you came here to amuse your- self," said Henrietta, somewhat piqued ; " and was rather surprised that a person able to com- mand a tour to Spa, Pyrmont, Carlsbad, Don- caster, or the Highlands, should think of braving the old Tunbridge routine of ' a party ' to the MAINTENANCE. 251 High Rocks, Hever, Penslmrst, Knowle, and all the other dead lions of the neighbour- hood." " Spa, or Doncaster ! " reiterated the co- quette. " Greenwich or Highgate ! — What have / to do with the Pouhon or the Leger ? My dear child, you have been roaming yonder among the flocks of geese to some purpose. Don't you remember Hatty, my telling you a long history one day last season, as we were walk in or in Kensinofton Gardens, about a man who had just inherited ten thousand a-year?" " Whom you had refused, when a younger brother, last winter at Paris? — Perfectly !" " No ! my dear, not refused! — It never came to a positive bona fide proposal. We flirted together most unmercifully; and nothing pre- vented my &lling as much in love as I believed the hero of my romance to have done, but the difficulty one experiences in facing the horrors of starvation, when called on to decide the mat- ter between dinner and dinner such as one eats in the Chaussee d' An tin. I really believe it was the flavour of a Charlotte Russe which 252 THE SEPARATE proved to me the impossibility of marrying Cap- tain Wellwood, and living on half-a-crown a- year ! " " Mrs. Delafield^s brother?" cried Henrietta, starting from the listless attitude in which she had been giving audience to these uninteresting details of her friend's affairs. " Precisely!—' Sir HenryWellwood, of Well- wood Abbey, in the county of Stafford,' as our friend, pompous old Pinchet, would call him ; Harry Wellwood, the sighing, sentimental cava- lier of the Bois de Boulogne, as I am myself in- clined to define him ; and Sir Henry, the hmnble adorer ofHelena Etherington, as I am very posi- tively bent on making him. I know my man, Hatty ; and I promise you wedding-cake before Lord Mayor's Day." " I am afraid you will disappoint both your- self and me," observed Miss Broughton, with a slight curl of the lip. " Sir Henry is engaged to be married to Miss Rodney." " OA, par exemple!" — cried Mrs. Ethering- ton, bursting into a fit of laughter ; " these fe- line coteries of the Wells are without exception MAINTENANCE* 253 the most miscomprehending and misrepresent- ing set ! — Arabella Rodney happens to be a na- tural sister of Wellwood and Mrs. Delafield ; and most affectionately beloved by both. I knew they were anxious the circumstance of her birth should not transpire in a temple of Echo such as this; but I had no suspicion that so strange a misconception could arise." "His natural sister!" — reiterated Henrietta with throbbing temples ; " how very strange ! how stupid we have all been ! — how" — " Good morning, Mrs. Etherington," said Sir Henry, entering the room, or rather leaning over the drawing-room window, opening to the grass- plot which the proprietor of Bellevue Villa al- ways called a lawn in his Delvic advertisements. " I am come on an embassy from my sister, who insists on attempting to catch cold by drinking tea at the High Rocks this evening : will you be of the party." " Oh ! pray let us go and catch cold !" cried the coquette ; " any acquisition is desirable in this uneventful place. But where is your gal- lantry, that you do not invite my little friend to 254 THE SEPARATE be of the party?" she added, affecting a patro- nizinop tone towards Henrietta, which caused the colour to rise in the cheeks of the heiress. " I am happy to say my interference is need- less," said he, bowing very respectfully towards the younger and fairer of the two ladies ; " since Lady Mandeville has already induced us to hope that, \^ you undertake the care of Miss Brough- ton, she will grant us the favour of her com- pany." Mrs. Etherington bit her lips. A suspicion crossed her mind that perhaps she was only invit- ed to play the chaperon to Lady Mandeville's niece. She half resolved to be sulky and refuse ; but that would not prevent Sir Henry from being there. " IF the evening should be fine, perhaps I may drive that way," said she, at last; and Weil wood was obliged to return to his sister, and Henrietta to her aunt, in all the anxiety of this inconclusive answer. The evening did, however, prove fine : as heavy a dew rose from the hop-gardens as Mrs. Delafield's delicate lungs could desire ; and at seven in the evening Miss Broughton found MAINTENANCE. 255 herself seated in Mrs. Etherington's pony-car- riage, looking pretty, conscious, and agitated ; thinking a great deal about Miss Rodney, and a great deal more about her half-brother. It is probable that the thoughts of her companion were taking pretty nearly the same direction ; for she was equally absent, and less flighty than usual ; and though attired in a most victo- rious pink bonnet and feathers, could not help glancing enviously towards the deep blue eyes which seemed to borrow an intenser hue from Henrietta's simple muslin dress and white ca- pote. Every age has its improvements. The march of intellect had already taught Miss Broughton, who came into this learned world six years later than her friend, that the atten- tion of the male sex is not to be attracted by finery. She would not have arrayed her pretty face in Mrs. Etherington's pink bonnet and fea- thers for the world. Either under the influence of the reverie which had affected her ever since Sir Henry Wellwood's bow over the window-sill in the morning, or perhaps bewildered in her topogra- 256 THE SEPARATE phical knowledge by the provoking triumph of Henrietta's quaker-like simplicity, Mrs. Ether* ington chose to instruct her duodecimo postillion in a cross-road to the Rocks ; which would en- able her to leave a note at some house, some villa, — the whereabout of which seemed equally problematical to the lady of the white capote and the lady of the pink bonnet — the post-boy and the pony. At length, after much per- plexity, a vast deal of turning and returning, a a few shrieks, a few precipices, and more than one proposal of returning home, the villa was made by the voyagers,— the note deposited ; — and with a miraculous complication of instructions from a pudding-eating Sussex footman, about " going right on, and turning right anent, and keeping the hay-stack afore 'em, and leaving the wood to the lee," they set off towards the Rocks. The evening was too beautiful, and the last notes of the blackbirds in the dingles on either side the road too melodious, to admit of being out of humour ; while Mrs. Etherington pointed out to Henrietta the extreme picturesqueness of MAINTENANCE. 257 tlie little valley whose bank they were skirting, and which lay so precipitously and so far below the road, that they could scarcely distinguish the various tints of the profusion of water- flowers rising from the brook that threaded its green meadows. Poor souls ! they little antici- pated how soon their botanical judgment on the subject was likely to be amended. But why affect the mystery of romance in so familiar an incident? The postil- lion, who had maintained a brisk trot while obeying the letter of his instructions of " keeping the haystack afore 'em," thought proper to tickle his spirited ponies to the same pace, when on the point of " leaving the wood to the lee ;" and having turned a sharp angle into a bye-lane (a regular Tunbridge lane, consisting of a single gravelly rut bordered by hedge-rows), half a minute's full gallop conveyed the little chaise down a hill-side a couple of hundred yards in very nearly perpendicular descent. The ef- fort was considerable, — for it sufficed to leave ponies, chaise^ postillion, and ladies, breathless at the bottom ; — the chaise and Mrs. Ether- 258 THE SEPARATE ington quite insensible, — the ponies and boy considerably fractured, — and poor Henrietta panting with consternation ! — After a few mo- ments of dismay, she took courage to limp on towards the Rocks ; and on the road thither was overtaken by Sir Henry Well wood, in a solitary fly, conveying the provisions for the pic-nic. Was it fright, or the pain of her wounded ancle, which made her grow so faint when he ap- proached? — Was it compassion or love which made him turn so pale at the spectacle? It does not signify ! — No person could be blind to the fact that Henrietta's bruises excited far more sympathy in his bosom than Helena's broken arm; and when the latter w^as finally emancipated from the sick-room to which she was many weeks confined by so serious an acci- dent, she had the satisfaction of learning from her friend Mrs. Delafield, not only the circum- stantial evidence of the shock she had experi- enced on hearing of the accident, — that she " ne- ver had such a turn in her life — actually shook and trembled for a week afterwards, and that her nerves were worn to a cambric thread ; but MAINTENANCE. 259 that the courtship had been proceeding between poor dear Harry and that charming creature poor dear Miss Broughton, with unabated ar- dour ; and that poor dear Lady Mandeville and herself had very httle doubt the wedding would take place within a month." " Poor dear" Mrs. Delafield, who was a vale- tudinarian by right divine (a seven-months' child reared by the skill of the apothecary), had so long been in the habit of pitying herself, that she had contracted one of bestowing her unsolicited compasssion on the whole human race. She " poor deared " the very lovers them- selves in the height of their raptures ; and yet, with instinctive wrong-headedness, passed over the mortification of the pretty little widow, who was certainly the " poor-dearest " of the whole party; — particularly when she found that long before Lord Mayor's Day, wedding-cake was in progress for the nuptials of " Sir Henry Wellwood, of Wellwood Abbey, in the county of Stafford, with Henrietta, only daughter of the late John Conybeare Atterfield Broughton, Esq. M.P." 260 THE SEPARATE CHAPTER III. Oh ! trustless state of miserable men That build your bliss on hope of earthly things, And vainly think yourselves most happy then, When painted faces with smooth flatterhig Do fawn on you! Spenser. In bold defiance of the charge of tauto- logy, we commence this chapter in the very words of our first: " It was a bright, sunshiny morning, that beamed on the ceremonial of Henrietta Broughton's wedding;" and though the season was far from propitious to the details of elegant display, — though at that bricklaying and whitewashing period of the year not a bishop was to be had for love or fashion, — though forced to content herself with bridesmaids of less than patrician dignity, and to step into her MAINTENANCE. 261 travelling chariot in !Maddox-street, among a herd of plasterer's boys in paper caps, with only four carriages and two cabriolets to crowd the narrow way, — Lady Wellwood's anxious vanity was almost satisfied ! — She had observed Mrs. Etherington, who insisted on an invitation to the solemnity by way of proving that she was not piqued, (and the sleeve of whose Parisian pelisse was still tied up, with the arm gracefully disposed in a sling) stop short in her flirtation with Lord Sandys, the bridesman, to admire the beauty of her Brussels veil ; while her vain, silly aunt, half-whimpering, half-joyous, whis- pered as she approached the altar that all the \\^ ell wood family were of opinion she looked like an angel. In short, the wedding was a very proper wedding ; plenty of white satin and orange-blossom, plenty of hysterics and aro- matic vinegar ; and a charming dead faint in the vestry from poor dear Lady Mandeville, when the bride was torn from her arms. The Dean was obliged to fan her in the passage with his shovel hat. There was one person present, however, at 262 THE SEPARATE this moving scene, who neither wept nor fainted — neither flirted with the bridesman, nor morahzed with the Dean; had no recourse to a salts '-bottle, nor the least anxiety concerning the texture of Miss Broughton's Brussels point ; and yet experienced a far deeper interest in the proceedings of the morning than any of those who seemed to fancy that mutes should have been stationed at the vestry door, and hat- bands distributed to the afflicted company; — this was Arabella Rodney. Of all the world she was perhaps the most attached to her brother Well wood. Peculiarly sensitive to the humiliation of her birth, and proportion ably grateful for the pains taken by Sir Henry to make her forget the single shade by which she was less fortunate than himself and his sister Delafield, she had learned to regard him with a tenderness and veneration amounting almost to idolatry. She had long been of opi- nion that he was the most perfect creature on earth, and therefore deserved to be the hap- piest ; nor had she been able to think with less than the most eager anxiety on the perils and MAINTENANCE. 263 dangers of his choice of a wife, ever since his accession to title and estates placed him in the way of being wooed by the ladies. People may talk of the bolts of Cupid; but those who have the misfortune to claim the distinction of being called a good match, are well aware that Hymen is by far the most cunning archer of the two. It was Miss Rodney's penetration of mind which detected the real nature of Mrs. Ether- ington's projects, and exposed them to her bro- ther ; — it was Miss Rodney who found out the schemes of the Pinchets and the Winchets to marr}' him to an indigent cousin ; — it was Miss Rodney w^ho discerned the partiality entertained for Sir Henry by Lady Mandeville's niece ; and above all, it was Miss Rodney, and Miss Rodney alone, who had courage to fore- warn him that the pretty, witty, fascinating heiress, was a spoiled child, and would probably become a wilful wife. She did not interfere, — she did not advise ; but, sooth to say, she did most earnestly implore Sir Henry to take the case duly into consideration before he ventured 264 THE SEPARATE to plunge into the boiling, eddying, roaring, menacing Charybdis of matrimony ! — Of course he gave ear to her prayer, and complied with her request : — brothers always do on such occasions ! No ! it was less of a surprise than an affliction to her to learn from Wellwood, on the following morning, that he had proposed for the beautiful Henrietta, and that a day was alread}' fixed for their union. All further expostulation being unavailing and unwise, nothing was left for her but to love and make herself loved by the bride as warmly as she could, that she might at least attempt to counteract by her influence the mischances prognosticated by her foresight. She had little doubt of finding herself still useful to her dear, good, indulgent, considerate Harry, as a consoling friend, a forbearing mediator. Had any one presumed to hint to Sir Henry Wellwood during those etherial days of court- ship which are devoted by the lover to law, and the lady to mantuamakers and milliners, that he could ever need consolation when united to the lovely and loving Henrietta, or a peace-maker MAINTENANCE. 265 between himself and the idol of his soul, he would have been very much affronted. But Arabella, who had accompanied Mrs. Delafield to town to be present at " poor dear Harry's " wedding, already found increasing reason to suspect that a beautiful face, with a dowry of two thousand per annum, might not be all-in-all sufficient to the happiness of matrimonial life. Many things occurred between the lovers, and many more between their respective solicitors, which produced an unsatisfactory impression on Miss Rodney's mind. She had long perceived that Lady Mandeville was a fool ; and did not follow the popular prejudice of connecting a bad head with "an excellent heart." She was wise enough to know, that good sense is the founda- tion of all good feeling ; and to perceive, that a person so perplexed by the absurdities of a weak and uncultivated understanding, could not have presided in a profitable manner over the education of her niece. The aunt being a prating egotist, she misdoubted that Henrietta's character might be of the selfish class. At length the stormy moments of legal preli- VOL. I. N 266 THE SEPARATE minaries came to darken the summer atmosphere of love ; and even Sh- Henry, blind and enthu- siastic as he was, could not but perceive that at the age of twenty, his goddess had contrived to imbibe a most precocious knowledge of the world and its ways. When Lady Mandeville uttered that repugnant Lincoln's-Innism — the word "jointure," — Henrietta recoiled not from the sound ; — listened with great complacency to the discussions that arose between the rival cormo- rants of the law, respecting the amount of pin- money which was to render her independent of the man of her heart; and worse — far worse than all, — expressed neither surprise nor horror in perceiving, in the draught of a marriage-set- tlement submitted to Lady Mandeville for ap- probation, the following loathsome clause: — " Upon Trust that they, the said N. N. " and M. M., or the Survivor or Survi- " vors of them, or the Trustee or Trustees *' for the time being thereof, do and shall " thenceforth, during the joint lives of " the said Sir H. W. and H. B. his in- MAINTENANCE. 267 " tended wife, from and out of the divi- " dends and yearly Income of the said " Trust Fund, raise and retain the yearly " Sum of .£2000, of lawful money of " Great Britain, free from Taxes, and " clear of all other deductions. And do " and shall, by equal quarterly payments, " on the 25th day of March, the 24th " day of June, the 29th day of September, " and the 25th day of December, in every " year (the first of such quarterly pay- " ments to become due on such of those " days as shall happen next after the " solemnization of the said intended " marriage), pay over the said several « quarterly instalments of the said yearly « Sum of i'2000, as the same shall be- " come due ; and be received into the '« proper hands of the said H. B, or unto «• such person or persons, and for such " ends, intents, and purposes as the said " H. B., notwithstanding her intended " coverture, shall from time to time, " after the same shall have become ac- N 2 268 THE SEPARATE " tually due, and not by way of anticipa- " tion, by any note or writing under her " hand, direct or appoint. To the intent " that the said yearly Sum of tional He is not to be imposed upon by the magic of a name." " Irrational^ indeed ! — when he is himself little better than a brute." " Were you in distress of any kind, you would find him one of the most tender-hearted creatures breathing." " Well, well ! — I see that you and Wellvvood are in a league to defend him ; and therefore my opinion must be superfluous : but I shall take care to make it apparent to himself, lest he should take it into his rational head to prolong his visit when the hunting season is over. I have no idea of being insulted by peo- ple at my own table." She did accordingly insure a most disagreea- ble evening to all parties ; and had not Tom Allstone's heart been as tough as his huntings boots towards the ebullitions of a lady*s temper, o 2 S92 THE SEPARATE he must have winced under some of the flip- pancies which Lady Wellwood discharged at him in volleys. Arabella was shocked, and Sir Henry distressed ; but Allstone seemed amused. He was studying with the eye of a naturalist the singular species of insect, whose silken wings and barbed sting were extended before him. Lady Wellwood's last dart was of the Par- thian order. Just as she was quitting the draw- ing room for the night, she suddenly returned for an instant to inform them that her friend Mrs. Etherington would be at the Abbey to dinner on the following day ; secretly exulting in her knowledge of the disapprobation enter- tained by her husband, and the disgust testified by Tom Allstone, towards the fashionable wi- dow and her manoeuvres. But when Sir Henry declared war against Jessy, she had resolved to enter into alliance with a favourite still more obnoxious to his prejudices. It would be ungracious to repeat the ejacula- tion uttered by Tom Allstone as she quitted the room. MAINTENANCE, 293 CHAPTER V. Dorinda's sparkling wit and eyes United cast too fierce a light, Which blazes high, but quickly dies, Pains not the heart, but hurts the sight: Love is a calmer, gentler joy. Smooth are his looks and soft his pace ; Her Cupid is a blackguard boy Who thrusts his link into your face ! Earl of Dorset. Mrs. Etherington did not come alone. It was her custom to divide the autumn and winter among the friends of former years, and the bathing-places where new friendships and ac- quaintances are formed with so much facility Sometimes she acquired an adorer in her travels, — sometimes a toady ; and it had been her for- tune to encounter at Tenby the preceding 294 THE SEPARATE autumn, " a kindred soul, — a congenial mind," in the person of a Miss Letitia Broadsden, a gaunt spinster of five and forty, with a very long nose, a very long chin, and a tongue still longer than either ; the daughter of a Welsh baronet whose person and title were both extinct. She had figured in her youth as a Bath belle, — in her maturity as a Litchfield blue ; and now, at " a certain age,'* found her amusements chiefly dependent on her capacity as a hanger-on to the idle and opulent. Her annuity of a hundred and fifty pounds a-year sufficed to smarten her up for the office, and a dirty spirit of subser- vience supplied the rest. There was a sparkle of unnatural vivacity, of forced spirits about her, rendering her society as charming an ex- citement to empty-headed indolent people, as it was hateful to those of right mind and good understanding. When Sir Henry Wellwood discovered by a letter of explanation preceding by a few hours the arrival of Mrs. Etherington, that she was to be so unsatisfactorily accompanied, it delighted him to remember that the hunting quarters of MAINTENANCE. 295 his friend Lord Sandys, and his brother Mr. Dornton, were established within the distance of half a dozen miles ; and with a view to dilute in numbers the poison of such society as that of Helena and her toady, he contrived before night to transfer the young Nimrods to the bache- lor's wing of Wellwood Abbey. Arabella had nothing further to apprehend from confidential interviews with her brother's wife : — before dinner on the following day the party was doubled. Her Ladyship had now some apo- logy for her satin dress and jewels a la Sevigne in the rival finery of Mrs. Etherington and Miss Broadsden; and some consolation under her sufferinors from the guffaw of Tom Allstone, DO -' in turning to the exquisite Frederick Dornton ; — a gentleman who piqued himself on his athletic person, and talked of nothing but the stable, the turf, and the ring, in Moliere's " petit filet de voix " with a breath perfumed with orris-root, and a little pet pair of mustachios o-lossy with pommade a la Vanille! — In the course of the evening her ladyship was whispered 296 THE SEPARATE and flattered into fancying herself once more Henrietta B rough ton. Miss Rodney discerned with regret that her brother was destined to pay heavily for his hard- heartedness to the lap-dog; that he was ha- rassed and vexed by the tone adopted by Lady Wellwood towards Lord Sandys and his brother; as well as by the contrast it afforded to her un- graciousness with his sister, and his friend Allstone. But the bridegroom was now in some degree initiated into the labyrinths of a fine lady's temper, and forbore to remonstrate or retaliate. Even Arabella had occasion to recognize the judiciousness of his forbearance, while she listened to the chattering (could it be called conversation?) between Lady Wellwood and her female guests, as they sat round a Work-table in her boudoir on the following day. They were all most profitably employed; — Mrs. Ethrington in rubbing her transfer var- nish, in order to complete a pair of frightful screens at six times their original cost ; — Hen- rietta in manufacturing a tawdry work-bag for her dear aunt Mandeville ; — and Miss Broadsden MAINTENANCE* 297 in completing some bead medallions for a neck- lace, ornamented with a series of full-fledged butterflies greatly resembling the bats and owls nailed against a barn-door. " Well, my dear Hatty," exclaimed Mrs. Etherington as soon as they were established, " and so you have positively determined to break Lady Mandeville's heart by passing the season at Wellwood Abbey ? " " It must indeed be very difficult to quit so charming a place," sighed Miss Broadsden. "Is it Sir Henry's fancy or your own ?'* persisted Mrs. Etherington. " lie used to de- light in London; and you, my dear, are naturally so fond of society, that I suspect you are both playing pretty, and wish to be thought more conjugal than your neighbours." " To show the world an example of domestic fehcity," murmured Miss Broadsden in a quali- fying tone. " Who told you I intended to give up London this season ? " inquired Lady Wellwood. « Lady Mandeville, when I met her at Mal- vern last October." o 5 298 THE SEPARATE " Five months ago! — a period sufficient to alter the views and feelings of any mortal man or woman." "Not in their honey year, my love. For full twelve months after date of their special licence, people are required to be — " not upon velvet," — but white satin. They can neither " make up their minds " nor " change their minds " — for they must be " all heart." Their loom of life is set on their wedding-day for a year of bliss : and it would create confusion to alter the pattern," said the little widow, glancing maliciously towards Lady Well wood, whom she regarded as the usurper of her own rights. " Bravo ! my dear Mrs. Etherington," cried the toady, without moving her long nose from the little box of beads into which it seemed to be digging, " you certainly have the most ori- ginal notions ! " " When we came here last autumn," said Henrietta calmly, " I may possibly have men- tioned to my aunt, that we thought of avoiding a season in town. The neighbourhood was MAINTENANCE. 299 much pleasanter then. Lord and Lady Shore- ham were at the Castle, and the Rutherfords had their house full of company; and there were archery meetings going on." " Charming neighbourhood ! " ejaculated Le- titia. " But now that Parliament has met, the place is quite deserted, — quite altered, — and I should shudder at the thoughts of passing the spring here all alone." " The spring is so vert/ dull in the country !*' said the voice from the bead- box. " Oh, fie, fie ! my dear," cried Mrs. Ether- ington, "the Rutherfords and the Shorehams, in- deed ! — Li the letter Lady Mandeville was kind enough to show me, you talked of nothing but the groves and gardens ; and the delights of an eternal solitude with your beloved Wellwood ! There was not a word about archery meetings or country neighbours ; except that the monsters would sometimes intrude on the happiness of your tete-d-t^te.'^ " Country neighbours are such bores ! " said the voice. 300 THE SEPARATE " I was not aware that my letters to my aunt Mandeville were exhibited like a royal bulletin for the instruction of the public," cried Lady Wellwood, with a heightened colour, and putting a pink stitch into one of the green leaves she was embroidering ; " but if I chose to write such abominable nonsense, I deserve the disgrace of having it betrayed/' " In my opinion people ought to be put in quarantine on their marriage," cried Mrs. Ether- ington, '* lest they should infect the world with their folly. For instance, that sentimental letter of yours almost persuaded me to accept Mr. Sheffield, who was just then poeticizing at my feet about ' domestic felicity ; ' and only see the mischief that might have ensued ! I might have already begun to complain of the dullness of his neighbourhood at Sheffield Park." " As if you were not able to render any neighbourhood delightful !" said Miss Broadsden, " I do not see why two persons who are fond of society should resign it, because they are able to enjoy it together." MAINTENANCE. 301 " And to adorn it together," insinuated Le- titia. " Nothing can be more absurd ! " observed Arabella Rodney, laying down her book and speaking from the fire-side. " Half the unhappiness of married people arises from the exaggeration of their promises during courtship. In a fit of enthusiasm they undertake to renounce the world and break off all their early connex- ions, for the sake of one whose affection should rather serve to enhance their value; and after- wards grow angry with themselves and their partner in folly, because they are ashamed to acknowledge the blunder, and resume their place as citizens of the world. Nothing can be more selfish and ungenerous than one of these en- orrossinoj attachments." Miss Rodney would have done better to keep her philosophy to herself; for though Miss Le- titia Broadsden shook her head affirmatively and ejaculated, '* Too true ! " the other two, not ex- actly understanding her meaning, fancied she was talking of them, and were affronted. 302 THE SEPARATE "/ never was a dealer in fine sentiments,** said Lady Wellwood; " and am not aware that I require any apology for intending to pass the season in town." " / never was a philosopher," cried Mrs. Etherington ; " but I hold with Shakspeare, that It is for homely women to keep home ; They have their name thence." " Then no one, I fancy, will dispute either your own or Lady Wellwood's claim to Almacks and the Opera," said Miss Broadsden in a paci- fying tone. " Pour le coup^ Hatty my dear," cried M rs. Etherington, throwing down her screen, " I think you are quite justified in flying from the roar of such a brute as that fox-hunting friend of Sir Henry's ; and I hope, after Easter, you will commission me to look out for a house for you." " Sir Henry is very anxious to see the new picture-gallery roofed-in before we leave Staf- fordshire," said Henrietta. " I have very little hope of getting away till the end of May." MAINTENANCE. 303 " And can't you leave him to scold his ma- sons, and listen to the cockneyisms of his clerk of the works, by himself? He will follow you when the business is over; and, en attendant, you can spend a cheerful month with Lady MandeviJle." " I might do that," mused Henrietta. " It is so detestable to come to town late in the season !" said the widow, — "just like beginning a novel by the second volume. We find people making love, or making spiteful faces, without understanding why ; — nobody takes the trouble to instruct one who has died, or been married, or ruined, before one's arrival ; what liaisons have been broken off, — what lovers discarded — what partizans bought, sold, or exchanged. — I re- member last year, soon after my journey from Paris, condoling with Lady Grunt on the death of her daughter's husband, when it was notorious to every one but myself that the fair widow was already engaged to Captain Percy ; and actually in- quiring of the Dowager Duchess of Sequence after her very particular friend and adherent old Lord " when " Oh ! Mr. Dornton !" cried Mrs. 304 THE SEPARATE Etherington, interrupting herself as the exqui- site sauntered into the room, " I am afraid you have had a bad run since we see you back so early?" " Not a bad run, — only a bad fall," drawled the Nimrod in the brocaded dressing-gown and Turkish slippers, throwing himself at full length on one of the divans of the boudoir. " Brad- dyll has been shampooing me for the last hour, to ascertain how many of my bones are broken. I had him taught by Mahomet before the commencement of the hunting season." " I trust no material injury ? " enquired Le- titia. " Nothing beyond the reparation of a little goldbeater's skin," said the exquisite. " A few drops of orange-flower water have set me to rights." " Then pray come and set Lady Wellwood to rights. Do you know she is bent on re- nouncing London, to setde down as the Lady Bountiful of the parish of Wellwood ! " cried Mrs. Etherington. MAINTENANCE. 305 " Never heard of any thing so monstrous ! " cried Letitia. " Has any thing occurred to alter your La- dyship's views since last night?" — enquired Mr. Dornton of Henrietta, in an audible whisper. " Pray remember that I only gave up my intended visit to Paris, encouraged by your promise to pass the season in town." " Oh, Hatty, Hatty ! you scandalous hypo- crite," cried Mrs. Etherington, holding up her finger, and laughing immoderately. " Till the end of May, indeed," continued the gentleman in the brocaded dressing-gown, " I am obliged to remain with Sandys ; but I shall not forgive you, my dear Lady Wellwood, if you remain at Wellwood Abbey one day after the 25th." " After the picture-gallery is roofed in," said Mrs. Etherington significantly. " Good morning. Sir Henry," cried Miss Letitia Broadsden, who alone was sufficiently disenffa^ed to notice the entrance of the Ba- ronet. " Good morning," replied he, with a general 306 THE SEPARATE bow, and an air of displeased amazement on finding Mr. Dornton familiarly established in a spot which the custom of the house pre- served sacred from male intrusion, and which he never visited himself without an apology. " My dear Lady Well wood !— pray command me to turn that monster outof the room," faltered the exquisite. " Do you sanction his appearance in your boudoir, in a hunting-coat smelling of horse, and with clay on his boots enough to form the foundation of a canal? — Horrible!" Lady Well wood glanced with a scornful eye at the^treaks of mud defiling her Tournay car- pet; Sir Henry, with equal contempt at the perfumed coxcomb defiling her ladyship's silken ottoman. " I intended only to acquaint you," said he calmly to Henrietta, " that Sandys, Allstone, and myself have promised to dine and sleep at Shoreham. The hounds meet to-morrow at Shoreham Thorns, and we wish to be on the spot. Dornton, do you accompany us? — You left the field before Lord Shoreham came up with his invitation." MAINTENANCE. 307, " Thank you,— no; — I intend to give myself a day's respite after my fall. If I left the hunt- ing field to you, my dear fellow, oblige me by leaving the field here to we." " We will take great care of you, Mr. Dorn- ton,"5aid Mrs. Etherington. " We will take great care of you, Mr. Dorn- ton," echoed the toady, " W^e will take great care of you," looked Lady Wellwood ; but she smiled, and said no- thing. " And now, having received my Majesty's reply, won't you release us from your boots?" enquired Dornton, after murmuring his thanks to his female companions. Sir Henry made an awkward exit. There is nothing more irritating than to be compelled to take a jest as a jest, which we are inclined to resent in earnest. Miss Rodney was the only person who rose to shake hands with the de- parting Baronet. She observed that his touch was deathly cold, and his lips were white with rage, as he bade her a smiling farewell. 308 THE SEPARATE CHAPTER VI. She had been ill brought up, and was born bilious. BVRON, Arabella was not much surprised to ob- serve, when her brother returned from Shore- liam Castle on the following day, that his eyes were hollow and his lips feverish ; but it af- forded her some satisfaction to see that Hen- rietta did not appear in much better spirits. Is it hardness of heart, or is it mere levity that prompts us to the perpetration of those trifling injuries which, when estimated by their power to wound the feelings of others, form important links in the chain of existence ? — Or is it tem- per ? — that staple commodity in the great ex- change of life, — that moral constitution whose MAINTENANCE. 309 ailments and infirmities exceed the most trou- blesome disease of physical nature ! Henrietta was a spoiled child; — had never been taught the duty of contributing to the happiness of others; — had found Lady Mande- ville's affections amply secured by her pretty face, her graceful air, her showj^ accomplish- ments. From her childhood she had been in- cessantly reminded by her aunt of her own •^independence:" as if any human creature — royal, gentle, or simple, could be fairly pro- nounced independent; — as if wealth and station, important as they are, could form a defence against the irritabilities of sickness, and the loss or lack of the sympathies and good-will of our kind ! — But these. Lady Mandeville regarded as superfluous, and never instructed her pupil to conciliate. The beautiful heiress was reared in all the petulance and meanness of intense egotism. Even amid the early raptures of his attach- ment, Sir Henry had in some degree recognised the fault originally pointed out by Miss Rodney to his notice. Too much in love, however, to perceive that the error proceeded from want of 310 THE SEPARATE principle (even the primal principle of duty towards her neighbour) he whispered to himself that the fair creature of his affections had been petted into waywardness by her aunt, and that when removed to the cheering and wholesome influence of a country life, she would become as amiable as she was attractive. Nay, he even fancied it would be a delightful task to contri- bute to the perfectionment of so gifted, so hea- venly a being ! But there is nothing more difficult, nothing more perplexing, than to insinuate to persons wrapt up in the consciousness of their own merits, a hint of error or deficiency. From the first months of his domestication with his wife at Wellwood Abbey, Sir Henry had intended, had longed, to commence his little system of tender remonstrance ; but the slightest insinuation of a difference of opinion was sufficient to fan the embers of Henrietta's distemperature into a con- flagration. The blaze was not strong, indeed ; for the lady had always been accustomed to find a fit of wilfulness, or of affected despondency, more available and becoming than one of hasty MAINTENANCE. 311 anger. But she was tolerably expert in those piquant flippancies of speech which harass the enemy like a straggling fire; and could contrive, when it suited her purpose, to make herself as disagreeable as if her face had not been that of a cherub, or her voice seraphic. " A woman," quoth La Bruyere, " must be charming indeed, whose husband does not re- pent, ten times a day, that he is a married man." Sir Henry Wellvvood would have scoffed at the axiom. The " idol of his soul" was still an idol; although, like the votaries of old, he had managed to discover that it was not wholly formed of precious metals ; that its feet were of clay ! He still fancied himself the happiest of mortals ; particularly when Henrietta, in her best looks and spirits, was riding by his side through the Wellwood plantations, listening to the project of his intended improvements; — or seated in her boudoir sketching designs and mo- delling plans for his two new lodges. Some- times after dinner she would busy herself with her guitar, and insist on his attempting a second to her Italian notturno; sometimes she per- 312 THE SEPARATE suaded him to lend her his arm towards the vil- lage, to assist in executing that easy work of benevolence, the deplenishment of her silken purse. At such moments she was indeed en- chanting; — and the fascinated Wellwood was quite willing to echo the chorus of Mrs. Dela- field's visitors, that he had " drawn a prize.'' But the sands of life are not form.ed exclu- sively of diamond sparks. Flint and granite mingle in the contents of the hour-glass ; and Sir Henry often found himself required to listen to fractious complaints of old Roddington's in- novations, of Lawford's negligence — of roses that would not blow at the gardener's bidding, — of London booksellers, who would not send down the new novels in proper time, — of old women who refused to be cured of their rheumatism, and young ones who declined becoming scholars at her platting school. His own misdemeanours, too, were frequent and unpardonable. He had a knack of carrying off the very volume she was reading, — of losing ^er place, and leaving his own marked by leaving the unfortunate book sprawl- ing upon its face on the table, like a drunkard MAINTENANCE. 313 on the ground. He often kept her waiting five minutes for her ride, or twenty for dinner ; would stop and detain her, in their walks, while he corrected the practical blunders of some su* perannuated hedger and ditcher ; had a trick of whipping off the thistle- tops while driving her in the garden chair, to the imminent indig- nation of her ponies ; was sometimes seen to nod after dinner, when the morning's run had been a good one ; and had an opinion of his owm in politics, which precisely reversed those of Lady Mandeville and her coterie. — In a word, he was often very " tiresome ! " and whenever the fair Henrietta was excited into pronouncing that sentence on his proceedings, it was a signal for ill-humour for the remainder of the day ; or rather till the spoiled child would condescend to be coaxed into a more satisfactory mood of mind. All this could be endured by a man of for- bearing disposition and strong sense, in favour of a young and lovely woman who had preferred him to fifty admirers, and still professed an un- limited attachment towards him. But he had VOL. I. p 314 THE SEPARATE no patience with the coldness of her demeanour towards Miss Rodney, for whom he had bespoken her kindness in terms almost affecting, and whose humiliated position in the world demanded deli- cacy and consideration ; nor with her rudeness to his friend, — his real friend, — his good friend Tom Allstone ; whom he had pointed out to her regard as one whose kindness had been most valuable and important to him, before the sud- den decease of an elder brother placed him in possession of the Well wood estates. But as these were the two persons he most prized on earth, they were selected by Lady Wellwood's peevish and jealous temper, as the means of inflicting punishment on her husband. Not that she really wished to give him pain, or really disliked Arabella; but she was idle, — — frivolous, — " servile to all the skyey influences" of a rainy or sultry day ; and delighted in find- ing a conductor to carry off* the electric fluid of perverseness engendered by a bad digestion and ill-regulated mind. Unfortunately, Sir Harry had no one with whom he could confer on the subject of his MAINTENANCE. 315 grievances. Though mistrusting the judicious- ness of his own mode of management, he had no opinion from which to derive a better system ; — ^he was apprehensive of exciting Arabella's ill- opinion of her sister-in-law by an avowal of his vexation, and still more afraid of exposing his own ears to the sarcasms likely to be wrung from Tom Allstone's lips on the flights and fancies of fashionable ladies. Obliged to brood over his afflictions during his ride homewards from Shoreham Castle, he had the satisfaction of reflecting, that he might thank his own especial invitation for the pleasure of Mr. Dornton's company at the Abbey; and of anticipating that, for a week to come, Henrietta would find, in the pernicious counsels of Mrs. Etherington and the base incense of her toady, ample incite- ment to further contrariety. He saw that he had eight miserable days before him !~ So engrossed indeed was the injured Baronet by these contemplations, that he was unaware he had any thing else before him ; when, sud- denly startled from his* reverie by an affected laugh, and ihe echo of three varieties of giggle p 2 316 THE SEPARATE and titter, he found himself in a lane leading from the Abbey pheasantries to the house ; and on the point of running against her ladyship's pony-chair, (in which she was driven by Mr. Dornton, attired in a pink silk-waistcoat, white kid gloves, and frieze wrap-rascal) — while Mrs. Etherington and Letitia picked their dainty way along the bank. They all appeared exceedingly merry, and indulged themselves in a thousand biting jests on his abstraction. At dinner, matters were; still worse. Lady Well wood, who had taken counsel with Mrs. Etherington concerning her husband's barbarity in the matter of the dog, and absurdity in the matter of the dandy, was now resolved to inflict a signal chastisement on him, with a view to secure herself from further ill-usage ; and ac- cordingly commenced a most ostensible flirtation with Mr. Dornton. Sir Henry was fortunately still unaware that, during his absence, the ami- able quartette had been amusing itself by a series of petty impertinences to Arabella Rodney, such as were equally new, amazing, and contemptible in her eyes ; but nothing could be more evident Maintenance. 317 than the cutting insolence of his wife's present demeanour towards his friend Allstone, and in- decorous devotion to the brother of Lord Sandys* During the ceremonial of dinner, her Ladyship had no ear save for the insipid nothings of the man whom she delighted to honour ; and Mrs. Etherington had consequently the satisfaction of seeing the man she delighted to torment, con- demned to a martyrdom of jealous irritation. On retiring from the dessert-table, the two ladies and a half, (Lady Wellwood, Helena, and the toady) flew together to the dressing- room of the former, to concoct new schemes for bringing the rebellious husband to his senses, or driving him out of them. It required, however, all the malice of the disappointed Mrs. Ethering- ton to keep her pupil up to the mark. Hen- rietta, self- convicted and uneasy, might not have found courage to persist in rendering her hus- band unhappy, had not a strong case been laid before her of the wretchedness awaiting her future life, should she permit Miss Rodney to retain a paramount ascendancy over him; or allow him to possess a paramount ascendancy 318 THE SEPARATE over herself. She was asked again and again, whether she chose to be a slave, — the slave of her husband's sister ; — and of course replied by an indignant " No ! " It was not " No ! " however, that she an- swered, an hour or two afterwards, in reply to Mr. Dorn ton's request to hear her harp, — her guitar, — her charming voice?— -While he lounged at full length on a sofa near the instrument, she favoured him again and again with Sir Henry's pet airs, Sir Henry's pet songs, and every melodious favourite hitherto reserved to grace those evenings sacred to the senti- mental domesticity of home. It was wormwood to the provoked husband, as he sat taming down his chafed spirit into the meditative so- brieties of a game of chess with Tom Allstone, to hear her lend peculiar pathos to some tender phrase which he had been apt to believe exclu- sively addressed to himself; or dwell on some soft allusion which had always before been made the interpreter of her sympathy with that " soul" of which she was the "idol." At every melting close, ejaculations of "charming !" — " exquisite !" — MAINTENANCE. 319 burst from the lips of the recumbent Dornton ; and were probably as excruciating to the ears of the baited husband, as in the ears of the lady of the Abbey, was a sort of half howl, half whine, which suddenly issued from those of Tom All- stone, — forming an involuntary response to a minor chord terminating one of Henrietta's choicest Bayleyisms. It was just the ludi- crous cry that dogs occasionally utter under the excitement of music or moonshine; and naturally provoked a shout of laughter from every one present. Even the lounging ennuye was taken by storm, and became guilty of an unrefined « ha, ha, ha!"— Lady Wellwood was inexpressibly offended. It was in vain that Tom apologised for his howl, like Cervetto to Garrick for his yawn during the mighty Roscius's performance of Hamlet — " Pardon, Monsieur !— me always do so ven me ver' much please !"— Her Ladyship bit her lips with vexation, and uttered something in a loud aside to Mr. Dornton, concerning the necessity of confining such animals to the stable-yard ; while Mrs. Etherington, by way of covering the 320 THE SEPARATE general confusion, seated herself cheerfully at the piano, and favoured them with the lively French vaudeville, Tu t'en rdpentiras, Colin, tu t'en repentiras ! Oui, si tu prends une femme, Colin, Tu t'en repentiras ! MAINTENANCE. 321 CHAPTER VI. A fop who admires his person in a glass, soon enters into a re- solution of making his fortune by it; not questioning but every woman that falls in his way will do him as much justice as he does himself. When an heiress sees a man throwing particular glances into his ogle, or talking loud within her hearing, she ought to look to herself. Addison. No jealous person is ever conscious of the distemper. Sir Henry Wellvvood stood, in his own opinion, as the most confiding and easy of husbands ; and had even promised himself on his wedding-day, that no trivial circumstance or accidental indiscretion on the part of his beloved Henrietta, should ever induce him to betray that susceptibility of feeling by ^/hich he had seen so many other men render themselves offensive or ridiculous. On the present occasion, he felt satisfied that his vexations arose less from jealous i»5 322 THE SEPARATE excitement than from indignation at being set. at nought and degraded by the deliberate insults of his wife. He bore his fate in silence for three whole days. He saw her set off, morning after morn- ing, to walk with Mr. Dornton in the Abbey shrubberies; and overcome her natural indo- lence, evening after evening, to copy out for him in a little finical album which formed part of his travelling paraphernalia, every " Loved of my soul !" and " Take back thy heart !" which had elicited his applause when graced by her melo- dious repetition ; and at length even heard her offer him the gift of a " beautiful little Italian greyhound, an old favourite of hers, which had just been sent away from the Abbey as an in- truder." Poor Wellwood attempted to screen his uneasiness by directing his own attentions to Helena Etherington, but the little widow was busily engaged in trying to captivate those of Lord Sandys: and he found himself eventually turned over to Miss Letitia Broads- den, and cutting the ridiculous figure of pair- ing off with the bore, or butt, of the party. MAINTENANCE. 323 Odious as it was to him to listen to her sy- cophancies, it was ten times worse to picture the sneer with which he fancied himself re- garded by Dornton and his brother; and to perceive the irrepressible twinklings of humour which irradiated Tom Allstone's laughter-loving eyes, as he watched the manoeuvres of the group. But on the fourth day his sufferings became in- supportable; and on returning home from the sports of the morning, he flew to Arabella's dressing-room to make a clear breast of his grievances, and demand her advice and com- miseration. It must be owned that he was fortunate in a counsellor. Arabella, though several years his junior, and accustomed to look up to him with as much admiration as affection, had studied his character with that shrewdness of observation which in a sister is never blinded by the par- tialities of the heart. She knew all his foible^-, while she honoured his virtues ; and was careful on the present occasion to avoid magnifying his griefs, by treating them with either too much or too little attention,— by receiving his complaints 324 THE SEPARATE either as absolute jest or absolute earnest. She listened very calmly ; and very calmly assured him that, by making his indignation apparent to the guilty parties, he would only gratify their own intentions ; while by a grave steadiness of demeanour towards his wife, he might at once defeat the consequences of Mrs. Etherington's suggestions and of her own girlish waywardness. Grieved as she was to see her brother look so ill, and speak so despondingly of his domestic position, Miss Rodney was careful not to en= courage his despair by any expression of sym- pathy. Cheered by her kind-hearted mode of depre- ciating the importance and prophesying the speedy termination of Lady Wellwood's fit of perversity, he was quitting her room in consi- derable elation of spirits, with his careworn countenance irradiated by a smile, when Helena Etherington and Henrietta, who had been prac- tising duets together in the music-room, and intermingling their harmonious studies with a running commentary on the insupportableness of cross husbands, and the glory of breaking in a stubborn temper,— came full upon him in the MAINTENANCE. 325 corridor. Conscious and startled, he bowed and skulked guiltily away ; leaving Mrs. Etherington to point out to the disgust of his wife the secret understanding and privy council existing be- tween himself and Arabella, w^here all her own proceedings were subjected to investigation and condemnation. Can it be doubted that on this hint, Lady Wellwood made her appearance for the evening arrayed in all her usual smiles for Mr. Dornton, — more than all her usual ungraciousness towards Miss Rodney ? She was at least determined to render Sir Henry and his sister as uncomfortable as herself. Alas ! how tormenting was it to the lover- husband, to gaze on the loveliness of her looks, while noting the unloveliness of her mind and manners ! — Miss Rodney had not, however, much leisure to smart under her Ladyship's strictures and implications. She was engrossed by Mr. All- stone's account of a visit he had paid to a vol- canic island on the Sicilian coast during his recent Mediterranean tour, in company with a party of English dandies, who were yachting in the same direction. At first, Tom's rambling 326 THE SEPARATE notes were exclusively intended for the amuse- ment of one who, he perceived, was an object of spite to the other ladies of the party ; but en- couraged by the applause with which his gra- phic details were received by Lord Sandys (who, although a fox-hunter was a remarkably intel- ligent, lively, amusable young man) he pro- ceeded to portray with such admirable strokes of humour the characters of tlie fresh-water sailors, lisping out their slang, or affecting sci- entific ardour in a tone half-yawn half-snore, that even the toady deserted the anti-Allstone party, and surrendered herself for once to the luxury of a genuine laugh. Lady Wellwood swelled with indignation ; — not only to find the detestable Tom the hero of the hour, but be- cause the very nature of his triumph rendered it impossible to crush him by the supercilious hauteur which the merry mood of his auditors encouraged him to despise. Even Dornton listened and applauded. So rarely does Pro- vidence the giftie gie us To see ourselves as others see us, that he had not the least conception his friend MAINTENANCE. 327 and partizan in the pink satin dress, was dis- posed to resent Mr. Allstone's sketch of dandy inanity, as a personal attack on himself. It never occurred to him that there was a family resemblance between the Sir Roger Rampion, who lisped about Gunth, dwumth, twumpeth, blunderbutheth, and thuuder, in an accent like the chirrup of a sparrow ; or the Colonel Merivale who carried two blue and gold enamel watering-pots throughout the dif- ficulties of peninsular campaigns, to sprinkle his snuff with black and green tea ! But while the double refined ennuye conde- scended to join in the general laugh directed against his caste, he was not unmindful of his main object; and exonerated himself by lisping " che bestial" in an undertone, to Lady Well- wood, at the termination of Allstone's narrative. Nothing could be more marked than his devo- tion to Henrietta, nothing more manifest than his pretensions to her favour, nothing more plain than his satisfaction at the uneasiness of his friend, her husband. Her ladyship had no reason to doubt that he had lost his heart, 328 THE SEPARATE such as it was, during his short visit to the Abbey. And so indeed he had ; and all his present airs and exaggerated affectation were directed towards the captivation of the lady of his thoughts. But that was not the lady of Sir Henry Well wood. Dornton was no libertine ; he was worse,— a cold, hard, calculating egotist ; preferring the comforts and convenience of his own Kttle finger before all the charms of Venus and her train of nymphs. Mrs. Etherington's attack upon the liberty of his brother had in truth induced him to make inquiries concerning the nature of her own attractions ; and finding them to consist in a pretty face and flighty air of fashion (which were a matter of indifference to him) and a jointure of two thousand a-year (which was a matter of considerable importance both to him and his creditors) he fell des- perately in love ; and formed as fierce a deter- mination to take his stand On the rich widow's jointured land, and make Helena Etherington his own before he quitted the Abbey, as she had herself con- MAINTENANCE. 329 ceived with regard to the conquest of Lord Sandys. Frederick Dornton, amid all his fiddle- faddle foppishness, united the hard beak of the macaw with its gaudy plumage. With quite as bad a heart and principles as Mrs. Etherington, he had a much better head; and, instead of making his advances in a straight line, accord- ing to her own mode of attack upon his brother, adopted that curious species of Irish ordnance which is said to shoot round a corner. He began by making love to her friend, in order that Helena might end by falling in love with himself. Unwittingly, too. Miss Broadsden lent her aid towards the furtherance of his project. Aware that Mrs. Etherington's marriage would be the end of her toadyhood, that with a hus- band to be teased by or tease, she would stand in no need of a domestic friend to quarrel with on rainy days, Letitia declared war on Lord Sandys from the moment she detected the fa- vourable views entertained towards him by her patroness; and spared no pains in illus- trating the boorishness of his manners and his 330 THE SEPARATE distaste for female society, by incessant compa- rison with the refinement of his younger brother, — the darling of half the coteries of May-Fair. But Miss Broadsden, who had been so long erased from the marrying list, and who ground- ed her interested speculations chiefly on the weakness of her own sex, had quite forgotten that the very name of younger brother covereth a multitude of virtues ; and all her florid admi- ration of " Mr. Dornton's distinguished air," and " Mr. Dorn ton's fascinating address," would have been lavished in vain, had she not con- cluded the catalogue of his charms with a re- mark on his unhappy passion for the lady of the Abbey. This was decisive. Mrs. Etherington be- longed to that most virulent class of coquettes, who have not half so much enjoyment in the triumph of their own charms as in molesting the attach- ments of others. Seldom, indeed, does coquetry manifest itself in the character of an English wo- man combined with the playful and joyous deli- rium of vanity, which forms its basis in the spirit of a fair Parisian. The females of our own MAINTENANCE. 331 country are so little exposed to those attentions of gallantry which intoxicate the mind of French women of every degree, that among ourselves coquetry commonly springs from a perverted nature; — with us it is not an ignis fatuus, but a scorching and perilous flame, — it is not a lizard but a scorpion, — it is not the appetite for selfish pleasure, but " the dear delight of giving pain." Mrs. Etherington's beloved Hatty had robbed her of Wellwood Abbey and its proprietor, and she determined to take her revenge on all parties by appropriating to herself the proprie- tor of the brocaded dressing gown and pet mus- tachios; as well as by hatching a whole brood of mischiefs between Sir Henry and his wife. Even had she been aware of the extent of the unpaid bill in which the former article still remained enrolled, and the prodigious claims existing on the latter among the flirts (married and single) of the day, it would have made little difference in her projects. She had no more intention of committing herself by a marriage with the Ho- nourable Frederick, than with Tom Allstone's groom ; but simply intended to inveigle him ^32 THE SEPARATE from Henrietta's feet to her own, and leave hinl there, fairly floored, for the amusement of society. The amiable couple were admirably matched, — coquette against coquet — But in such villainous strategy, a man has always the advantage ; he possesses presence of mind, while his opponent has only presence of heart. Even Mrs. Etherington's views on Lord Sandys were secondary to her desire of morti- fying the triumphant Lady Wellwood. As- sisted by Letitia's perspicacity, she had disco- vered the hopelessness of besieging the affections of an individual whom man delighted not, nor woman either, so long as a horse, dog, or fox was within reach. At best, he was but a young and titled Tom Allstone, a man who would have been voted a bear, had he not been qualified to vote as a peer. Without the slightest suspicion that she was herself entangled in a springe, she accord- ingly began to spread her nets for Frederick Dornton ; and satisfied of the superior charm of her gay French songs, when opposed to Lady Wellwood's sentimentalisms, — and the MAINTENANCE. 333 perfection of her own Parisian lightness of foot in the galoppe, when contrasted with Hen- rietta's sleepy grace,— -she promoted music and dancing during the evening ; and by the fami- liarities thus ensured between the dandy and the pretended object of his homage, had the com- fort of sending Sir Henry to bed with an aching heart and throbbing temples. Before the party met again at breakfast, how- ever, it was Henrietta's heart that throbbed and temples that ached. She had weathered her first matrimonial storm ;— had been informed that it was her husband's pleasure she should not waltz with Mr. Dornton, nor prolong her tete-a-tete walks with him, nor decorate her hair with exotics of his selection from the conservatory ! " Her husband's pleasure ! " — Alas ! from the moment that sentence is autho- ritatively introduced into the conjugal dialogue, half the comfort of a married life is lost. When men begin to talk about their pleasure, it is plain that their happiness is at an end. 334 THE SEPARATE CHAPTER VII. Laughing satire bids the fairest for success ; the world is too proud to be fond of a serious tutor. Young. In this premature exercise of authority, Sir Henry acted injudiciously. Henrietta was the frivolous creature of prosperity, vain, selfish, and artificial; but she was not destitute of gene- rous impulses. Nature is an untirable bene- factress. In spite of the coldness with which her benefits are received, the ingratitude with which they are defaced, she continues to lavish her good and perfect gifts. Amid all the en- tanglement of weeds defiling Lady Wellwood's neglected and uncultured mind, a flower or two still rose unheeded. Had her husband, instead of looking angry and talking big, — instead of bringing forward his prerogative, and making a stand upon his MAINTENANCE. 335 rights, — simply appealed to her affection, she would have given way in a minute. Had he merely whispered in his own " idol of the soul"- ish tones : " Hatty ! it gives me pain to see you encouraging the pretensions of Frederick Dorn- ton. Hatty ! it gives me pain to see you wound the feelings of my poor gentle unoffending sis- ter," she would have been in his arms in a moment, and probably in those of Miss Rodney the next. She was not hardened; and with such a nature tenderness prevails far more than violence. But if the truth must be owned, Wellwood himself, although both an honourable and an honest man, was not altogether perfect. He was peremptory and opinionated. He had not been trained in the exercise of authority ; — he had been a mere Captain Wellwood, of the — th Hussars with five hundred per annum, (a person of no manner of importance to any hu- man creature but the affectionate Arabella) till the attainment of his twenty-eighth year, — and was somewhat apprehensive of allowing his newly acquired consequence to slip through his fingers. He had not been long enough ace us- 33€^ THE SEPARATE tomed to the conjugation of " I will," " Thou shalt," to regard these verbs as mere auxiliaries, acquiring their value from the participle they serve to animate. He was obstinate, too, as well as wilful ; and having been at length incited to an act of des- potism, was determined to prop the lath and plaster barrier he had erected with bulwarks of stone. Having prepared himself for a woman's war of words, for skirmishing and sharpshooting on the part of Henrietta, he assumed a most heroic posture, and came down to breakfast looking as dignified as Lord Mansfield in his marble wig, among the tombs of Westminster Abbey. Here, to his infinite surprise, he found the very Lady Wellwood he had left a raging Sta- tira in her dressing room, presiding over the distribution of the coffee, with a smiling face, arrayed in a morning cap, the pink ribands of which served to overpower the redness of her eyes. No one present would have guessed that any thing had occurred to discompose her ; and Sir Henry applied himself with an unanticipated MAINTENANCE. 337 appetite to his eggs and French rolls, full of joyful amazement at her well-advised submis- sion to his authority, and restoration to good humour. Poor man ! — his blindness may be pardoned ; — he was a husband of only six months' date. It almost vexed him that he had not break- fasted early and gone to covert with Sandys and Allstone, instead of staying at home to scold his wife. But then Frederick Dornton, in pur- suance of his own deep-laid projects, still pleaded his fall as an excuse for absenting himself from the field ; and with all Sir Henry's recovered confidence in Lady Well wood's discretion, he could not quite venture to trust her to the fasci- nations of so dangerous a companion. " Congratulate me," said he, kissing Arabella's forehead, as she rose and came forward to meet him in the course of the afternoon, from her fa- vourite seat among the cedar trees that spread their vast branches from the Wellwood shrub- beries to the lake below ; " I have gone coura- geously and successfully through my first dispute with Henrietta ! " VOL. I. Q 338 THE SEPARATE " I rejoice to hear it ! With so many ex- cellent qualities, it is grievous to see her mis- led by such a weak flimsy person as Mrs. Etherington." " I don't fancy that woman possesses any real influence over her mind. I have often warned Hatty against her flightiness, and she appeared on her guard. Besides, there are only two days unexpired of Mrs. Etherington's promised stay ; and I have strictly forbidden Henrietta to pro- long the invitation." " I doubt the wisdom of forbidding any thing strictly, where you have a generous nature to work on. You would have done well to leave Lady Wellwood to grow weary of her friend; and better still, had you merely ex- pressed your uneasiness, and appealed to her own heart. Depend on it the answer would have been favourable.'' " Well, well ! — the same end has been accom- plished by different means. You must have observed at breakfast how little Lady Wellwood found to say to that jackanapes Dornton; and MAINTENANCE. 339 how much and kindly she talked to Allstone and yourself." " I do not quite like such violent transi- tions/' said Miss Rodney mildly. " I should have been better satisfied with some faint grum- bling of the departing storm. " Ay, ay ! You ladies will never sanction the exercise of authority over other women; you unite at least in supporting the prerogative of the sex. But be assured that, with a being so capricious and obstinate as Henrietta, a little firmness is absolutely necessary." " Between two persons so capricious as Lady Wellwood and so obstinate as her husband ! Nay ! dear Harry— be not angry ! — but, as a stander-by, believe me I can best judge the chances of the game. You are too much inte- rested in the stakes to be a dispassionate ob- server." " Well then,— as a stander-by :— what likeli- hood have I of check-mating my queen?" " No likelihood, but a certainty;— talk to her with all the candour, and half the eloquence. 340 THE SEPARATE and a quarter of the forbearance you used for* merly to employ in weaning me from my girlish follies, and you " have her on the hip." Hen- rietta will prove even a more docile disciple than myself. But tighten the curb too roughly, and the generous steed will rear and throw you over." " If you will borrow your similies from All- stone, Bella, let them be more technical. Mean- while, I shall be able to prove to you that I am a better hand in the manege than you imagine." During the two following days, Sir Henry's opinion on the subject remained uncontroverted. Lady Well wood was all gentleness, all decorum; she neither pursued her flirtation with the dandy nor her hrusquerie with Allstone ; endured his laugh without wincing ; and heard Mrs. Etherington announce her departure for town for the following Thursday, without any re- newal of her invitation. Even when Frede- rick Dornton suddenly explained the necessity he was under of taking leave on the day preced- ing, and what is termed " running up to town," MAINTENANCE. 341 for the arrangement of some important ballot at one of his clubs, she listened with a serene smile, which Sir Henry hailed as announcing a return of happy days, after the departure of his three unsatisfactory guests. With his friends Allstone and Sandys as the companions of his morning sports, Arabella as the partner of his friendship, and Henrietta as the object of his unremitting adoration, as " the idol of his soul," he felt assured that the Abbey w^as about to re- assume the Eden -like aspect of the preceding autumn. He even managed to be all gracious- ness to Mrs. Etherington, and courtesy to Miss Letitia Broadsden, during the last four and twenty hours they were ever likely to pass under his roof. The deepset eyes of the latter twinkled cunningly on either side her long nose, as she noticed the increasing urbanity of his humour. It had been arranged that Mrs. Etherington, instead of adopting the usual custom of guests departing after an early breakfast, should await the arrival of the post ; and the gentlemen of the party gladly availed themselves of her polite request, that her delay might be no restraint in Q3 342 THE SEPARATE detaining them from their daily sport. They wished her a pleasant journey when she retired to rest the preceding night ; and were all four oiF to the rendezvous de chasse by day break. It was the decree of the Fates that the hounds should meet that day at Kingscote Mill, full thirteen miles from the Abbey. It was the will of the Fates also that all that morning should Througli the hawthovo blow the cold wind While drizzly rain did fall ! And it was through that drizzly rain, and across a stiff country, that Sir Henry and his tired hack found their way homewards towards evening — the horse meditating on an extra feed, the rider cogitating on the cheerful happy fire-side that awaited him at the Abbey, now the widow, toady, and dandy were on their road to London, — and Henrietta herself again. " He whistled as he went for want of " — not thought — but care. It is so delightful to feel a storm sub- siding around us ; to hear the blackbirds and thrushes waking up their tuneful snatches in the MAINTENANCE. 343 dripping shrubberies ; to breathe the freshened perfume of the sweet-briar bushes : — it is so de- hghtful — so very dehghtful — to note returning sunshine on the faces of those we love ! Having entered the Abbey through the offices, the elated Baronet made his way to Lady Well'vvood's dressing-room without meeting any of the servants ; but on entering that Temple of the Graces, he was surprised to see that, instead of the disorder of the toilet usually prevalent after the sound of the dressing-bell, — instead of the sparkling fire and bright confusion of satins, silks, and laces, — necklaces, earrings, and brace- lets, — which for the last ten days had encumber- ed its tables and chairs from six till seven o'clock, — all was cold, orderly, and solitary ! The bright steel grate was careftdly cleared out, — the windows were still open to admit the chilly even- incr air, — the covers were installed on the furni- ture, — the what could it all mean ? He rang tlie bell to inquire ; and, with admirable con- sistency, left the room before time had elapsed for a servant to obey the summons. ' Where is Lady Wellwood?" cried he to the 344 THE SEPARATE butler, whom he crossed in the hall while hasten- ing towards the boudoir frequented during the morning by the ladies of the Abbey. " Havn't you had my Lady's letter. Sir ?" "Where is Henrietta?" cried he, without pausing to reply to the man's interrogation, but throwing open the door of the room where his sister was quietly seated before her embroidery frame. " Have you not received her letter?" reiter- ated Arabella, without intending to annoy him. The agonized husband uttered some ejacula- tion concerning the letter, which it might not be decorous to transcribe. " Do not be alarmed ! " replied Miss Rodney mildly. " Nothing is amiss ; nothing important has occurred. Lady Wellwood left a letter on your library table to explain — " " I don t care about the letter. Can't you tell me in one word where she is?" " Somewhere about Lichfield, by this time ; — but I fancy she will not sleep on the road"— " Lichfield !— the road ! — Arabella, what do you mean ?" "Only that— " MAINTENANCE. 345 '^ Has she,— can it be possible that she has quitted the Abbey ? " " Surely you are aware that — " " Arabella ! Arabella ! did she— go alone ?" " Oh ! dear, no ! Why should you imagine such a thing ? But her letter will explain the whole business ; I will go and fetch it." " D — n the letter !" cried Sir Henry, falling into a chair. " Tell me all, — tell me the worst. I can bear it — I have courage for any thing." " A great deal of courage, perhaps," said Miss Rodney; "but certainly very little patience. One would fancy you thought Lady Well wood had eloped." " Did you not just now imply" — " I implied nothing. Stop, stop, dear Harry ! and let me tell you the whole affair. Just as Mrs. Etherington was taking leave of us, the London post brought a letter to Henrietta from Lady Mandeville, informing her she was very seriously indisposed, and imploring her to lose no time in coming to London." " Lady Mandeville ?— how strange ! " " Lady Wellwood was anxious to send for 346 THE SEPARATE post-horses without a moment's delay. But Mrs. Etherington would not hear of her per- forming the journey alone; nor would Hen- rietta delay it for six or eight hours, for the chance of your consenting to accompany her.'' " And so, she actually set off with that odious woman ?'> " Those odious women, you mean ! For not- withstanding the inconvenience of travelling three in a britscka on a rainy day, Miss Broads- den was necessarily of the party. She insi- nuated to, me a hint that I might try and pre- vail on them to leave her at the Abbey, in order that she might accompany me to town at some future time; but I had no inclination to second the motion. Lawford was therefore despatched by some public conveyance, and Henrietta ac- companied her friends.'' " Her friends !— " " Surely it was better than diat she should at- tempt such a journey protected only by her servants ? — " " And Dornton taking his departure so op- portunely yesterday evening ! " MAINTENANCE. 347 " His departure could have nothing to do with Henrietta's. Till this morning, she did not entertain the slightest suspicion of Lady Mandeville's illness/' " Illness ? — Bella, Bella !— it is all a subter- fuge. Rely on it, nothing is the matter with the old woman. It is a deep-laid scheme be- tween Lady Wellwood and her advisers ; — it is a vile conspiracy to create dissension between me and my wife." " At present you have no grounds for such an opinion," said Miss Rodney. "At present — " But it was useless lo argue with him ! — Poor Sir Henry was traversing the room with steps that left nothing audible but the tramp of his own hunting-boots. Arabella was almost angry with him for allowinir himself to be thus furi- o ously excited by the mere effects of surmise; but she was not angry, she was truly and deeply grieved, when she saw him suddenly stop short, and covering his face with his hands sink heavily on the nearest chair. She knew that he was weeping, yet dared not remonstrate with his tears. — Poor man ! — After all, it was nothing 348 THE SEPARATE MAINTENANCE. but the sight of one of her gloves, lying beside the book he had been reading the preceding night, which moved him so strongly. — Or was it — was it a presentiment that the mistress of the glove would enter that room no more ? — END OF VOL. I. J. B, NICHOLS AND SON, 25, PARLIAMENT-STREET. ^^ UNIVERSITY OF '^[1''),°!,? -(jj^ifii n 3 0112 046406846