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Title: Endymion

Author: Benjamin Disraeli

Release Date: April, 2005  [EBook #7926]
[This file was first posted on May 31, 2003]

Edition: 10

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, ENDYMION ***




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                               ENDYMION

                                  by

                           BENJAMIN DISRAELI

                       EARL OF BEACONSFIELD, K.G.




                         First Published 1880







                              CHAPTER I

It was a rich, warm night, at the beginning of August, when a
gentleman enveloped in a cloak, for he was in evening dress, emerged
from a club-house at the top of St. James' Street, and descended that
celebrated eminence. He had not proceeded more than half way down the
street when, encountering a friend, he stopped with some abruptness.

"I have been looking for you everywhere," he said.

"What is it?"

"We can hardly talk about it here."

"Shall we go to White's?"

"I have just left it, and, between ourselves, I would rather we should
be more alone. 'Tis as warm as noon. Let us cross the street and get
into St. James' Place. That is always my idea of solitude."

So they crossed the street, and, at the corner of St. James' Place,
met several gentlemen who had just come out of Brookes' Club-house.
These saluted the companions as they passed, and said, "Capital
account from Chiswick--Lord Howard says the chief will be in Downing
Street on Monday."

"It is of Chiswick that I am going to speak to you," said the
gentleman in the cloak, putting his arm in that of his companion as
they walked on. "What I am about to tell you is known only to three
persons, and is the most sacred of secrets. Nothing but our friendship
could authorise me to impart it to you."

"I hope it is something to your advantage," said his companion.

"Nothing of that sort; it is of yourself that I am thinking. Since our
political estrangement, I have never had a contented moment. From
Christ Church, until that unhappy paralytic stroke, which broke up a
government that had lasted fifteen years, and might have continued
fifteen more, we seemed always to have been working together. That we
should again unite is my dearest wish. A crisis is at hand. I want you
to use it to your advantage. Know then, that what they were just
saying about Chiswick is moonshine. His case is hopeless, and it has
been communicated to the King."

"Hopeless!"

"Rely upon it; it came direct from the Cottage to my friend."

"I thought he had a mission?" said his companion, with emotion; "and
men with missions do not disappear till they have fulfilled them."

"But why did you think so? How often have I asked you for your grounds
for such a conviction! There are none. The man of the age is clearly
the Duke, the saviour of Europe, in the perfection of manhood, and
with an iron constitution."

"The salvation of Europe is the affair of a past generation," said his
companion. "We want something else now. The salvation of England
should be the subject rather of our present thoughts."

"England! why when were things more sound? Except the split among our
own men, which will be now cured, there is not a cause of
disquietude."

"I have much," said his friend.

"You never used to have any, Sidney. What extraordinary revelations
can have been made to you during three months of office under a semi-
Whig Ministry?"

"Your taunt is fair, though it pains me. And I confess to you that
when I resolved to follow Canning and join his new allies, I had many
a twinge. I was bred in the Tory camp; the Tories put me in Parliament
and gave me office; I lived with them and liked them; we dined and
voted together, and together pasquinaded our opponents. And yet, after
Castlereagh's death, to whom like yourself I was much attached, I had
great misgivings as to the position of our party, and the future of
the country. I tried to drive them from my mind, and at last took
refuge in Canning, who seemed just the man appointed for an age of
transition."

"But a transition to what?"

"Well, his foreign policy was Liberal."

"The same as the Duke's; the same as poor dear Castlereagh's. Nothing
more unjust than the affected belief that there was any difference
between them--a ruse of the Whigs to foster discord in our ranks. And
as for domestic affairs, no one is stouter against Parliamentary
Reform, while he is for the Church and no surrender, though he may
make a harmless speech now and then, as many of us do, in favour of
the Catholic claims."

"Well, we will not now pursue this old controversy, my dear Ferrars,
particularly if it be true, as you say, that Mr. Canning now lies upon
his deathbed."

"If! I tell you at this very moment it may be all over."

"I am shaken to my very centre."

"It is doubtless a great blow to you," rejoined Mr. Ferrars, "and I
wish to alleviate it. That is why I was looking for you. The King
will, of course, send for the Duke, but I can tell you there will be a
disposition to draw back our friends that left us, at least the
younger ones of promise. If you are awake, there is no reason why you
should not retain your office."

"I am not so sure the King will send for the Duke."

"It is certain."

"Well," said his companion musingly, "it may be fancy, but I cannot
resist the feeling that this country, and the world generally, are on
the eve of a great change--and I do not think the Duke is the man for
the epoch."

"I see no reason why there should be any great change; certainly not
in this country," said Mr. Ferrars. "Here we have changed everything
that was required. Peel has settled the criminal law, and Huskisson
the currency, and though I am prepared myself still further to reduce
the duties on foreign imports, no one can deny that on this subject
the Government is in advance of public opinion."

"The whole affair rests on too contracted a basis," said his
companion. "We are habituated to its exclusiveness, and, no doubt,
custom in England is a power; but let some event suddenly occur which
makes a nation feel or think, and the whole thing might vanish like a
dream."

"What can happen? Such affairs as the Luddites do not occur twice in a
century, and as for Spafields riots, they are impossible now with
Peel's new police. The country is employed and prosperous, and were it
not so, the landed interest would always keep things straight."

"It is powerful, and has been powerful for a long time; but there are
other interests besides the landed interest now."

"Well, there is the colonial interest, and the shipping interest,"
said Mr. Ferrars, "and both of them thoroughly with us."

"I was not thinking of them," said his companion. "It is the increase
of population, and of a population not employed in the cultivation of
the soil, and all the consequences of such circumstances that were
passing over my mind."

"Don't you be too doctrinaire, my dear Sidney; you and I are practical
men. We must deal with the existing, the urgent; and there is nothing
more pressing at this moment than the formation of a new government.
What I want is to see you as a member of it."

"Ah!" said his companion with a sigh, "do you really think it so near
as that?"

"Why, what have we been talking of all this time, my dear Sidney?
Clear your head of all doubt, and, if possible, of all regrets; we
must deal with the facts, and we must deal with them to-morrow."

"I still think he had a mission," said Sidney with a sigh, "if it were
only to bring hope to a people."

"Well, I do not see he could have done anything more," said Mr.
Ferrars, "nor do I believe his government would have lasted during the
session. However, I must now say good-night, for I must look in at the
Square. Think well of what I have said, and let me hear from you as
soon as you can."



                              CHAPTER II

Zenobia was the queen of London, of fashion, and of the Tory party.
When she was not holding high festivals, or attending them, she was
always at home to her intimates, and as she deigned but rarely to
honour the assemblies of others with her presence, she was generally
at her evening post to receive the initiated. To be her invited guest
under such circumstances proved at once that you had entered the
highest circle of the social Paradise.

Zenobia was leaning back on a brilliant sofa, supported by many
cushions, and a great personage, grey-headed and blue-ribboned, who
was permitted to share the honours of the high place, was hanging on
her animated and inspiring accents. An ambassador, in an armed chair
which he had placed somewhat before her, while he listened with
apparent devotion to the oracle, now and then interposed a remark,
polished and occasionally cynical. More remote, some dames of high
degree were surrounded by a chosen band of rank and fashion and
celebrity; and now and then was heard a silver laugh, and now and then
was breathed a gentle sigh. Servants glided about the suite of summer
chambers, occasionally with sherbets and ices, and sometimes a lady
entered and saluted Zenobia, and then retreated to the general group,
and sometimes a gentleman entered, and pressed the hand of Zenobia to
his lips, and then vanished into air.

"What I want you to see," said Zenobia, "is that reaction is the law
of life, and that we are on the eve of a great reaction. Since Lord
Castlereagh's death we have had five years of revolution--nothing but
change, and every change has been disastrous. Abroad we are in league
with all the conspirators of the Continent, and if there were a
general war we should not have an ally; at home our trade, I am told,
is quite ruined, and we are deluged with foreign articles; while,
thanks to Mr. Huskisson, the country banks, which enabled Mr. Pitt to
carry on the war and saved England, are all broken. There was one
thing, of which I thought we should always be proud, and that was our
laws and their administration; but now our most sacred enactments are
questioned, and people are told to call out for the reform of our
courts of judicature, which used to be the glory of the land. This
cannot last. I see, indeed, many signs of national disgust; people
would have borne a great deal from poor Lord Liverpool--for they knew
he was a good man, though I always thought a weak one; but when it was
found that his boasted Liberalism only meant letting the Whigs into
office--who, if they had always been in office, would have made us the
slaves of Bonaparte--their eyes were opened. Depend upon it, the
reaction has commenced."

"We shall have some trouble with France," said the ambassador, "unless
there is a change here."

"The Church is weary of the present men," said the great personage.
"No one really knows what they are after."

"And how can the country be governed without the Church?" exclaimed
Zenobia. "If the country once thinks the Church is in danger, the
affair will soon be finished. The King ought to be told what is going
on."

"Nothing is going on," said the ambassador; "but everybody is afraid
of something."

"The King's friends should impress upon him never to lose sight of the
landed interest," said the great personage.

"How can any government go on without the support of the Church and
the land?" exclaimed Zenobia. "It is quite unnatural."

"That is the mystery," remarked the ambassador. "Here is a government,
supported by none of the influences hitherto deemed indispensable, and
yet it exists."

"The newspapers support it," said the great personage, "and the
Dissenters, who are trying to bring themselves into notice, and who
are said to have some influence in the northern counties, and the
Whigs, who are in a hole, are willing to seize the hand of the
ministry to help them out of it; and then there is always a number of
people who will support any government--and so the thing works."

"They have got a new name for this hybrid sentiment," said the
ambassador. "They call it public opinion."

"How very absurd!" said Zenobia; "a mere nickname. As if there could
be any opinion but that of the Sovereign and the two Houses of
Parliament."

"They are trying to introduce here the continental Liberalism," said
the great personage. "Now we know what Liberalism means on the
continent. It means the abolition of property and religion. Those
ideas would not suit this country; and I often puzzle myself to
foresee how they will attempt to apply Liberal opinions here."

"I shall always think," said Zenobia, "that Lord Liverpool went much
too far, though I never said so in his time; for I always uphold my
friends."

"Well, we shall see what Canning will do about the Test and
Corporation Acts," said the great personage. "I understand they mean
to push him."

"By the by, how is he really?" said the ambassador. "What are the
accounts this afternoon?"

"Here is a gentleman who will tell us," said Zenobia, as Mr. Ferrars
entered and saluted her.

"And what is your news from Chiswick?" she inquired.

"They say at Brookes', that he will be at Downing Street on Monday."

"I doubt it," said Zenobia, but with an expression of disappointment.

Zenobia invited Mr. Ferrars to join her immediate circle. The great
personage and the ambassador were confidentially affable to one whom
Zenobia so distinguished. Their conversation was in hushed tones, as
become the initiated. Even Zenobia seemed subdued, and listened; and
to listen, among her many talents, was perhaps her rarest. Mr. Ferrars
was one of her favourites, and Zenobia liked young men who she thought
would become Ministers of State.

An Hungarian Princess who had quitted the opera early that she might
look in at Zenobia's was now announced. The arrival of this great lady
made a stir. Zenobia embraced her, and the great personage with
affectionate homage yielded to her instantly the place of honour, and
then soon retreated to the laughing voices in the distance that had
already more than once attracted and charmed his ear.

"Mind; I see you to-morrow," said Zenobia to Mr. Ferrars as he also
withdrew. "I shall have something to tell you."



                             CHAPTER III

The father of Mr. Ferrars had the reputation of being the son of a
once somewhat celebrated statesman, but the only patrimony he
inherited from his presumed parent was a clerkship in the Treasury,
where he found himself drudging at an early age. Nature had endowed
him with considerable abilities, and peculiarly adapted to the scene
of their display. It was difficult to decide which was most
remarkable, his shrewdness or his capacity of labour. His quickness of
perception and mastery of details made him in a few years an authority
in the office, and a Secretary of the Treasury, who was quite ignorant
of details, but who was a good judge of human character, had the sense
to appoint Ferrars his private secretary. This happy preferment in
time opened the whole official world to one not only singularly
qualified for that kind of life, but who possessed the peculiar gifts
that were then commencing to be much in demand in those circles. We
were then entering that era of commercial and financial reform which
had been, if not absolutely occasioned, certainly precipitated, by the
revolt of our colonies. Knowledge of finance and acquaintance with
tariffs were then rare gifts, and before five years of his private
secretaryship had expired, Ferrars was mentioned to Mr. Pitt as the
man at the Treasury who could do something that the great minister
required. This decided his lot. Mr. Pitt found in Ferrars the
instrument he wanted, and appreciating all his qualities placed him in
a position which afforded them full play. The minister returned
Ferrars to Parliament, for the Treasury then had boroughs of its own,
and the new member was preferred to an important and laborious post.
So long as Pitt and Grenville were in the ascendant, Mr. Ferrars
toiled and flourished. He was exactly the man they liked; unwearied,
vigilant, clear and cold; with a dash of natural sarcasm developed by
a sharp and varied experience. He disappeared from the active world in
the latter years of the Liverpool reign, when a newer generation and
more bustling ideas successfully asserted their claims; but he retired
with the solace of a sinecure, a pension, and a privy-councillorship.
The Cabinet he had never entered, nor dared to hope to enter. It was
the privilege of an inner circle even in our then contracted public
life. It was the dream of Ferrars to revenge in this respect his fate
in the person of his son, and only child. He was resolved that his
offspring should enjoy all those advantages of education and breeding
and society of which he himself had been deprived. For him was to be
reserved a full initiation in those costly ceremonies which, under the
names of Eton and Christ Church, in his time fascinated and dazzled
mankind. His son, William Pitt Ferrars, realised even more than his
father's hopes. Extremely good-looking, he was gifted with a precocity
of talent. He was the marvel of Eton and the hope of Oxford. As a boy,
his Latin verses threw enraptured tutors into paroxysms of praise,
while debating societies hailed with acclamation clearly another
heaven-born minister. He went up to Oxford about the time that the
examinations were reformed and rendered really efficient. This only
increased his renown, for the name of Ferrars figured among the
earliest double-firsts. Those were days when a crack university
reputation often opened the doors of the House of Commons to a young
aspirant; at least, after a season. But Ferrars had not to wait. His
father, who watched his career with the passionate interest with which
a Newmarket man watches the development of some gifted yearling, took
care that all the odds should be in his favour in the race of life. An
old colleague of the elder Mr. Ferrars, a worthy peer with many
boroughs, placed a seat at the disposal of the youthful hero, the
moment he was prepared to accept it, and he might be said to have left
the University only to enter the House of Commons.

There, if his career had not yet realised the dreams of his youthful
admirers, it had at least been one of progress and unbroken
prosperity. His first speech was successful, though florid, but it was
on foreign affairs, which permit rhetoric, and in those days demanded
at least one Virgilian quotation. In this latter branch of oratorical
adornment Ferrars was never deficient. No young man of that time, and
scarcely any old one, ventured to address Mr. Speaker without being
equipped with a Latin passage. Ferrars, in this respect, was triply
armed. Indeed, when he entered public life, full of hope and promise,
though disciplined to a certain extent by his mathematical training,
he had read very little more than some Latin writers, some Greek
plays, and some treatises of Aristotle. These with a due course of
Bampton Lectures and some dipping into the "Quarterly Review," then in
its prime, qualified a man in those days, not only for being a member
of Parliament, but becoming a candidate for the responsibility of
statesmanship. Ferrars made his way; for two years he was occasionally
asked by the minister to speak, and then Lord Castlereagh, who liked
young men, made him a Lord of the Treasury. He was Under-Secretary of
State, and "very rising," when the death of Lord Liverpool brought
about the severance of the Tory party, and Mr. Ferrars, mainly under
the advice of zealots, resigned his office when Mr. Canning was
appointed Minister, and cast in his lot with the great destiny of the
Duke of Wellington.

The elder Ferrars had the reputation of being wealthy. It was supposed
that he had enjoyed opportunities of making money, and had availed
himself of them, but this was not true. Though a cynic, and with
little respect for his fellow-creatures, Ferrars had a pride in
official purity, and when the Government was charged with venality and
corruption, he would observe, with a dry chuckle, that he had seen a
great deal of life, and that for his part he would not much trust any
man out of Downing Street. He had been unable to resist the temptation
of connecting his life with that of an individual of birth and rank;
and in a weak moment, perhaps his only one, he had given his son a
stepmother in a still good-looking and very expensive Viscountess-
Dowager.

Mr. Ferrars was anxious that his son should make a great alliance, but
he was so distracted between prudential considerations and his desire
that in the veins of his grand-children there should flow blood of
undoubted nobility, that he could never bring to his purpose that
clear and concentrated will which was one of the causes of his success
in life; and, in the midst of his perplexities, his son unexpectedly
settled the question himself. Though naturally cold and calculating,
William Ferrars, like most of us, had a vein of romance in his being,
and it asserted itself. There was a Miss Carey, who suddenly became
the beauty of the season. She was an orphan, and reputed to be no
inconsiderable heiress, and was introduced to the world by an aunt who
was a duchess, and who meant that her niece should be the same.
Everybody talked about them, and they went everywhere--among other
places to the House of Commons, where Miss Carey, spying the senators
from the old ventilator in the ceiling of St. Stephen's Chapel,
dropped in her excitement her opera-glass, which fell at the feet of
Mr. Under-Secretary Ferrars. He hastened to restore it to its
beautiful owner, whom he found accompanied by several of his friends,
and he was not only thanked, but invited to remain with them; and the
next day he called, and he called very often afterwards, and many
other things happened, and at the end of July the beauty of the season
was married not to a Duke, but to a rising man, who Zenobia, who at
first disapproved of the match--for Zenobia never liked her male
friends to marry--was sure would one day be Prime Minister of England.

Mrs. Ferrars was of the same opinion as Zenobia, for she was
ambitious, and the dream was captivating. And Mrs. Ferrars soon gained
Zenobia's good graces, for she had many charms, and, though haughty to
the multitude, was a first-rate flatterer. Zenobia liked flattery, and
always said she did. Mr. Under-Secretary Ferrars took a mansion in
Hill Street, and furnished it with befitting splendour. His dinners
were celebrated, and Mrs. Ferrars gave suppers after the opera. The
equipages of Mrs. Ferrars were distinguished, and they had a large
retinue of servants. They had only two children, and they were twins,
a brother and a sister, who were brought up like the children of
princes. Partly for them, and partly because a minister should have a
Tusculum, the Ferrars soon engaged a magnificent villa at Wimbledon,
which had the advantage of admirable stables, convenient, as Mrs.
Ferrars was fond of horses, and liked the children too, with their
fancy ponies, to be early accustomed to riding. All this occasioned
expenditure, but old Mr. Ferrars made his son a liberal allowance, and
young Mrs. Ferrars was an heiress, or the world thought so, which is
nearly the same, and then, too, young Mr. Ferrars was a rising man, in
office, and who would always be in office for the rest of his life; at
least, Zenobia said so, because he was on the right side and the Whigs
were nowhere, and never would be anywhere, which was quite right, as
they had wished to make us the slaves of Bonaparte.

When the King, after much hesitation, send for Mr. Canning, on the
resignation of Lord Liverpool, the Zenobian theory seemed a little at
fault, and William Ferrars absolutely out of office had more than one
misgiving; but after some months of doubt and anxiety, it seemed after
all the great lady was right. The unexpected disappearance of Mr.
Canning from the scene, followed by the transient and embarrassed
phantom of Lord Goderich, seemed to indicate an inexorable destiny
that England should be ruled by the most eminent men of the age, and
the most illustrious of her citizens. William Ferrars, under the
inspiration of Zenobia, had thrown in his fortunes with the Duke, and
after nine months of disquietude found his due reward. In the January
that succeeded the August conversation in St. James' Street with
Sidney Wilton, William Ferrars was sworn of the Privy Council, and
held high office, on the verge of the Cabinet.

Mr. Ferrars had a dinner party in Hill Street on the day he had
returned from Windsor with the seals of his new office. The
catastrophe of the Goderich Cabinet, almost on the eve of the meeting
of Parliament, had been so sudden, that, not anticipating such a state
of affairs, Ferrars, among his other guests, had invited Sidney
Wilton. He was rather regretting this when, as his carriage stopped at
his own door, he observed that very gentleman on his threshold.

Wilton greeted him warmly, and congratulated him on his promotion. "I
do so at once," he added, "because I shall not have the opportunity
this evening. I was calling here in the hope of seeing Mrs. Ferrars,
and asking her to excuse me from being your guest to-day."

"Well, it is rather awkward," said Ferrars, "but I could have no idea
of this when you were so kind as to say you would come."

"Oh, nothing of that sort," said Sidney. "I am out and you are in, and
I hope you may be in for a long, long time. I dare say it may be so,
and the Duke is the man of the age, as you always said he was. I hope
your being in office is not to deprive me of your pleasant dinners; it
would be too bad to lose my place both at Whitehall and in Hill
Street."

"I trust that will never happen, my dear fellow; but to-day I thought
it might be embarrassing."

"Not at all; I could endure without wincing even the triumphant
glances of Zenobia. The fact is, I have some business of the most
pressing nature which has suddenly arisen, and which demands my
immediate attention."

Ferrars expressed his regret, though in fact he was greatly relieved,
and they parted.

Zenobia did dine with the William Ferrars to-day, and her handsome
husband came with her, a knight of the garter, and just appointed to a
high office in the household by the new government. Even the
excitement of the hour did not disturb his indigenous repose. It was a
dignified serenity, quite natural, and quite compatible with easy and
even cordial manners, and an address always considerate even when not
sympathetic. He was not a loud or a long talker, but his terse remarks
were full of taste and a just appreciation of things. If they were
sometimes trenchant, the blade was of fine temper. Old Mr. Ferrars was
there and the Viscountess Edgware. His hair had become quite silvered,
and his cheek rosy as a December apple. His hazel eyes twinkled with
satisfaction as he remembered the family had now produced two privy
councillors. Lord Pomeroy was there, the great lord who had returned
William Ferrars to Parliament, a little man, quite, shy, rather
insignificant in appearance, but who observed everybody and
everything; a conscientious man, who was always doing good, in silence
and secrecy, and denounced as a boroughmonger, had never sold a seat
in his life, and was always looking out for able men of character to
introduce them to public affairs. It was not a formal party, but had
grown up in great degree out of the circumstances of the moment. There
were more men than women, and all men in office or devoted supporters
of the new ministry.

Mrs. Ferrars, without being a regular beauty, had a voluptuous face
and form. Her complexion was brilliant, with large and long-lashed
eyes of blue. Her mouth was certainly too large, but the pouting
richness of her lips and the splendour of her teeth baffled criticism.
She was a woman who was always gorgeously or fantastically attired.

"I never can understand," would sometimes observe Zenobia's husband to
his brilliant spouse, "how affairs are carried on in this world. Now
we have, my dear, fifty thousand per annum; and I do not see how
Ferrars can have much more than five; and yet he lives much as we do,
perhaps better. I know Gibson showed me a horse last week that I very
much wanted, but I would not give him two hundred guineas for it. I
called there to-day to look after it again, for it would have suited
me exactly, but I was told I was too late, and it was sold to Mrs.
Ferrars."

"My dear, you know I do not understand money matters," Zenobia said in
reply. "I never could; but you should remember that old Ferrars must
be very rich, and that William Ferrars is the most rising man of the
day, and is sure to be in the Cabinet before he is forty."

Everybody had an appetite for dinner to-day, and the dinner was worthy
of the appetites. Zenobia's husband declared to himself that he never
dined so well, though he gave his /chef/ 500 pounds a year, and old
Lord Pomeroy, who had not yet admitted French wines to his own table,
seemed quite abashed with the number of his wine-glasses and their
various colours, and, as he tasted one succulent dish after another,
felt a proud satisfaction in having introduced to public life so
distinguished a man as William Ferrars.

With the dessert, not without some ceremony, were introduced the two
most remarkable guests of the entertainment, and these were the twins;
children of singular beauty, and dressed, if possible, more fancifully
and brilliantly than their mamma. They resembled each other, and had
the same brilliant complexion, rich chestnut hair, delicately arched
brows, and dark blue eyes. Though only eight years of age, a most
unchildlike self-possession distinguished them. The expression of
their countenances was haughty, disdainful, and supercilious. Their
beautiful features seemed quite unimpassioned, and they moved as if
they expected everything to yield to them. The girl, whose long
ringlets were braided with pearls, was ushered to a seat next to her
father, and, like her brother, who was placed by Mrs. Ferrars, was
soon engaged in negligently tasting delicacies, while she seemed
apparently unconscious of any one being present, except when she
replied to those who addressed her with a stare and a haughty
monosyllable. The boy, in a black velvet jacket with large Spanish
buttons of silver filagree, a shirt of lace, and a waistcoat of white
satin, replied with reserve, but some condescension, to the good-
natured but half-humorous inquiries of the husband of Zenobia.

"And when do you go to school?" asked his lordship in a kind voice and
with a laughing eye.

"I shall go to Eton in two years," replied the child without the
slightest emotion, and not withdrawing his attention from the grapes
he was tasting, or even looking at his inquirer, "and then I shall go
to Christ Church, and then I shall go into Parliament."

"Myra," said an intimate of the family, a handsome private secretary
of Mr. Ferrars, to the daughter of the house, as he supplied her plate
with some choicest delicacies, "I hope you have not forgotten your
engagement to me which you made at Wimbledon two years ago?"

"What engagement?" she haughtily inquired.

"To marry me."

"I should not think of marrying any one who was not in the House of
Lords," she replied, and she shot at him a glance of contempt.

The ladies rose. As they were ascending the stairs, one of them said
to Mrs. Ferrars, "Your son's name is very pretty, but it is very
uncommon, is it not?"

"'Tis a family name. The first Carey who bore it was a courtier of
Charles the First, and we have never since been without it. William
wanted our boy to be christened Pomeroy but I was always resolved, if
I ever had a son, that he should be named ENDYMION."



                              CHAPTER IV

About the time that the ladies rose from the dinner-table in Hill
Street, Mr. Sidney Wilton entered the hall of the Clarendon Hotel, and
murmured an inquiry of the porter. Whereupon a bell was rung, and soon
a foreign servant appeared, and bowing, invited Mr. Wilton to ascend
the staircase and follow him. Mr. Wilton was ushered through an ante-
chamber into a room of some importance, lofty and decorated, and
obviously adapted for distinguished guests. On a principal table a
desk was open and many papers strewn about. Apparently some person had
only recently been writing there. There were in the room several
musical instruments; the piano was open, there was a harp and a
guitar. The room was rather dimly lighted, but cheerful from the
steady blaze of the fire, before which Mr. Wilton stood, not long
alone, for an opposite door opened, and a lady advanced leading with
her left hand a youth of interesting mien, and about twelve years of
age. The lady was fair and singularly thin. It seemed that her
delicate hand must really be transparent. Her cheek was sunk, but the
expression of her large brown eyes was inexpressibly pleasing. She
wore her own hair, once the most celebrated in Europe, and still
uncovered. Though the prodigal richness of the tresses had
disappeared, the arrangement was still striking from its grace. That
rare quality pervaded the being of this lady, and it was impossible
not to be struck with her carriage as she advanced to greet her guest;
free from all affectation and yet full of movement and gestures, which
might have been the study of painters.

"Ah!" she exclaimed as she gave him her hand, which he pressed to his
lips, "you are ever faithful."

Seating themselves, she continued, "You have not seen my boy since he
sate upon your knee. Florestan, salute Mr. Wilton, your mother's most
cherished friend."

"This is a sudden arrival," said Mr. Wilton.

"Well, they would not let us rest," said the lady. "Our only refuge
was Switzerland, but I cannot breathe among the mountains, and so,
after a while, we stole to an obscure corner of the south, and for a
time we were tranquil. But soon the old story: representations,
remonstrances, warnings, and threats, appeals to Vienna, and lectures
from Prince Metternich, not the less impressive because they were
courteous, and even gallant."

"And had nothing occurred to give a colour to such complaints? Or was
it sheer persecution?"

"Well, you know," replied the lady, "we wished to remain quiet and
obscure; but where the lad is, they will find him out. It often
astonishes me. I believe if we were in the centre of a forest in some
Indian isle, with no companions but monkeys and elephants, a secret
agent would appear--some devoted victim of our family, prepared to
restore our fortunes and renovate his own. I speak the truth to you
always. I have never countenanced these people; I have never
encouraged them; but it is impossible rudely to reject the sympathy of
those who, after all, are your fellow-sufferers, and some of who have
given proof of even disinterested devotion. For my own part, I have
never faltered in my faith, that Florestan would some day sit on the
throne of his father, dark as appears to be our life; but I have never
much believed that the great result could be occasioned or
precipitated by intrigues, but rather by events more powerful than
man, and led on by that fatality in which his father believed."

"And now you think of remaining here?" said Mr. Wilton.

"No," said the lady, "that I cannot do. I love everything in this
country except its climate and, perhaps, its hotels. I think of trying
the south of Spain, and fancy, if quite alone, I might vegetate there
unnoticed. I cannot bring myself altogether to quit Europe. I am, my
dear Sidney, intensely European. But Spain is not exactly the country
I should fix upon to form kings and statesmen. And this is the point
on which I wish to consult you. I want Florestan to receive an English
education, and I want you to put me in the way of accomplishing this.
It might be convenient, under such circumstances, that he should not
obtrude his birth--perhaps, that it should be concealed. He has many
honourable names besides the one which indicates the state to which he
was born. But, on all these points, we want your advice." And she
seemed to appeal to her son, who bowed his head with a slight smile,
but did not speak.

Mr. Wilton expressed his deep interest in her wishes, and promised to
consider how they might best be accomplished, and then the
conversation took a more general tone.

"This change of government in your country," said the lady, "so
unexpected, so utterly unforeseen, disturbs me; in fact, it decided my
hesitating movements. I cannot but believe that the accession of the
Duke of Wellington to power must be bad, at least, for us. It is
essentially reactionary. They are triumphing at Vienna."

"Have they cause?" said Mr. Wilton. "I am an impartial witness, for I
have no post in the new administration; but the leading colleagues of
Mr. Canning form part of it, and the conduct of foreign affairs
remains in the same hands."

"That is consoling," said the lady. "I wonder if Lord Dudley would see
me. Perhaps not. Ministers do not love pretenders. I knew him when I
was not a pretender," added the lady, with the sweetest of smiles,
"and thought him agreeable. He was witty. Ah! Sidney, those were happy
days. I look back to the past with regret, but without remorse. One
might have done more good, but one did some;" and she sighed.

"You seemed to me," said Sidney with emotion, "to diffuse benefit and
blessings among all around you."

"And I read," said the lady, a little indignant, "in some memoirs the
other day, that our court was a corrupt and dissolute court. It was a
court of pleasure, if you like; but of pleasure that animated and
refined, and put the world in good humour, which, after all, is good
government. The most corrupt and dissolute courts on the continent of
Europe that I have known," said the lady, "have been outwardly the
dullest and most decorous."

"My memory of those days," said Mr. Wilton, "is of ceaseless grace and
inexhaustible charm."

"Well," said the lady, "if I sinned I have at least suffered. And I
hope they were only sins of omission. I wanted to see everybody happy,
and tried to make them so. But let us talk no more of ourselves. The
unfortunate are always egotistical. Tell me something of Mr. Wilton;
and, above all, tell me why you are not in the new government."

"I have not been invited," said Mr. Wilton. "There are more claimants
than can be satisfied, and my claims are not very strong. It is
scarcely a disappointment to me. I shall continue in public life; but,
so far as political responsibility is concerned, I would rather wait.
I have some fancies on that head, but I will not trouble you with
them. My time, therefore, is at my command; and so," he added
smilingly, "I can attend to the education of Prince Florestan."

"Do you hear that, Florestan?" said the lady to her son; "I told you
we had a friend. Thank Mr. Wilton."

And the young Prince bowed as before, but with a more serious
expression. He, however, said nothing.

"I see you have not forgotten your most delightful pursuit," said Mr.
Wilton, and he looked towards the musical instruments.

"No," said the lady; "throned or discrowned, music has ever been the
charm or consolation of my life."

"Pleasure should follow business," said Mr. Wilton, "and we have
transacted ours. Would it be too bold if I asked again to hear those
tones which have so often enchanted me?"

"My voice has not fallen off," said the lady, "for you know it was
never first-rate. But they were kind enough to say it had some
expression, probably because I generally sang my own words to my own
music. I will sing you my farewell to Florestan," she added gaily, and
took up her guitar, and then in tones of melancholy sweetness,
breaking at last into a gushing burst of long-controlled affection,
she expressed the agony and devotion of a mother's heart. Mr. Wilton
was a little agitated; her son left the room. The mother turned round
with a smiling face, and said, "The darling cannot bear to hear it,
but I sing it on purpose, to prepare him for the inevitable."

"He is soft-hearted," said Mr. Wilton.

"He is the most affectionate of beings," replied the mother.
"Affectionate and mysterious. I can say no more. I ought to tell you
his character. I cannot. You may say he may have none. I do not know.
He has abilities, for he acquires knowledge with facility, and knows a
great deal for a boy. But he never gives an opinion. He is silent and
solitary. Poor darling! he has rarely had companions, and that may be
the cause. He seems to me always to be thinking."

"Well, a public school will rouse him from his reveries," said Mr.
Wilton.

"As he is away at this moment, I will say that which I should not care
to say before his face," said the lady. "You are about to do me a
great service, not the first; and before I leave this, we may--we must
--meet again more than once, but there is no time like the present.
The separation between Florestan and myself may be final. It is sad to
think of such things, but they must be thought of, for they are
probable. I still look in a mirror, Sidney; I am not so frightened by
what has occurred since we first met, to be afraid of that--but I
never deceive myself. I do not know what may be the magical effect of
the raisins of Malaga, but if it saves my life the grape cure will
indeed achieve a miracle. Do not look gloomy. Those who have known
real grief seldom seem sad. I have been struggling with sorrow for ten
years, but I have got through it with music and singing, and my boy.
See now--he will be a source of expense, and it will not do for you to
be looking to a woman for supplies. Women are generous, but not
precise in money matters. I have some excuse, for the world has
treated me not very well. I never got my pension regularly; now I
never get it at all. So much for the treaties, but everybody laughs at
them. Here is the fortune of Florestan, and I wish it all to be spent
on his education," and she took a case from her bosom. "They are not
the crown jewels, though. The memoirs I was reading the other day say
I ran away with them. That is false, like most things said of me. But
these are gems of Golconda, which I wish you to realise and expend for
his service. They were the gift of love, and they were worn in love."

"It is unnecessary," said Mr. Wilton, deprecating the offer by his
attitude.

"Hush!" said the lady. "I am still a sovereign to you, and I must be
obeyed."

Mr. Wilton took the case of jewels, pressed it to his lips, and then
placed it in the breast pocket of his coat. He was about to retire,
when the lady added, "I must give you this copy of my song."

"And you will write my name on it?"

"Certainly," replied the lady, as she went to the table and wrote,
"For Mr. Sidney Wilton, from AGRIPPINA."



                              CHAPTER V

In the meantime, power and prosperity clustered round the roof and
family of Ferrars. He himself was in the prime of manhood, with an
exalted position in the world of politics, and with a prospect of the
highest. The Government of which he was a member was not only deemed
strong, but eternal. The favour of the Court and the confidence of the
country were alike lavished upon it. The government of the Duke could
only be measured by his life, and his influence was irresistible. It
was a dictatorship of patriotism. The country, long accustomed to a
strong and undisturbed administration, and frightened by the changes
and catastrophes which had followed the retirement of Lord Liverpool,
took refuge in the powerful will and splendid reputation of a real
hero.

Mrs. Ferrars was as ambitious of social distinction as her husband was
of political power. She was a woman of taste, but of luxurious taste.
She had a passion for splendour, which, though ever regulated by a
fine perception of the fitness of things, was still costly. Though her
mien was in general haughty, she flattered Zenobia, and consummately.
Zenobia, who liked handsome people, even handsome women, and persons
who were dressed beautifully, was quite won by Mrs. Ferrars, against
whom at first she was inclined to be a little prejudiced. There was an
entire alliance between them, and though Mrs. Ferrars greatly
influenced and almost ruled Zenobia, the wife of the minister was
careful always to acknowledge the Queen of Fashion as her suzerain.

The great world then, compared with the huge society of the present
period, was limited in its proportions, and composed of elements more
refined though far less various. It consisted mainly of the great
landed aristocracy, who had quite absorbed the nabobs of India, and
had nearly appropriated the huge West Indian fortunes. Occasionally,
an eminent banker or merchant invested a large portion of his
accumulations in land, and in the purchase of parliamentary influence,
and was in time duly admitted into the sanctuary. But those vast and
successful invasions of society by new classes which have since
occurred, though impending, had not yet commenced. The manufacturers,
the railway kings, the colossal contractors, the discoverers of
nuggets, had not yet found their place in society and the senate.
There were then, perhaps, more great houses open than at the present
day, but there were very few little ones. The necessity of providing
regular occasions for the assembling of the miscellaneous world of
fashion led to the institution of Almack's, which died out in the
advent of the new system of society, and in the fierce competition of
its inexhaustible private entertainments.

The season then was brilliant and sustained, but it was not flurried.
People did not go to various parties on the same night. They remained
where they were assembled, and, not being in a hurry, were more
agreeable than they are at the present day. Conversation was more
cultivated; manners, though unconstrained, were more stately; and the
world, being limited, knew itself much better. On the other hand, the
sympathies of society were more contracted than they are at present.
The pressure of population had not opened the heart of man. The world
attended to its poor in its country parishes, and subscribed and
danced for the Spitalfields weavers when their normal distress had
overflowed, but their knowledge of the people did not exceed these
bounds, and the people knew very little more about themselves. They
were only half born.

The darkest hour precedes the dawn, and a period of unusual stillness
often, perhaps usually, heralds the social convulsion. At this moment
the general tranquillity and even content were remarkable. In politics
the Whigs were quite prepared to extend to the Duke the same
provisional confidence that had been accepted by Mr. Caning, and
conciliation began to be an accepted phrase, which meant in practice
some share on their part of the good things of the State. The country
itself required nothing. There was a general impression, indeed, that
they had been advancing at a rather rapid rate, and that it was as
well that the reins should be entrusted to a wary driver. Zenobia, who
represented society, was enraptured that the career of revolution had
been stayed. She still mourned over the concession of the Manchester
and Liverpool Railway in a moment of Liberal infatuation, but
flattered herself that any extension of the railway system might
certainly be arrested, and on this head the majority of society,
perhaps even of the country, was certainly on her side.

"I have some good news for you," said one of her young favourites as
he attended her reception. "We have prevented this morning the
lighting of Grosvenor Square by gas by a large majority."

"I felt confident that disgrace would never occur," said Zenobia,
triumphant. "And by a large majority! I wonder how Lord Pomeroy
voted."

"Against us."

"How can one save this country?" exclaimed Zenobia. "I believe now the
story that he has ordered Lady Pomeroy not to go to the Drawing Room
in a sedan chair."

One bright May morning in the spring that followed the formation of
the government that was to last for ever, Mrs. Ferrars received the
world at a fanciful entertainment in the beautiful grounds of her
Wimbledon villa. The day was genial, the scene was flushed with roses
and pink thorns, and brilliant groups, amid bursts of music, clustered
and sauntered on the green turf of bowery lawns. Mrs. Ferrars, on a
rustic throne, with the wondrous twins in still more wonderful attire,
distributed alternate observations of sympathetic gaiety to a Russian
Grand Duke and to the serene heir of a German principality. And yet
there was really an expression on her countenance of restlessness, not
to say anxiety, which ill accorded with the dulcet tones and the
wreathed smiles which charmed her august companions. Zenobia, the
great Zenobia, had not arrived, and the hours were advancing. The
Grand Duke played with the beautiful and haughty infants, and the
German Prince inquired of Endymion whether he were destined to be one
of His Majesty's guards; but still Zenobia did not come, and Mrs.
Ferrars could scarcely conceal her vexation. But there was no real
occasion for it. For even at this moment, with avant-courier and
outriders and badged postillions on her four horses of race, the
lodge-gates were opening for the great lady, who herself appeared in
the distance; and Mrs. Ferrars, accompanied by her distinguished
guests, immediately rose and advanced to receive the Queen of Fashion.
No one appreciated a royal presence more highly than Zenobia. It was
her habit to impress upon her noble fellows of both sexes that there
were relations of intimacy between herself and the royal houses of
Europe, which were not shared by her class. She liked to play the part
of a social mediator between the aristocracy and royal houses. A
German Serenity was her delight, but a Russian Grand Duke was her
embodiment of power and pomp, and sound principles in their most
authentic and orthodox form. And yet though she addressed their
highnesses with her usual courtly vivacity, and poured forth inquiries
which seemed to indicate the most familiar acquaintance with the
latest incidents from Schonbrunn or the Rhine, though she embraced her
hostess, and even kissed the children, the practised eye of Mrs.
Ferrars, whose life was a study of Zenobia, detected that her late
appearance had been occasioned by an important cause, and, what was
more, that Zenobia was anxious to communicate it to her. With feminine
tact Mrs. Ferrars moved on with her guests until the occasion offered
when she could present some great ladies to the princes; and then
dismissing the children on appropriate missions, she was not surprised
when Zenobia immediately exclaimed: "Thank heaven, we are at last
alone! You must have been surprised I was so late. Well, guess what
has happened?" and then as Mrs. Ferrars shook her head, she continued:
"They are all four out!"

"All four!"

"Yes; Lord Dudley, Lord Palmerston, and Charles Grant follow
Huskisson. I do not believe the first ever meant to go, but the Duke
would not listen to his hypocritical explanations, and the rest have
followed. I am surprised about Lord Dudley, as I know he loved his
office."

"I am alarmed," said Mrs. Ferrars.

"Not the slightest cause for fear," exclaimed the intrepid Zenobia.
"It must have happened sooner or later. I am delighted at it. We shall
now have a cabinet of our own. They never would have rested till they
had brought in some Whigs, and the country hates the Whigs. No wonder,
when we remember that if they had had their way we should have been
wearing sabots at this time, with a French prefect probably in Holland
House."

"And whom will they put in the cabinet?" inquired Mrs. Ferrars.

"Our good friends, I hope," said Zenobia, with an inspiring smile;
"but I have heard nothing about that yet. I am a little sorry about
Lord Dudley, as I think they have drawn him into their mesh; but as
for the other three, especially Huskisson and Lord Palmerston, I can
tell you the Duke has never had a quiet moment since they joined him.
We shall now begin to reign. The only mistake was ever to have
admitted them. I think now we have got rid of Liberalism for ever."



                              CHAPTER VI

Mr. Ferrars did not become a cabinet minister, but this was a vexation
rather than a disappointment, and transient. The unexpected vacancies
were filled by unexpected personages. So great a change in the frame
of the ministry, without any promotion for himself, was on the first
impression not agreeable, but reflection and the sanguine wisdom of
Zenobia soon convinced him that all was for the best, that the thought
of such rapid preferment was unreasonable, and that time and the due
season must inevitably bring all that he could desire, especially as
any term to the duration of the ministry was not now to be foreseen:
scarcely indeed possible. In short, it was shown to him that the Tory
party, renovated and restored, had entered upon a new lease of
authority, which would stamp its character on the remainder of the
nineteenth century, as Mr. Pitt and his school had marked its earlier
and memorable years.

And yet this very reconstruction of the government necessarily led to
an incident which, in its consequences, changed the whole character of
English politics, and commenced a series of revolutions which has not
yet closed.

One of the new ministers who had been preferred to a place which Mr.
Ferrars might have filled was an Irish gentleman, and a member for one
of the most considerable counties in his country. He was a good
speaker, and the government was deficient in debating power in the
House of Commons; he was popular and influential.

The return of a cabinet minister by a large constituency was more
appreciated in the days of close boroughs than at present. There was a
rumour that the new minister was to be opposed, but Zenobia laughed
the rumour to scorn. As she irresistibly remarked at one of her
evening gatherings, "Every landowner in the county is in his favour;
therefore it is impossible." The statistics of Zenobia were quite
correct, yet the result was different from what she anticipated. An
Irish lawyer, a professional agitator, himself a Roman Catholic and
therefore ineligible, announced himself as a candidate in opposition
to the new minister, and on the day of election, thirty thousand
peasants, setting at defiance all the landowners of the county,
returned O'Connell at the head of the poll, and placed among not the
least memorable of historical events--the Clare election.

This event did not, however, occur until the end of the year 1828, for
the state of the law then prevented the writ from being moved until
that time, and during the whole of that year the Ferrars family had
pursued a course of unflagging display. Courage, expenditure, and tact
combined, had realised almost the height of that social ambition to
which Mrs. Ferrars soared. Even in the limited and exclusive circle
which then prevailed, she began to be counted among the great dames.
As for the twins, they seemed quite worthy of their beautiful and
luxurious mother. Proud, wilful, and selfish, they had one redeeming
quality, an intense affection for each other. The sister seemed to
have the commanding spirit, for Endymion was calm, but if he were
ruled by his sister, she was ever willing to be his slave, and to
sacrifice every consideration to his caprice and his convenience.

The year 1829 was eventful, but to Ferrars more agitating than
anxious. When it was first known that the head of the cabinet, whose
colleague had been defeated at Clare, was himself about to propose the
emancipation of the Roman Catholics, there was a thrill throughout the
country; but after a time the success of the operation was not
doubted, and was anticipated as a fresh proof of the irresistible
fortunes of the heroic statesman. There was some popular discontent in
the country at the proposal, but it was mainly organised and
stimulated by the Dissenters, and that section of Churchmen who most
resembled them. The High Church party, the descendants of the old
connection which had rallied round Sacheverell, had subsided into
formalism, and shrank from any very active co-operation with their
evangelical brethren.

The English Church had no competent leaders among the clergy. The
spirit that has animated and disturbed our latter times seemed quite
dead, and no one anticipated its resurrection. The bishops had been
selected from college dons, men profoundly ignorant of the condition
and the wants of the country. To have edited a Greek play with second-
rate success, or to have been the tutor of some considerable
patrician, was the qualification then deemed desirable and sufficient
for an office, which at this day is at least reserved for eloquence
and energy. The social influence of the episcopal bench was nothing. A
prelate was rarely seen in the saloons of Zenobia. It is since the
depths of religious thought have been probed, and the influence of
woman in the spread and sustenance of religious feeling has again been
recognised, that fascinating and fashionable prelates have become
favoured guests in the refined saloons of the mighty, and, while
apparently indulging in the vanities of the hour, have re-established
the influence which in old days guided a Matilda or the mother of
Constantine.

The end of the year 1829, however, brought a private event of moment
to the Ferrars family. The elder Mr. Ferrars died. The world observed
at the time how deeply affected his son was at this event. The
relations between father and son had always been commendable, but the
world was hardly prepared for Mr. Ferrars, junior, being so entirely
overwhelmed. It would seem that nothing but the duties of public life
could have restored him to his friends, and even these duties he
relinquished for an unusual time. The world was curious to know the
amount of his inheritance, but the proof of the will was unusually
delayed, and public events soon occurred which alike consigned the
will and the will-maker to oblivion.



                             CHAPTER VII

The Duke of Wellington applied himself to the treatment of the
critical circumstances of 1830 with that blended patience and
quickness of perception to which he owed the success of so many
campaigns. Quite conscious of the difficulties he had to encounter, he
was nevertheless full of confidence in his ability to control them. It
is probable that the paramount desire of the Duke in his effort to
confirm his power was to rally and restore the ranks of the Tory
party, disturbed rather than broken up by the passing of the Relief
Bill. During the very heat of the struggle it was significantly
observed that the head of the powerful family of Lowther, in the House
of Commons, was never asked to resign his office, although he himself
and his following voted invariably against the Government measure. The
order the day was the utmost courtesy to the rebels, who were treated,
as some alleged, with more consideration than the compliant. At the
same time the desire of the Whigs to connect, perhaps even to merge
themselves with the ministerial ranks, was not neglected. A Whig had
been appointed to succeed the eccentric and too uncompromising
Wetherell in the office of attorney-general, other posts had been
placed at their disposal, and one even, an old companion in arms of
the Duke, had entered the cabinet. The confidence in the Duke's star
was not diminished, and under ordinary circumstances this balanced
strategy would probably have been successful. But it was destined to
cope with great and unexpected events.

The first was the unexpected demise of the crown. The death of King
George the Fourth at the end of the month of June, according to the
then existing constitution, necessitated a dissolution of parliament,
and so deprived the minister of that invaluable quality of time,
necessary to soften and win back his estranged friends. Nevertheless,
it is not improbable, that the Duke might still have succeeded, had it
not been for the occurrence of the French insurrection of 1830, in the
very heat of the preparations for the general election in England. The
Whigs who found the Duke going to the country without that
reconstruction of his ministry on which they had counted, saw their
opportunity and seized it. The triumphant riots of Paris were
dignified into "the three glorious days," and the three glorious days
were universally recognised as the triumph of civil and religious
liberty. The names of Polignac and Wellington were adroitly connected
together, and the phrase Parliamentary Reform began to circulate.

It was Zenobia's last reception for the season; on the morrow she was
about to depart for her county, and canvass for her candidates. She
was still undaunted, and never more inspiring. The excitement of the
times was reflected in her manner. She addressed her arriving guests
as they made their obeisance to her, asked for news and imparted it
before she could be answered, declared that nothing had been more
critical since '93, that there was only one man who was able to deal
with the situation, and thanked Heaven that he was not only in
England, but in her drawing-room.

Ferrars, who had been dining with his patron, Lord Pomeroy, and had
the satisfaction of feeling, that at any rate his return to the new
parliament was certain, while helping himself to coffee could not
refrain from saying in a low tone to a gentleman who was performing
the same office, "Our Whig friends seem in high spirits, baron."

The gentleman thus addressed was Baron Sergius, a man of middle age.
His countenance was singularly intelligent, tempered with an
expression mild and winning. He had attended the Congress of Vienna to
represent a fallen party, a difficult and ungracious task, but he had
shown such high qualities in the fulfilment of his painful duties--so
much knowledge, so much self-control, and so much wise and unaffected
conciliation--that he had won universal respect, and especially with
the English plenipotentiaries, so that when he visited England, which
he did frequently, the houses of both parties were open to him, and he
was as intimate with the Whigs as he was with the great Duke, by whom
he was highly esteemed.

"As we have got our coffee, let us sit down," said the baron, and they
withdrew to a settee against the wall.

"You know I am a Liberal, and have always been a Liberal," said the
baron; "I know the value of civil and religious liberty, for I was
born in a country where we had neither, and where we have since
enjoyed either very fitfully. Nothing can be much drearier than the
present lot of my country, and it is probable that these doings at
Paris may help my friends a little, and they may again hold up their
heads for a time; but I have seen too much, and am too old, to indulge
in dreams. You are a young man and will live to see what I can only
predict. The world is thinking of something else than civil and
religious liberty. Those are phrases of the eighteenth century. The
men who have won these 'three glorious days' at Paris, want neither
civilisation nor religion. They will not be content till they have
destroyed both. It is possible that they may be parried for a time;
that the adroit wisdom of the house of Orleans, guided by Talleyrand,
may give this movement the resemblance, and even the character, of a
middle-class revolution. It is no such thing; the barricades were not
erected by the middle class. I know these people; it is a fraternity,
not a nation. Europe is honeycombed with their secret societies. They
are spread all over Spain. Italy is entirely mined. I know more of the
southern than the northern nations; but I have been assured by one who
should know that the brotherhood are organised throughout Germany and
even in Russia. I have spoken to the Duke about these things. He is
not indifferent, or altogether incredulous, but he is so essentially
practical that he can only deal with what he sees. I have spoken to
the Whig leaders. They tell me that there is only one specific, and
that a complete one--constitutional government; that with
representative institutions, secret societies cannot co-exist. I may
be wrong, but it seems to me that with these secret societies
representative institutions rather will disappear."



                             CHAPTER VIII

What unexpectedly took place in the southern part of England, and
especially in the maritime counties, during the autumn of 1830, seemed
rather to confirm the intimations of Baron Sergius. The people in the
rural districts had become disaffected. Their discontent was generally
attributed to the abuses of the Poor Law, and to the lowness of their
wages. But the abuses of the Poor Law, though intolerable, were
generally in favour of the labourer, and though wages in some parts
were unquestionably low, it was observed that the tumultuous
assemblies, ending frequently in riot, were held in districts where
this cause did not prevail. The most fearful feature of the
approaching anarchy was the frequent acts of incendiaries. The blazing
homesteads baffled the feeble police and the helpless magistrates; and
the government had reason to believe that foreign agents were actively
promoting these mysterious crimes.

Amid partial discontent and general dejection came the crash of the
Wellington ministry, and it required all the inspiration of Zenobia to
sustain William Ferrars under the trial. But she was undaunted and
sanguine as a morning in spring. Nothing could persuade her that the
Whigs could ever form a government, and she was quite sure that the
clerks in the public offices alone could turn them out. When the Whig
government was formed, and its terrible programme announced, she
laughed it to scorn, and derided with inexhaustible merriment the idea
of the House of Commons passing a Reform Bill. She held a great
assembly the night that General Gascoyne defeated the first measure,
and passed an evening of ecstasy in giving and receiving
congratulations. The morrow brought a graver brow, but still an
indomitable spirit, and through all these tempestuous times Zenobia
never quailed, though mobs burnt the castles of dukes and the palaces
of bishops.

Serious as was the state of affairs to William Ferrars, his condition
was not so desperate as that of some of his friends. His seat at least
was safe in the new parliament that was to pass a Reform Bill. As for
the Tories generally, they were swept off the board. Scarcely a
constituency, in which was a popular element, was faithful to them.
The counties in those days were the great expounders of popular
principles, and whenever England was excited, which was rare, she
spoke through her freeholders. In this instance almost every Tory
knight of the shire lost his seat except Lord Chandos, the member for
Buckinghamshire, who owed his success entirely to his personal
popularity. "Never mind," said Zenobia, "what does it signify? The
Lords will throw it out."

And bravely and unceasingly she worked for this end. To assist this
purpose it was necessary that a lengthened and powerful resistance to
the measure should be made in the Commons; that the public mind should
be impressed with its dangerous principles, and its promoters
cheapened by the exposure of their corrupt arrangements and their
inaccurate details. It must be confessed that these objects were
resolutely kept in view, and that the Tory opposition evinced energy
and abilities not unworthy of a great parliamentary occasion. Ferrars
particularly distinguished himself. He rose immensely in the
estimation of the House, and soon the public began to talk of him. His
statistics about the condemned boroughs were astounding and
unanswerable: he was the only man who seemed to know anything of the
elements of the new ones. He was as eloquent too as exact,--sometimes
as fervent as Burke, and always as accurate as Cocker.

"I never thought it was in William Ferrars," said a member, musingly,
to a companion as they walked home one night; "I always thought him a
good man of business, and all that sort of thing--but, somehow or
other, I did not think this was in him."

"Well, he has a good deal at stake, and that brings it out of a
fellow," said his friend.

It was, however, pouring water upon sand. Any substantial resistance
to the measure was from the first out of the question. Lord Chandos
accomplished the only important feat, and that was the enfranchisement
of the farmers. This perpetual struggle, however, occasioned a vast
deal of excitement, and the actors in it often indulged in the wild
credulity of impossible expectations. The saloon of Zenobia was ever
thronged, and she was never more confident than when the bill passed
the Commons. She knew that the King would never give his assent to the
bill. His Majesty had had quite enough of going down in hackney
coaches to carry revolutions. After all, he was the son of good King
George, and the court would save the country, as it had often done
before. "But it will not come to that," she added. "The Lords will do
their duty."

"But Lord Waverley tells me," said Ferrars, "that there are forty of
them who were against the bill last year who will vote for the second
reading."

"Never mind Lord Waverley and such addlebrains," said Zenobia, with a
smile of triumphant mystery. "So long as we have the court, the Duke,
and Lord Lyndhurst on our side, we can afford to laugh at such
conceited poltroons. His mother was my dearest friend, and I know he
used to have fits. Look bright," she continued; "things never were
better. Before a week has passed these people will be nowhere."

"But how it is possible?"

"Trust me."

"I always do--and yet"----

"You never were nearer being a cabinet minister," she said, with a
radiant glance.

And Zenobia was right. Though the government, with the aid of the
waverers, carried the second reading of the bill, a week afterwards,
on May 7, Lord Lyndhurst rallied the waverers again to his standard and
carried his famous resolution, that the enfranchising clauses should
precede the disenfranchisement in the great measure. Lord Grey and his
colleagues resigned, and the King sent for Lord Lyndhurst. The bold
chief baron advised His Majesty to consult the Duke of Wellington, and
was himself the bearer of the King's message to Apsley House. The Duke
found the King "in great distress," and he therefore did not hesitate
in promising to endeavour to form a ministry.

"Who was right?" said Zenobia to Mr. Ferrars. "He is so busy he could
not write to you, but he told me to tell you to call at Apsley House
at twelve to-morrow. You will be in the cabinet."

"I have got it at last!" said Ferrars to himself. "It is worth living
for and at any peril. All the cares of life sink into insignificance
under such circumstances. The difficulties are great, but their very
greatness will furnish the means of their solution. The Crown cannot
be dragged in the mud, and the Duke was born for conquest."

A day passed, and another day, and Ferrars was not again summoned. The
affair seemed to hang fire. Zenobia was still brave, but Ferrars, who
knew her thoroughly, could detect her lurking anxiety. Then she told
him in confidence that Sir Robert made difficulties, "but there is
nothing in it," she added. "The Duke has provided for everything, and
he means Sir Robert to be Premier. He could not refuse that; it would
be almost an act of treason." Two days after she sent for Mr. Ferrars,
early in the morning, and received him in her boudoir. Her countenance
was excited, but serious. "Don't be alarmed," she said; "nothing will
prevent a government being formed, but Sir Robert has thrown us over;
I never had confidence in him. It is most provoking, as Mr. Baring had
joined us, and it was such a good name for the City. But the failure
of one man is the opportunity of another. We want a leader in the
House of Commons. He must be a man who can speak; of experience, who
knows the House, its forms, and all that. There is only one man
indicated. You cannot doubt about him. I told you honours would be
tumbling on your head. You are the man; you are to have one of the
highest offices in the cabinet, and lead the House of Commons."

"Peel declines," said Ferrars, speaking slowly and shaking his head.
"That is very serious."

"For himself," said Zenobia, "not for you. It makes your fortune."

"The difficulties seem too great to contend with."

"What difficulties are there? You have got the court, and you have got
the House of Lords. Mr. Pitt was not nearly so well off, for he had
never been in office, and had at the same time to fight Lord North and
that wicked Mr. Fox, the orator of the day, while you have only got
Lord Althorp, who can't order his own dinner."

"I am in amazement," said Ferrars, and he seemed plunged in thought.

"But you do not hesitate?"

"No," he said, looking up dreamily, for he had been lost in
abstraction; and speaking in a measured and hollow voice, "I do not
hesitate." Then resuming a brisk tone he said, "This is not an age for
hesitation; if asked, I will do the deed."

At this moment there was a tap at the door, and the groom of the
chambers brought in a note for Mr. Ferrars, which had been forwarded
from his own residence, and which requested his presence at Apsley
House. Having read it, he gave it to Zenobia, who exclaimed with
delight, "Do not lose a moment. I am so glad to have got rid of Sir
Robert with his doubts and his difficulties. We want new blood."

That was a wonderful walk for William Ferrars, from St. James' Square
to Apsley House. As he moved along, he was testing his courage and
capacity for the sharp trials that awaited him. He felt himself not
unequal to conjectures in which he had never previously indulged even
in imagination. His had been an ambitious, rather than a soaring
spirit. He had never contemplated the possession of power except under
the aegis of some commanding chief. Now it was for him to control
senates and guide councils. He screwed himself up to the sticking-
point. Desperation is sometimes as powerful an inspirer as genius.

The great man was alone,--calm, easy, and courteous. He had sent for
Mr. Ferrars, because having had one interview with him, in which his
co-operation had been requested in the conduct of affairs, the Duke
thought it was due to him to give him the earliest intimation of the
change of circumstances. The vote of the house of Commons on the
motion of Lord Ebrington had placed an insurmountable barrier to the
formation of a government, and his Grace had accordingly relinquished
the commission with which he had been entrusted by the King.



                              CHAPTER IX

Availing himself of his latch-key, Ferrars re-entered his home
unnoticed. He went at once to his library, and locked the door of the
apartment. There sitting before his desk, he buried his face in his
hands and remained in that posture for a considerable time.

They were tumultuous and awful thoughts that passed over his brain.
The dreams of a life were dissipated, and he had to encounter the
stern reality of his position--and that was Ruin. He was without hope
and without resource. His debts were vast; his patrimony was a fable;
and the mysterious inheritance of his wife had been tampered with. The
elder Ferrars had left an insolvent estate; he had supported his son
liberally, but latterly from his son's own resources. The father had
made himself the principal trustee of the son's marriage settlement.
His colleague, a relative of the heiress, had died, and care was taken
that no one should be substituted in his stead. All this had been
discovered by Ferrars on his father's death, but ambition, and the
excitement of a life of blended elation and peril, had sustained him
under the concussion. One by one every chance had vanished: first his
private means and then his public prospects; he had lost office, and
now he was about to lose parliament. His whole position, so long, and
carefully, and skilfully built up, seemed to dissolve and dissipate
into insignificant fragments. And now he had to break the situation to
his wife. She was to become the unprepared partner of the secret which
had gnawed at his heart for years, during which to her his mien had
often been smiling and always serene. Mrs. Ferrars was at home, and
alone, in her luxurious boudoir, and he went to her at once. After
years of dissimulation, now that all was over, Ferrars could not bear
the suspense of four-and-twenty hours.

It was difficult to bring her into a mood of mind capable of
comprehending a tithe of of what she had to learn; and yet the darkest
part of the tale she was never to know. Mrs. Ferrars, though
singularly intuitive, shrank from controversy, and settled everything
by contradiction and assertion. She maintained for a long time that
what her husband communicated to her could not be; that it was absurd
and even impossible. After a while, she talked of selling her diamonds
and reducing her equipage, sacrificing which she assumed would put
everything right. And when she found her husband still grave and still
intimating that the sacrifices must be beyond all this, and that they
must prepare for the life and habits of another social sphere, she
became violent, and wept and declared her wrongs; that she had been
deceived and outraged and infamously treated.

Remembering how long and with what apparent serenity in her presence
he had endured his secret woes, and how one of the principal objects
of his life had ever been to guard her even from a shade of
solicitude, even the restrained Ferrars was affected; his countenance
changed and his eyes became suffused. When she observed this, she
suddenly threw her arms round his neck and with many embraces, amid
sighs and tears, exclaimed, "O William! if we love each other, what
does anything signify?"

And what could anything signify under such circumstances and on such
conditions? As Ferrars pressed his beautiful wife to his heart, he
remembered only his early love, which seemed entirely to revive.
Unconsciously to himself, too, he was greatly relieved by this burst
of tenderness on her part, for the prospect of this interview had been
most distressful to him. "My darling," he said, "ours is not a case of
common imprudence or misfortune. We are the victims of a revolution,
and we must bear our lot as becomes us under such circumstances.
Individual misfortunes are merged in the greater catastrophe of the
country."

"That is the true view," said his wife; "and, after all, the poor King
of France is much worse off than we are. However, I cannot now buy the
Duchesse of Sevres' lace, which I had promised her to do. It is rather
awkward. However, the best way always is to speak the truth. I must
tell the duchess I am powerless, and that we are the victims of a
revolution, like herself."

Then they began to talk quite cosily together over their prospects, he
sitting on the sofa by her side and holding her hand. Mrs. Ferrars
would not hear of retiring to the continent. "No," she said, with all
her sanguine vein returning, "you always used to say I brought you
luck, and I will bring you luck yet. There must be a reaction. The
wheel will turn and bring round our friends again. Do not let us then
be out of the way. Your claims are immense. They must do something for
you. They ought to give you India, and if we only set our mind upon
it, we shall get it. Depend upon it, things are not so bad as they
seem. What appear to be calamities are often the sources of fortune. I
would much sooner that you should be Governor-General than a cabinet
minister. That odious House of Commons is very wearisome. I am not
sure any constitution can bear it very long. I am not sure whether I
would not prefer being Governor-General of India even to being Prime-
Minister."



                              CHAPTER X

In consequence of the registration under the Reform Act it was not
possible for parliament to be dissolved, and an appeal made to the new
constituency, until the end of the year. This was advantageous to Mr.
Ferrars, and afforded him six months of personal security to arrange
his affairs. Both husband and wife were proud, and were anxious to
quit the world with dignity. All were so busy about themselves at that
period, and the vicissitudes of life between continental revolutions
and English reform so various and extensive, that it was not difficult
to avoid the scrutiny of society. Mrs. Ferrars broke to Zenobia that,
as her husband was no longer to be in parliament, they had resolved to
retire for some time to a country life, though, as Mr. Ferrars had at
length succeeded in impressing on his wife that their future income
was to be counted by hundreds, rather than thousands, it was difficult
for her to realise a rural establishment that should combine dignity
and economy. Without, however, absolutely alleging the cause, she
contrived to baffle the various propositions of this kind which the
energetic Zenobia made to her, and while she listened with apparent
interest to accounts of deer parks, and extensive shooting, and
delightful neighbourhoods, would just exclaim, "Charming! but rather
more, I fancy, than we require, for we mean to be very quiet till my
girl is presented."

That young lady was now thirteen, and though her parents were careful
to say nothing in her presence which would materially reveal their
real situation, for which they intended very gradually to prepare her,
the scrutinising powers with which nature had prodigally invested
their daughter were not easily baffled. She asked no questions, but
nothing seemed to escape the penetrative glance of that large dark
blue eye, calm amid all the mystery, and tolerating rather than
sharing the frequent embrace of her parents. After a while her brother
came home from Eton, to which he was never to return. A few days
before this event she became unusually restless, and even agitated.
When he arrived, neither Mr. nor Mrs. Ferrars was at home. He knocked
gaily at the door, a schoolboy's knock, and was hardly in the hall
when his name was called, and he caught the face of his sister,
leaning over the balustrade of the landing-place. He ran upstairs with
wondrous speed, and was in an instant locked in her arms. She kissed
him and kissed him again, and when he tried to speak, she stopped his
mouth with kisses. And then she said, "Something has happened. What it
is I cannot make out, but we are to have no more ponies."



                              CHAPTER XI

At the foot of the Berkshire downs, and itself on a gentle elevation,
there is an old hall with gable ends and lattice windows, standing in
grounds which once were stately, and where there are yet glade-like
terraces of yew trees, which give an air of dignity to a neglected
scene. In the front of the hall huge gates of iron, highly wrought,
and bearing an ancient date as well as the shield of a noble house,
opened on a village green, round which were clustered the cottages of
the parish with only one exception, and that was the vicarage house, a
modern building, not without taste, and surrounded by a small but
brilliant garden. The church was contiguous to the hall, and had been
raised by the lord on a portion of his domain. Behind the hall and its
enclosure, the country was common land but picturesque. It had once
been a beech forest, and though the timber had been greatly cleared,
the green land was still occasionally dotted, sometimes with groups
and sometimes with single trees, while the juniper which here
abounded, and rose to a great height, gave a rich wildness to the
scene, and sustained its forest character.

Hurstley had for many years been deserted by the family to which it
belonged. Indeed, it was rather difficult to say to whom it did
belong. A dreary fate had awaited an ancient, and, in its time, even
not immemorable home. It had fallen into chancery, and for the last
half-century had either been uninhabited or let to strangers. Mr.
Ferrars' lawyer was in the chancery suit, and knew all about it. The
difficulty of finding a tenant for such a place, never easy, was
increased by its remoteness from any railway communication, which was
now beginning to figure as an important element in such arrangements.
The Master in Chancery would be satisfied with a nominal rent,
provided only he could obtain a family of consideration to hold under
him. Mr. Ferrars was persuaded to go down alone to reconnoitre the
place. It pleased him. It was aristocratic, yet singularly
inexpensive. The house contained an immense hall, which reached the
roof, and which would have become a baronial mansion, and a vast
staircase in keeping; but the living rooms were moderate, even small,
in dimensions, and not numerous. The land he was expected to take
consisted only of a few meadows, which he could let if necessary, and
a single labourer could manage the garden.

Mrs. Ferrars was so delighted with the description of the galleried
hall, that she resolved on their taking Hurstley without even her
previously visiting it. The only things she cared for in the country
were a hall and a pony-chair.

All the carriages were sold, and all the servants discharged. Two or
three maid-servants and a man who must be found in the country, who
could attend them at table, and valet alike his master and the pony,
was the establishment which was to succeed the crowd of retainers who
had so long lounged away their lives in the saloons of Hill Street,
and the groves and gardens of Wimbledon.

Mr. and Mrs. Ferrars and their daughter travelled down to Hurstley in
a post-chaise; Endymion, with the servants, was sent by the stage-
coach, which accomplished the journey of sixty miles in ten hours.
Myra said little during the journey, but an expression of ineffable
contempt and disgust seemed permanent on her countenance. Sometimes
she shrugged her shoulders, sometimes she raised her eyebrows, and
sometimes she turned up her nose. And then she gave a sigh; but it was
a sigh not of sorrow, but of impatience. Her parents lavished
attentions on her which she accepted without recognition, only
occasionally observing that she wished she had gone with Endymion.

It was dusk when they arrived at Hurstley, and the melancholy hour did
not tend to raise their spirits. However, the gardener's wife had lit
a good fire of beechwood in the drawing-room, and threw as they
entered a pannier of cones upon the logs, which crackled and
cheerfully blazed away. Even Myra seemed interested by the novelty of
the wood fire and the iron dogs. She remained by their side, looking
abstractedly on the expiring logs, while her parents wandered about
the house and examined or prepared the requisite arrangements. While
they were yet absent, there was some noise and a considerable bustle
in the hall. Endymion and his retinue had arrived. Then Myra
immediately roused herself, and listened like a startled deer. But the
moment she caught his voice, an expression of rapture suffused her
countenance. It beamed with vivacity and delight. She rushed away,
pushed through the servants and the luggage, embraced him and said,
"We will go over the house and see our rooms together."

Wandering without a guide and making many mistakes, fortunately they
soon met their parents. Mrs. Ferrars good-naturedly recommenced her
labours of inspection, and explained all her plans. There was a very
pretty room for Endymion, and to-morrow it was to be very comfortable.
He was quite pleased. Then they were shown Myra's room, but she said
nothing, standing by with a sweet scoff, as it were, lingering on her
lips, while her mother disserted on all the excellences of the
chamber. Then they were summoned to tea. The gardener's wife was quite
a leading spirit, and had prepared everything; the curtains were
drawn, and the room lighted; an urn hissed; there were piles of bread
and butter and a pyramid of buttered toast. It was wonderful what an
air of comfort had been conjured up in this dreary mansion, and it was
impossible for the travellers, however wearied or chagrined, to be
insensible to the convenience and cheerfulness of all around them.

When the meal was over, the children sate together in whispering
tattle. Mrs. Ferrars had left the room to see if all was ready for
their hour of retirement, and Mr. Ferrars was walking up and down the
room, absorbed in thought.

"What do you think of it all, Endymion?" whispered Myra to her twin.

"I rather like it," he said.

She looked at him with a glance of blended love and mockery, and then
she said in his ear, "I feel as if we had fallen from some star."



                             CHAPTER XII

The morrow brought a bright autumnal morn, and every one woke, if not
happy, interested. There was much to see and much to do. The dew was
so heavy that the children were not allowed to quit the broad gravel
walk that bounded one side of the old house, but they caught enticing
vistas of the gleamy glades, and the abounding light and shade
softened and adorned everything. Every sight and sound too was novel,
and from the rabbit that started out of the grove, stared at them and
then disappeared, to the jays chattering in the more distant woods,
all was wonderment at least for a week. They saw squirrels for the
first time, and for the first time beheld a hedgehog. Their parents
were busy in the house; Mr. Ferrars unpacking and settling his books,
and his wife arranging some few articles of ornamental furniture that
had been saved from the London wreck, and rendering their usual room
of residence as refined as was in her power. It is astonishing how
much effect a woman of taste can produce with a pretty chair or two
full of fancy and colour, a table clothed with a few books, some
family miniatures, a workbag of rich material, and some toys that we
never desert. "I have not much to work with," said Mrs. Ferrars, with
a sigh, "but I think the colouring is pretty."

On the second day after their arrival, the rector and his wife made
them a visit. Mr. Penruddock was a naturalist, and had written the
history of his parish. He had escaped being an Oxford don by being
preferred early to this college living, but he had married the
daughter of a don, who appreciated the grand manners of their new
acquaintances, and who, when she had overcome their first rather awe-
inspiring impression, became communicative and amused them much with
her details respecting the little world in which they were now to
live. She could not conceal her wonderment at the beauty of the twins,
though they were no longer habited in those dresses which had once
astonished even Mayfair.

Part of the scheme of the new life was the education of the children
by their parents. Mr. Ferrars had been a distinguished scholar, and
was still a good one. He was patient and methodical, and deeply
interested in his contemplated task. So far as disposition was
concerned the pupil was not disappointing. Endymion was of an
affectionate disposition and inclined to treat his father with
deference. He was gentle and docile; but he did not acquire knowledge
with facility, and was remarkably deficient in that previous
information on which his father counted. The other pupil was of a
different temperament. She learned with a glance, and remembered with
extraordinary tenacity everything she had acquired. But she was
neither tender nor deferential, and to induce her to study you could
not depend on the affections, but only on her intelligence. So she was
often fitful, capricious, or provoking, and her mother, who, though
accomplished and eager, had neither the method nor the self-restraint
of Mr. Ferrars, was often annoyed and irritable. Then there were
scenes, or rather ebullitions on one side, for Myra was always unmoved
and enraging from her total want of sensibility. Sometimes it became
necessary to appeal to Mr. Ferrars, and her manner to her father,
though devoid of feeling, was at least not contemptuous. Nevertheless,
on the whole the scheme, as time went on, promised to be not
unsuccessful. Endymion, though not rapidly, advanced surely, and made
some amends for the years that had been wasted in fashionable private
schools and the then frivolity of Eton. Myra, who, notwithstanding her
early days of indulgence, had enjoyed the advantage of admirable
governesses, was well grounded in more than one modern language, and
she soon mastered them. And in due time, though much after the period
on which we are now touching, she announced her desire to become
acquainted with German, in those days a much rarer acquirement than at
present. Her mother could not help her in this respect, and that was
perhaps an additional reason for the study of this tongue, for Myra
was impatient of tuition, and not unjustly full of self-confidence.
She took also the keenest interest in the progress of her brother,
made herself acquainted with all his lessons, and sometimes helped him
in their achievement.

Though they had absolutely no acquaintance of any kind except the
rector and his family, life was not dull. Mr. Ferrars was always
employed, for besides the education of his children, he had
systematically resumed a habit in which he had before occasionally
indulged, and that was political composition. He had in his lofty days
been the author of more than one essay, in the most celebrated
political publication of the Tories, which had commanded attention and
obtained celebrity. Many a public man of high rank and reputation, and
even more than one Prime Minister, had contributed in their time to
its famous pages, but never without being paid. It was the organic law
of this publication, that gratuitous contributions should never be
admitted. And in this principle there was as much wisdom as pride.
Celebrated statesmen would point with complacency to the snuff-box or
the picture which had been purchased by their literary labour, and
there was more than one bracelet on the arm of Mrs. Ferrars, and more
than one genet in her stable, which had been the reward of a profound
or a slashing article by William.

What had been the occasional diversion of political life was now to be
the source of regular income. Though living in profound solitude,
Ferrars had a vast sum of political experience to draw upon, and
though his training and general intelligence were in reality too
exclusive and academical for the stirring age which had now opened,
and on which he had unhappily fallen, they nevertheless suited the
audience to which they were particularly addressed. His Corinthian
style, in which the Maenad of Mr. Burke was habited in the last mode
of Almack's, his sarcasms against the illiterate and his invectives
against the low, his descriptions of the country life of the
aristocracy contrasted with the horrors of the guillotine, his
Horatian allusions and his Virgilian passages, combined to produce a
whole which equally fascinated and alarmed his readers.

These contributions occasioned some communications with the editor or
publisher of the Review, which were not without interest. Parcels came
down by the coach, enclosing not merely proof sheets, but frequently
new books--the pamphlet of the hour before it was published, or a
volume of discoveries in unknown lands. It was a link to the world
they had quitted without any painful associations. Otherwise their
communications with the outside world were slight and rare. It is
difficult for us, who live in an age of railroads, telegraphs, penny
posts and penny newspapers, to realise how uneventful, how limited in
thought and feeling, as well as in incident, was the life of an
English family of retired habits and limited means, only forty years
ago. The whole world seemed to be morally, as well as materially,
"adscripti glebae."

Mr. and Mrs. Ferrars did not wish to move, but had they so wished, it
would have been under any circumstances for them a laborious and
costly affair. The only newspaper they saw was the "Evening Mail,"
which arrived three times a week, and was the "Times" newspaper with
all its contents except its advertisements. As the "Times" newspaper
had the credit of mainly contributing to the passing of Lord Grey's
Reform Bill, and was then whispered to enjoy the incredible sale of
twelve thousand copies daily, Mr. Ferrars assumed that in its columns
he would trace the most authentic intimations of coming events. The
cost of postage was then so heavy, that domestic correspondence was
necessarily very restricted. But this vexatious limitation hardly
applied to the Ferrars. They had never paid postage. They were born
and had always lived in the franking world, and although Mr. Ferrars
had now himself lost the privilege, both official and parliamentary,
still all their correspondents were frankers, and they addressed their
replies without compunction to those who were free. Nevertheless, it
was astonishing how little in their new life they cared to avail
themselves of this correspondence. At first Zenobia wrote every week,
almost every day, to Mrs. Ferrars, but after a time Mrs. Ferrars,
though at first pleased by the attention, felt its recognition a
burthen. Then Zenobia, who at length, for the first time in her life,
had taken a gloomy view of affairs, relapsed into a long silence, and
in fact had nearly forgotten the Ferrars, for as she herself used to
say, "How can one recollect people whom one never meets?"

In the meantime, for we have been a little anticipating in our last
remarks, the family at Hurstley were much pleased with the country
they now inhabited. They made excursions of discovery into the
interior of their world, Mrs. Ferrars and Myra in the pony-chair, her
husband and Endymion walking by their side, and Endymion sometimes
taking his sister's seat against his wish, but in deference to her
irresistible will. Even Myra could hardly be insensible to the sylvan
wildness of the old chase, and the romantic villages in the wooded
clefts of the downs. As for Endymion he was delighted, and it seemed
to him, perhaps he unconsciously felt it, that this larger and more
frequent experience of nature was a compensation for much which they
had lost.

After a time, when they had become a little acquainted with simple
neighbourhood, and the first impression of wildness and novelty had
worn out, the twins were permitted to walk together alone, though
within certain limits. The village and its vicinity was quite free,
but they were not permitted to enter the woods, and not to wander on
the chase out of sight of the mansion. These walks alone with Endymion
were the greatest pleasure of his sister. She delighted to make him
tell her of his life at Eton, and if she ever sighed it was when she
lamented that his residence there had been so short. Then they found
an inexhaustible fund of interest and sympathy in the past. They
wondered if they ever should have ponies again. "I think not," said
Myra, "and yet how merry to scamper together over this chase!"

"But they would not let us go," said Endymion, "without a groom."

"A groom!" exclaimed Myra, with an elfish laugh; "I believe, if the
truth were really known, we ought to be making our own beds and
washing our own dinner plates."

"And are you sorry, Myra, for all that has happened?" asked Endymion.

"I hardly know what has happened. They keep it very close. But I am
too astonished to be sorry. Besides, what is the use of whimpering?"

"I cried very much one day," said Endymion.

"Ah, you are soft, dear darling. I never cried in my life, except once
with rage."

At Christmas a new character appeared on the stage, the rector's son,
Nigel. He had completed a year with a private tutor, and was on the
eve of commencing his first term at Oxford, being eighteen, nearly
five years older than the twins. He was tall, with a countenance of
remarkable intelligence and power, though still softened by the
innocence and bloom of boyhood. He was destined to be a clergyman. The
twins were often thrown into his society, for though too old to be
their mere companion, his presence was an excuse for Mrs. Penruddock
more frequently joining them in their strolls, and under her auspices
their wanderings had no limit, except the shortness of the days; but
they found some compensation for this in their frequent visits to the
rectory, which was a cheerful and agreeable home, full of stuffed
birds, and dried plants, and marvellous fishes, and other innocent
trophies and triumphs over nature.



                             CHAPTER XIII

The tenant of the Manor Farm was a good specimen of his class; a
thorough Saxon, ruddy and bright visaged, with an athletic though
rather bulky frame, hardened by exposure to the seasons and constant
exercise. Although he was the tenant of several hundred acres, he had
an eye to the main chance in little things, which is a characteristic
of farmers, but he was good-natured and obliging, and while he foraged
their pony, furnished their woodyard with logs and faggots, and
supplied them from his dairy, he gratuitously performed for the family
at the hall many other offices which tended to their comfort and
convenience, but which cost him nothing.

Mr. Ferrars liked to have a chat every now and then with Farmer
Thornberry, who had a shrewd and idiomatic style of expressing his
limited, but in its way complete, experience of men and things, which
was amusing and interesting to a man of the world whose knowledge of
rural life was mainly derived from grand shooting parties at great
houses.

The pride and torment of Farmer Thornberry's life was his only child,
Job.

"I gave him the best of educations," said the farmer; "he had a much
better chance than I had myself, for I do not pretend to be a scholar,
and never was; and yet I cannot make head or tail of him. I wish you
would speak to him some day, sir. He goes against the land, and yet we
have been on it for three generations, and have nothing to complain
of; and he is a good farmer, too, is Job, none better; a little too
fond of experimenting, but then he is young. But I am very much afraid
he will leave me. I think it is this new thing the big-wigs have set
up in London that has put him wrong, for he is always reading their
papers."

"And what is that?" said Mr. Ferrars.

"Well, they call themselves the Society for the Diffusion of
Knowledge, and Lord Brougham is at the head of it."

"Ah! he is a dangerous man," said Mr. Ferrars.

"Do you know, I think he is," said Farmer Thornberry, very seriously,
"and by this token, he says a knowledge of chemistry is necessary for
the cultivation of the soil."

"Brougham is a man who would say anything," said Mr. Ferrars, "and of
one thing you may be quite certain, that there is no subject which
Lord Brougham knows thoroughly. I have proved that, and if you ever
have time some winter evening to read something on the matter, I will
lend you a number of the 'Quarterly Review,' which might interest
you."

"I wish you would lend it to Job," said the farmer.

Mr. Ferrars found Job not quite so manageable in controversy as his
father. His views were peculiar, and his conclusions certain. He had
more than a smattering too of political economy, a kind of knowledge
which Mr. Ferrars viewed with suspicion; for though he had himself
been looked upon as enlightened in this respect in the last years of
Lord Liverpool, when Lord Wallace and Mr. Huskisson were astonishing
the world, he had relapsed, after the schism of the Tory party, into
orthodoxy, and was satisfied that the tenets of the economists were
mere theories, or could only be reduced into practice by revolution.

"But it is a pleasant life, that of a farmer," said Mr. Ferrars to
Job.

"Yes, but life should be something more than pleasant," said Job, who
always looked discontented; "an ox in a pasture has a pleasant life."

"Well, and why should it not be a profitable one, too?" said Mr.
Ferrars.

"I do not see my way to that," said Job moodily; "there is not much to
be got out of the land at any time, and still less on the terms we
hold it."

"But you are not high-rented!"

"Oh, rent is nothing, if everything else were right, but nothing is
right," said Job. "In the first place, a farmer is the only trader who
has no security for his capital."

"Ah! you want a lease?"

"I should be very sorry to have a lease like any that I have seen,"
replied Job. "We had one once in our family, and we keep it as a
curiosity. It is ten skins long, and more tyrannical nonsense was
never engrossed by man."

"But your family, I believe, has been on this estate for generations
now," said Ferrars, "and they have done well."

"They have done about as well as their stock. They have existed," said
Job; "nothing more."

"Your father always gives me quite the idea of a prosperous man," said
Mr. Ferrars.

"Whether he be or not I am sure I cannot say," said Job; "for as
neither he nor any of his predecessors ever kept any accounts, it is
rather difficult to ascertain their exact condition. So long as he has
money enough in his pocket to pay his labourers and buy a little
stock, my father, like every British farmer, is content. The fact is,
he is a serf as much as his men, and until we get rid of feudalism he
will remain so."

"These are strong opinions," said Mr. Ferrars, drawing himself up and
looking a little cold.

"Yes, but they will make their way," said Job. "So far as I myself am
concerned, I do not much care what happens to the land, for I do not
mean to remain on it; but I care for the country. For the sake of the
country I should like to see the whole thing upset."

"What thing?" asked Mr. Ferrars.

"Feudalism," said Job. "I should like to see this estate managed on
the same principles as they do their great establishments in the north
of England. Instead of feudalism, I would substitute the commercial
principle. I would have long leases without covenants; no useless
timber, and no game."

"Why, you would destroy the country," said Mr. Ferrars.

"We owe everything to the large towns," said Job.

"The people in the large towns are miserable," said Mr. Ferrars.

"They cannot be more miserable than the people in the country," said
Job.

"Their wretchedness is notorious," said Mr. Ferrars. "Look at their
riots."

"Well, we had Swing in the country only two or three years ago."

Mr. Ferrars looked sad. The reminiscence was too near and too fatal.
After a pause he said with an air of decision, and as if imparting a
state secret, "If it were not for the agricultural districts, the
King's army could not be recruited."

"Well, that would not break my heart," said Job.

"Why, my good fellow, you are a Radical!"

"They may call me what they like," said Job; "but it will not alter
matters. However, I am going among the Radicals soon, and then I shall
know what they are."

"And can you leave your truly respectable parent?" said Mr. Ferrars
rather solemnly, for he remembered his promise to Farmer Thornberry to
speak seriously to his son.

"Oh! my respectable parent will do very well without me, sir. Only let
him be able to drive into Bamford on market day, and get two or three
linendrapers to take their hats off to him, and he will be happy
enough, and always ready to die for our glorious Constitution."



                             CHAPTER XIV

Eighteen hundred and thirty-two, the darkest and most distressing year
in the life of Mr. Ferrars, closed in comparative calm and apparent
content. He was himself greatly altered, both in manner and
appearance. He was kind and gentle, but he was silent and rarely
smiled. His hair was grizzled, and he began to stoop. But he was
always employed, and was interested in his labours.

His sanguine wife bore up against their misfortunes with far more
animation. She was at first amused with her new life, and when she was
accustomed to it, she found a never-failing resource in her conviction
of a coming reaction. Mrs. Ferrars possessed most feminine qualities,
and many of them in excess. She could not reason, but her intuition
was remarkable. She was of opinion that "these people never could go
on," and that they must necessarily be succeeded by William and his
friends. In vain her husband, when she pressed her views and
convictions on him, would shake his head over the unprecedented
majority of the government, and sigh while he acknowledged that the
Tories absolutely did not now command one fifth of the House of
Commons; his shakes and sighs were equally disregarded by her, and she
persisted in her dreams of riding upon elephants.

After all Mrs. Ferrars was right. There is nothing more remarkable in
political history than the sudden break-up of the Whig party after
their successful revolution of 1832. It is one of the most striking
instances on record of all the elements of political power being
useless without a commanding individual will. During the second year
of their exile in the Berkshire hills, affairs looked so black that it
seemed no change could occur except further and more calamitous
revolution. Zenobia went to Vienna that she might breathe the
atmosphere of law and order, and hinted to Mrs. Ferrars that probably
she should never return--at least not until Parliament met, when she
trusted the House of Lords, if they were not abolished in the
interval, would save the country. And yet at the commencement of the
following year an old colleague of Mr. Ferrars apprised him, in the
darkest and deepest confidence, that "there was a screw loose," and he
must "look out for squalls."

In the meantime Mr. Ferrars increased and established his claims on
his party, if they ever did rally, by his masterly articles in their
great Review, which circumstances favoured and which kept up that
increasing feeling of terror and despair which then was deemed
necessary for the advancement of Conservative opinions.

At home a year or more had elapsed without change. The occasional
appearance of Nigel Penruddock was the only event. It was to all a
pleasing, and to some of the family a deeply interesting one. Nigel,
though a student and devoted to the holy profession for which he was
destined, was also a sportsman. His Christianity was muscular, and
Endymion, to whom he had taken a fancy, became the companion of his
pastimes. All the shooting of the estate was at Nigel's command, but
as there were no keepers, it was of course very rough work. Still it
was a novel and animating life for Endymion; and though the sport was
slight, the pursuit was keen. Then Nigel was a great fisherman, and
here their efforts had a surer return, for they dwelt in a land of
trout streams, and in their vicinity was a not inconsiderable river.
It was an adventure of delight to pursue some of these streams to
their source, throwing, as they rambled on, the fly in the rippling
waters. Myra, too, took some pleasure in these fishing expeditions,
carrying their luncheon and a German book in her wallet, and sitting
quietly on the bank for hours, when they had fixed upon some favoured
pool for a prolonged campaign.

Every time that Nigel returned home, a difference, and a striking
difference, was observed in him. His person, of course, became more
manly, his manner more assured, his dress more modish. It was
impossible to deny that he was extremely good-looking, interesting in
his discourse, and distinguished in his appearance. Endymion idolised
him. Nigel was his model. He imitated his manner, caught the tone of
his voice, and began to give opinions on subjects, sacred and profane.

After a hard morning's march, one day, as they were lolling on the
turf amid the old beeches and the juniper, Nigel said--

"What does Mr. Ferrars mean you to be, Endymion?"

"I do not know," said Endymion, looking perplexed.

"But I suppose you are to be something?"

"Yes; I suppose I must be something; because papa has lost his
fortune."

"And what would you like to be?"

"I never thought about it," said Endymion.

"In my opinion there is only one thing for a man to be in this age,"
said Nigel peremptorily; "he should go into the Church."

"The Church!" said Endymion.

"There will soon be nothing else left," said Nigel. "The Church must
last for ever. It is built upon a rock. It was founded by God; all
other governments have been founded by men. When they are destroyed,
and the process of destruction seems rapid, there will be nothing left
to govern mankind except the Church."

"Indeed!" said Endymion; "papa is very much in favour of the Church,
and, I know, is writing something about it."

"Yes, but Mr. Ferrars is an Erastian," said Nigel; "you need not tell
him I said so, but he is one. He wants the Church to be the servant of
the State, and all that sort of thing, but that will not do any
longer. This destruction of the Irish bishoprics has brought affairs
to a crisis. No human power has the right to destroy a bishopric. It
is a divinely-ordained office, and when a diocese is once established,
it is eternal."

"I see," said Endymion, much interested.

"I wish," continued Nigel, "you were two or three years older, and Mr.
Ferrars could send you to Oxford. That is the place to understand
these things, and they will soon be the only things to understand. The
rector knows nothing about them. My father is thoroughly high and dry,
and has not the slightest idea of Church principles."

"Indeed!" said Endymion.

"It is quite a new set even at Oxford," continued Nigel; "but their
principles are as old as the Apostles, and come down from them,
straight."

"That is a long time ago," said Endymion.

"I have a great fancy," continued Nigel, without apparently attending
to him, "to give you a thorough Church education. It would be the
making of you. You would then have a purpose in life, and never be in
doubt or perplexity on any subject. We ought to move heaven and earth
to induce Mr. Ferrars to send you to Oxford."

"I will speak to Myra about it," said Endymion.

"I said something of this to your sister the other day," said Nigel,
"but I fear she is terribly Erastian. However, I will give you
something to read. It is not very long, but you can read it at your
leisure, and then we will talk over it afterwards, and perhaps I may
give you something else."

Endymion did not fail to give a report of this conversation and
similar ones to his sister, for he was in the habit of telling her
everything. She listened with attention, but not with interest, to his
story. Her expression was kind, but hardly serious. Her wondrous eyes
gave him a glance of blended mockery and affection. "Dear darling,"
she said, "if you are to be a clergyman, I should like you to be a
cardinal."



                              CHAPTER XV

The dark deep hints that had reached Mr. Ferrars at the beginning of
1834 were the harbingers of startling events. In the spring it began
to be rumoured among the initiated, that the mighty Reform Cabinet
with its colossal majority, and its testimonial goblets of gold,
raised by the penny subscriptions of the grateful people, was in
convulsions, and before the month of July had elapsed Lord Grey had
resigned, under circumstances which exhibited the entire
demoralisation of his party. Except Zenobia, every one was of the
opinion that the King acted wisely in entrusting the reconstruction of
the Whig ministry to his late Secretary of State, Lord Melbourne.
Nevertheless, it could no longer be concealed, nay, it was invariably
admitted, that the political situation had been largely and most
unexpectedly changed, and that there was a prospect, dim, perhaps, yet
not undefinable, of the conduct of public affairs again falling to the
alternate management of two rival constitutional parties.

Zenobia was so full of hope, and almost of triumph, that she induced
her lord in the autumn to assemble their political friends at one of
his great seats, and Mr. and Mrs. Ferrars were urgently invited to
join the party. But, after some hesitation, they declined this
proposal. Had Mr. Ferrars been as sanguine as his wife, he would
perhaps have overcome his strong disinclination to re-enter the world,
but though no longer despairing of a Tory revival, he was of opinion
that a considerable period, even several years, must elapse before its
occurrence. Strange to say, he found no difficulty in following his
own humour through any contrary disposition on the part of Mrs.
Ferrars. With all her ambition and passionate love of society, she was
unwilling to return to that stage, where she once had blazed, in a
subdued and almost subordinate position. In fact, it was an affair of
the wardrobe. The queen of costumes, whose fanciful and gorgeous
attire even Zenobia was wont to praise, could not endure a
reappearance in old dresses. "I do not so much care about my jewels,
William," she said to her husband, "but one must have new dresses."

It was a still mild day in November, a month which in the country, and
especially on the light soils, has many charms, and the whole Ferrars
family were returning home after an afternoon ramble on the chase. The
leaf had changed but had not fallen, and the vast spiral masses of the
dark green juniper effectively contrasted with the rich brown foliage
of the beech, varied occasionally by the scarlet leaves of the wild
cherry tree, that always mingles with these woods. Around the house
were some lime trees of large size, and at this period of the year
their foliage, still perfect, was literally quite golden. They seemed
like trees in some fairy tale of imprisoned princesses or wandering
cavaliers, and such they would remain, until the fatal night that
brings the first frost.

"There is a parcel from London," said the servant to Mr. Ferrars, as
they entered the house. "It is on your desk."

A parcel from London was one of the great events of their life. What
could it be? Perhaps some proofs, probably some books. Mr. Ferrars
entered his room alone. It was a very small brown paper parcel,
evidently not books. He opened it hastily, and disencumbered its
contents of several coverings. The contents took the form of a letter
--a single letter.

The handwriting was recognised, and he read the letter with an
agitated countenance, and then he opened the door of his room, and
called loudly for his wife, who was by his side in a few moments.

"A letter, my love, from Barron," he cried. "The King has dismissed
Lord Melbourne and sent for the Duke of Wellington, who has accepted
the conduct of affairs."

"You must go to town directly," said his wife. "He offered you the
Cabinet in 1832. No person has such a strong claim on him as you
have."

"It does not appear that he is exactly prime minister," said Mr.
Ferrars, looking again at the letter. "They have sent for Peel, who is
at Rome, but the Duke is to conduct the government till he arrives."

"You must go to town immediately," repeated Mrs. Ferrars. "There is
not a moment to be lost. Send down to the Horse Shoe and secure an
inside place in the Salisbury coach. It reaches this place at nine
to-morrow morning. I will have everything ready. You must take a
portmanteau and a carpet-bag. I wonder if you could get a bedroom at
the Rodneys'. It would be so nice to be among old friends; they must
feel for you. And then it will be near the Carlton, which is a great
thing. I wonder how he will form his cabinet. What a pity he is not
here!"

"It is a wonderful event, but the difficulties must be immense,"
observed Ferrars.

"Oh! you always see difficulties. I see none. The King is with us, the
country is disgusted. It is what I always said would be; the reaction
is complete."

"Well, we had better now go and tell the children," said Ferrars. "I
leave you all here for the first time," and he seemed to sigh.

"Well, I hope we shall soon join you," said Mrs. Ferrars. "It is the
very best time for hiring a house. What I have set my heart upon is
the Green Park. It will be near your office and not too near. I am
sure I could not live again in a street."

The children were informed that public events of importance had
occurred, that the King had changed his ministry, and that papa must
go up to town immediately and see the Duke of Wellington. The eyes of
Mrs. Ferrars danced with excitement as she communicated to them all
this intelligence, and much more, with a volubility in which of late
years she had rarely indulged. Mr. Ferrars looked grave and said
little. Then he patted Endymion on the head, and kissed Myra, who
returned his embrace with a warmth unusual with her.

The whole household soon became in a state of bustle with the
preparations for the early departure of Mr. Ferrars. It seemed
difficult to comprehend how filling a portmanteau and a carpet-bag
could induce such excited and continuous exertions. But then there was
so much to remember, and then there was always something forgotten.
Mrs. Ferrars was in her bedroom surrounded by all her maids; Mr.
Ferrars was in his study looking out some papers which it was
necessary to take with him. The children were alone.

"I wonder if we shall be restored to our greatness," said Myra to
Endymion.

"Well, I shall be sorry to leave the old place; I have been happy
here."

"I have not," said Myra; "and I do not think I could have borne this
life had it not been for you."

"It will be a wonderful change," said Endymion.

"If it comes; I fear papa is not daring enough. However, if we get out
of this hole, it will be something."

Tea-time brought them all together again, but when the meal was over,
none of the usual occupations of the evening were pursued; no work, no
books, no reading aloud. Mr. Ferrars was to get up very early, and
that was a reason for all retiring soon. And yet neither the husband
nor the wife really cared to sleep. Mrs. Ferrars sate by the fire in
his dressing-room, speculating on all possible combinations, and
infusing into him all her suggestions and all her schemes. She was
still prudent, and still would have preferred a great government--
India if possible; but had made up her mind that he must accept the
cabinet. Considering what had occurred in 1832, she thought he was
bound in honour to do so. Her husband listened rather than conversed,
and seemed lost in thought. At last he rose, and, embracing her with
much affection, said, "You forget I am to rise with the lark. I shall
write to you every day. Best and dearest of women, you have always
been right, and all my good fortune has come from you."



                             CHAPTER XVI

It was a very tedious journey, and it took the whole day to accomplish
a distance which a rapid express train now can achieve in an hour. The
coach carried six inside passengers, and they had to dine on the road.
All the passengers were strangers to Mr. Ferrars, and he was by them
unknown; one of them purchased, though with difficulty, a second
edition of the "Times" as they approached London, and favoured his
fellow-travellers with the news of the change of ministry. There was
much excitement, and the purchaser of the paper gave it as his
opinion, "that it was an intrigue of the Court and the Tories, and
would never do." Another modestly intimated that he thought there was
a decided reaction. A third announced that England would never submit
to be governed by O'Connell.

As the gloom of evening descended, Mr. Ferrars felt depressed. Though
his life at Hurstley had been pensive and melancholy, he felt now the
charm and the want of that sweet domestic distraction which had often
prevented his mind from over-brooding, and had softened life by
sympathy in little things. Nor was it without emotion that he found
himself again in London, that proud city where once he had himself
been so proud. The streets were lighted, and seemed swarming with an
infinite population, and the coach finally stopped at a great inn in
the Strand, where Mr. Ferrars thought it prudent to secure
accommodation for the night. It was too late to look after the
Rodneys, but in deference to the strict injunction of Mrs. Ferrars, he
paid them a visit next morning on his way to his political chief.

In the days of the great modistes, when an English lady might
absolutely be dressed in London, the most celebrated mantua-maker in
that city was Madame Euphrosyne. She was as fascinating as she was
fashionable. She was so graceful, her manners were so pretty, so
natural, and so insinuating! She took so lively an interest in her
clients--her very heart was in their good looks. She was a great
favourite of Mrs. Ferrars, and that lady of Madame Euphrosyne. She
assured Mrs. Ferrars that she was prouder of dressing Mrs. Ferrars
than all the other fine ladies in London together, and Mrs. Ferrars
believed her. Unfortunately, while in the way of making a large
fortune, Madame Euphrosyne, who was romantic, fell in love with, and
married, a very handsome and worthless husband, whose good looks had
obtained for him a position in the company of Drury Lane Theatre, then
a place of refined resort, which his abilities did not justify. After
pillaging and plundering his wife for many years, he finally involved
her in such engagements, that she had to take refuge in the Bankruptcy
Court. Her business was ruined, and her spirit was broken, and she
died shortly after of adversity and chagrin. Her daughter Sylvia was
then eighteen, and had inherited with the grace of her mother the
beauty of her less reputable parent. Her figure was slight and
undulating, and she was always exquisitely dressed. A brilliant
complexion set off to advantage her delicate features, which, though
serene, were not devoid of a certain expression of archness. Her white
hands were delicate, her light eyes inclined to merriment, and her
nose quite a gem, though a little turned up.

After their ruin, her profligate father told her that her face was her
fortune, and that she must provide for herself, in which she would
find no difficulty. But Sylvia, though she had never enjoyed the
advantage of any training, moral or religious, had no bad impulses
even if she had no good ones, was of a rather cold character, and
extremely prudent. She recoiled from the life of riot, and disorder,
and irregularity, in which she had unwittingly passed her days, and
which had terminated so tragically, and she resolved to make an effort
to secure for herself a different career. She had heard that Mrs.
Ferrars was in want of an attendant, and she determined to apply for
the post. As one of the chief customers of her mother, Sylvia had been
in the frequent habit of waiting on that lady, with whom she had
become a favourite. She was so pretty, and the only person who could
fit Mrs. Ferrars. Her appeal, therefore, was not in vain; it was more
than successful. Mrs. Ferrars was attracted by Sylvia. Mrs. Ferrars
was magnificent, generous, and she liked to be a patroness and
surrounded by favourites. She determined that Sylvia should not sink
into a menial position; she adopted her as a humble friend, and one
who every day became more regarded by her. Sylvia arranged her
invitations to her receptions, a task which required finish and
precision; sometimes wrote her notes. She spoke and wrote French too,
and that was useful, was a musician, and had a pretty voice. Above
all, she was a first-rate counsellor in costume; and so, looking also
after Mrs. Ferrars' dogs and birds, she became almost one of the
family; dined with them often when they were alone, and was frequently
Mrs. Ferrars' companion in her carriage.

Sylvia, though not by nature impulsive, really adored her patroness.
She governed her manners and she modelled her dress on that great
original, and, next to Mrs. Ferrars, Sylvia in time became nearly the
finest lady in London. There was, indeed, much in Mrs. Ferrars to
captivate a person like Sylvia. Mrs. Ferrars was beautiful,
fashionable, gorgeous, wonderfully expensive, and, where her taste was
pleased, profusely generous. Her winning manner was not less
irresistible because it was sometimes uncertain, and she had the art
of being intimate without being familiar.

When the crash came, Sylvia was really broken-hearted, or believed she
was, and implored that she might attend the deposed sovereigns into
exile; but that was impossible, however anxious they might be as to
the future of their favourite. Her destiny was sooner decided than
they could have anticipated. There was a member of the household, or
rather family, in Hill Street, who bore almost the same relation to
Mr. Ferrars as Sylvia to his wife. This was Mr. Rodney, a remarkably
good-looking person, by nature really a little resembling his
principal, and completing the resemblance by consummate art. The
courtiers of Alexander of Macedonia could not study their chief with
more devotion, or more sedulously imitate his mien and carriage, than
did Mr. Rodney that distinguished individual of whom he was the humble
friend, and who he was convinced was destined to be Prime Minister of
England. Mr. Rodney was the son of the office-keeper of old Mr.
Ferrars, and it was the ambition of the father that his son, for whom
he had secured a sound education, should become a member of the civil
service. It had become an apothegm in the Ferrars family that
something must be done for Rodney, and whenever the apparent occasion
failed, which was not unfrequent, old Mr. Ferrars used always to add,
"Never mind; so long as I live, Rodney shall never want a home." The
object of all this kindness, however, was little distressed by their
failures in his preferment. He had implicit faith in the career of his
friend and master, and looked forward to the time when it might not be
impossible that he himself might find a haven in a commissionership.
Recently Mr. Ferrars had been able to confer on him a small post with
duties not too engrossing, and which did not prevent his regular
presence in Hill Street, where he made himself generally useful.

If there were anything confidential to be accomplished in their
domestic life, everything might be trusted to his discretion and
entire devotion. He supervised the establishment without injudiciously
interfering with the house-steward, copied secret papers for Mr.
Ferrars, and when that gentleman was out of office acted as his
private secretary. Mr. Rodney was the most official person in the
ministerial circle. He considered human nature only with reference to
office. No one was so intimately acquainted with all the details of
the lesser patronage as himself, and his hours of study were passed in
the pages of the "Peerage" and in penetrating the mysteries of the
"Royal Calendar."

The events of 1832, therefore, to this gentleman were scarcely a less
severe blow than to the Ferrars family itself. Indeed, like his chief,
he looked upon himself as the victim of a revolution. Mr. Rodney had
always been an admirer of Sylvia, but no more. He had accompanied her
to the theatre, and had attended her to the park, but this was quite
understood on both sides only to be gallantry; both, perhaps, in their
prosperity, with respect to the serious step of life, had indulged in
higher dreams. But the sympathy of sorrow is stronger than the
sympathy of prosperity. In the darkness of their lives, each required
comfort: he murmured some accents of tender solace, and Sylvia agreed
to become Mrs. Rodney.

When they considered their position, the prospect was not free from
anxiety. To marry and then separate is, where there is affection,
trying. His income would secure them little more than a roof, but how
to live under that roof was a mystery. For her to become a governess,
and for him to become a secretary, and to meet only on an occasional
Sunday, was a sorry lot. And yet both possessed accomplishments or
acquirements which ought in some degree to be productive. Rodney had a
friend, and he determined to consult him.

That friend was no common person; he was Mr. Vigo, by birth a
Yorkshireman, and gifted with all the attributes, physical and
intellectual, of that celebrated race. At present he was the most
fashionable tailor in London, and one whom many persons consulted.
Besides being consummate in his art, Mr. Vigo had the reputation of
being a man of singularly good judgment. He was one who obtained
influence over all with whom he came in contact, and as his business
placed him in contact with various classes, but especially with the
class socially most distinguished, his influence was great. The golden
youth who repaired to his counters came there not merely to obtain
raiment of the best material and the most perfect cut, but to see and
talk with Mr. Vigo, and to ask his opinion on various points. There
was a spacious room where, if they liked, they might smoke a cigar,
and "Vigo's cigars" were something which no one could rival. If they
liked to take a glass of hock with their tobacco, there was a bottle
ready from the cellars of Johannisberg. Mr. Vigo's stable was almost
as famous as its master; he drove the finest horses in London, and
rode the best hunters in the Vale of Aylesbury. With all this, his
manners were exactly what they should be. He was neither pretentious
nor servile, but simple, and with becoming respect for others and for
himself. He never took a liberty with any one, and such treatment, as
is generally the case, was reciprocal.

Mr. Vigo was much attached to Mr. Rodney, and was proud of his
intimate acquaintance with him. He wanted a friend not of his own
order, for that would not increase or improve his ideas, but one
conversant with the habits and feelings of a superior class, and yet
he did not want a fine gentleman for an intimate, who would have been
either an insolent patron or a designing parasite. Rodney had
relations with the aristocracy, with the political world, and could
feel the pulse of public life. His appearance was engaging, his
manners gentle if not gentlemanlike, and he had a temper never
disturbed. This is a quality highly appreciated by men of energy and
fire, who may happen not to have a complete self-control.

When Rodney detailed to his friend the catastrophe that had occurred
and all its sad consequences, Mr. Vigo heard him in silence,
occasionally nodding his head in sympathy or approbation, or
scrutinising a statement with his keen hazel eye. When his visitor had
finished, he said--

"When there has been a crash, there is nothing like a change of scene.
I propose that you and Mrs. Rodney should come and stay with me a week
at my house at Barnes, and there a good many things may occur to us."

And so, towards the end of the week, when the Rodneys had exhausted
their whole programme of projects, against every one of which there
seemed some invincible objection, their host said, "You know I rather
speculate in houses. I bought one last year in Warwick Street. It is a
large roomy house in a quiet situation, though in a bustling quarter,
just where members of parliament would like to lodge. I have put it in
thorough repair. What I propose is that you should live there, let the
first and second floors--they are equally good--and live on the ground
floor yourselves, which is amply convenient. We will not talk about
rent till the year is over and we see how it answers. The house is
unfurnished, but that is nothing. I will introduce you to a friend of
mine who will furnish it for you solidly and handsomely, you paying a
percentage on the amount expended. He will want a guarantee, but of
course I will be that. It is an experiment, but try it. Try it for a
year; at any rate you will be a householder, and you will have the
opportunity of thinking of something else."

Hitherto the Rodneys had been successful in their enterprise, and the
soundness of Mr. Vigo's advice had been proved. Their house was full,
and of the best tenants. Their first floor was taken by a
distinguished M.P., a county member of repute whom Mr. Rodney had
known before the "revolution," and who was so pleased with his
quarters, and the comfort and refinement of all about him, that to
ensure their constant enjoyment he became a yearly tenant. Their
second floor, which was nearly as good as their first, was inhabited
by a young gentleman of fashion, who took them originally only by the
week, and who was always going to give them up, but never did. The
weekly lodger went to Paris, and he went to German baths, and he went
to country houses, and he was frequently a long time away, but he
never gave up his lodgings. When therefore Mr. Ferrars called in
Warwick Street, the truth is the house was full and there was no
vacant room for him. But this the Rodneys would not admit. Though they
were worldly people, and it seemed impossible that anything more could
be gained from the ruined house of Hurstley, they had, like many other
people, a superstition, and their superstition was an adoration of the
family of Ferrars. The sight of their former master, who, had it not
been for the revolution, might have been Prime Minister of England,
and the recollection of their former mistress and all her splendour,
and all the rich dresses which she used to give so profusely to her
dependent, quite overwhelmed them. Without consultation this
sympathising couple leapt to the same conclusion. They assured Mr.
Ferrars they could accommodate him, and that he should find everything
prepared for him when he called again, and they resigned to him,
without acknowledging it, their own commodious and well-furnished
chamber, which Mrs. Rodney prepared for him with the utmost
solicitude, arranging his writing-table and materials as he used to
have them in Hill Street, and showing by a variety of modes she
remembered all his ways.



                             CHAPTER XVII

After securing his room in Warwick Street, Mr. Ferrars called on his
political chiefs. Though engrossed with affairs, the moment his card
was exhibited he was seen, cordially welcomed, and addressed in
confidence. Not only were his claims acknowledged without being
preferred, but an evidently earnest hope was expressed that they might
be fully satisfied. No one had suffered more for the party and no one
had worked harder or more effectively for it. But at present nothing
could be done and nothing more could be said. All depended on Peel.
Until he arrived nothing could be arranged. Their duties were limited
to provisionally administering the affairs of the country until his
appearance.

It was many days, even weeks, before that event could happen. The
messenger would travel to Rome night and day, but it was calculated
that nearly three weeks must elapse before his return. Mr. Ferrars
then went to the Carlton Club, which he had assisted in forming three
or four years before, and had established in a house of modern
dimensions in Charles Street, St. James. It was called then the
Charles Street gang, and none but the thoroughgoing cared to belong to
it. Now he found it flourishing in a magnificent mansion on Carlton
Terrace, while in very sight of its windows, on a plot of ground in
Pall Mall, a palace was rising to receive it. It counted already
fifteen hundred members, who had been selected by an omniscient and
scrutinising committee, solely with reference to their local
influence throughout the country, and the books were overflowing with
impatient candidates of rank, and wealth, and power.

Three years ago Ferrars had been one of the leading spirits of this
great confederacy, and now he entered the superb chamber, and it
seemed to him that he did not recognise a human being. Yet it was full
to overflowing, and excitement and anxiety and bustle were impressed
on every countenance. If he had heard some of the whispers and
remarks, as he entered and moved about, his self-complacency would
scarcely have been gratified.

"Who is that?" inquired a young M.P. of a brother senator not much
more experienced.

"Have not the remotest idea; never saw him before. Barron is speaking
to him; he will tell us. I say, Barron, who is your friend?"

"That is Ferrars!"

"Ferrars! who is he?"

"One of our best men. If all our fellows had fought like him against
the Reform Bill, that infernal measure would never have been carried."

"Oh! ah! I remember something now," said the young M.P., "but anything
that happened before the election of '32 I look upon as an old
almanack."

However, notwithstanding the first and painful impression of strangers
and strangeness, when a little time had elapsed Ferrars found many
friends, and among the most distinguished present. Nothing could be
more hearty than their greeting, and he had not been in the room half
an hour before he had accepted an invitation to dine that very day
with Lord Pomeroy.

It was a large and rather miscellaneous party, but all of the right
kidney. Some men who had been cabinet ministers, and some who expected
to be; several occupiers in old days of the secondary offices; both
the whips, one noisy and the other mysterious; several lawyers of
repute who must be brought into parliament, and some young men who had
distinguished themselves in the reformed house and whom Ferrars had
never seen before. "It is like old days," said the husband of Zenobia
to Ferrars, who sate next to him; "I hope it will float, but we shall
know nothing till Peel comes."

"He will have difficulty with his cabinet so far as the House of
Commons is concerned," said an old privy councillor "They must have
seats, and his choice is very limited."

"He will dissolve," said the husband of Zenobia. "He must."

"Wheugh!" said the privy councillor, and he shrugged his shoulders.

"The old story will not do," said the husband of Zenobia. "We must
have new blood. Peel must reconstruct on a broad basis."

"Well, they say there is no lack of converts," said the old privy
councillor.

All this, and much more that he heard, made Ferrars ponder, and
anxiously. No cabinet without parliament. It was but reasonable. A
dissolution was therefore in his interest. And yet, what a prospect! A
considerable expenditure, and yet with a considerable expenditure a
doubtful result. Then reconstruction on a broad basis--what did that
mean? Neither more nor less than rival candidates for office. There
was no lack of converts. He dare say not. A great deal had developed
since his exile at Hurstley--things which are not learned by
newspapers, or even private correspondence. He spoke to Barron after
dinner. He had reason to believe Barron was his friend. Barron could
give no opinion about dissolution; all depended on Peel. But they were
acting, and had been acting for some time, as if dissolution were on
the cards. Ferrars had better call upon him to-morrow, and go over the
list, and see what would be done for him. He had every claim.

The man with every claim called on Barron on the morrow, and saw his
secret list, and listened to all his secret prospects and secret
plans. There was more than one manufacturing town where there was an
opening; decided reaction, and a genuine Conservative feeling. Barron
had no doubt that, although a man might not get in the first time he
stood, he would ultimately. Ultimately was not a word which suited Mr.
Ferrars. There were several old boroughs where the freemen still
outnumbered the ten-pounders, and where the prospects were more
encouraging; but the expense was equal to the goodness of the chance,
and although Ferrars had every claim, and would no doubt be assisted,
still one could not shut one's eyes to the fact that the personal
expenditure must be considerable. The agricultural boroughs must be
fought, at least this time, by local men. Something might be done with
an Irish borough; expense, comparatively speaking inconsiderable, but
the politics deeply Orange.

Gloom settled on the countenance of this spoiled child of politics,
who had always sate for a close borough, and who recoiled from a
contest like a woman, when he pictured to himself the struggle and
exertion and personal suffering he would have to encounter and endure,
and then with no certainty of success. The trained statesman, who had
anticipated the mass of his party on Catholic emancipation, to become
an Orange candidate! It was worse than making speeches to ten-pounders
and canvassing freemen!

"I knew things were difficult," said Ferrars; "but I was in hopes that
there were yet some seats that we might command."

"No doubt there are," said Mr. Barron; "but they are few, and they are
occupied--at least at present. But, after all, a thousand things may
turn up, and you may consider nothing definitely arranged until Sir
Robert arrives. The great thing is to be on the spot."

Ferrars wrote to his wife daily, and kept her minutely acquainted with
the course of affairs. She agreed with Barron that the great thing was
to be on the spot. She felt sure that something would turn up. She was
convinced that Sir Robert would send for him, offer him the cabinet,
and at the same time provide him with a seat. Her own inclination was
still in favour of a great colonial or foreign appointment. She still
hankered after India; but if the cabinet were offered, as was certain,
she did not consider that William, as a man of honour, could refuse to
accept the trust and share the peril.

So Ferrars remained in London under the roof of the Rodneys. The
feverish days passed in the excitement of political life in all its
manifold forms, grave council and light gossip, dinners with only one
subject of conversation, and that never palling, and at last, even
evenings spent again under the roof of Zenobia, who, the instant her
winter apartments were ready to receive the world, had hurried up to
London and raised her standard in St. James' Square. "It was like old
days," as her husband had said to Ferrars when they met after a long
separation.

Was it like old days? he thought to himself when he was alone. Old
days, when the present had no care, and the future was all hope; when
he was proud, and justly proud, of the public position he had
achieved, and of all the splendid and felicitous circumstances of life
that had clustered round him. He thought of those away, and with whom
during the last three years he had so continuously and intimately
lived. And his hired home that once had been associated only in his
mind with exile, imprisonment, misfortune, almost disgrace, became
hallowed by affection, and in the agony of the suspense which now
involved him, and to encounter which he began to think his diminished
nerve unequal, he would have bargained for the rest of his life to
pass undisturbed in that sweet solitude, in the delights of study and
the tranquillity of domestic love.

A little not unamiable weakness this, but it passed off in the morning
like a dream, when Mr. Ferrars heard that Sir Robert had arrived.



                            CHAPTER XVIII

It was a dark December night when Mr. Ferrars returned to Hurstley.
His wife, accompanied by the gardener with a lantern, met him on the
green. She embraced him, and whispered, "Is it very bad, love? I fear
you have softened it to me?"

"By no means bad, and I told you the truth: not all, for had I, my
letter would have been too late. He said nothing about the cabinet,
but offered me a high post in his government, provided I could secure
my seat. That was impossible. During the month I was in town I had
realised that. I thought it best, therefore, at once to try the other
tack, and nothing could be more satisfactory."

"Did you say anything about India?" she said in a very low voice.

"I did not. He is an honourable man, but he is cold, and my manner is
not distinguished for /abandon/. I thought it best to speak generally,
and leave it to him. He acknowledged my claim, and my fitness for such
posts, and said if his government lasted it would gratify him to meet
my wishes. Barron says the government will last. They will have a
majority, and if Stanley and Graham had joined them, they would have
had not an inconsiderable one. But in that case I should probably not
have had the cabinet, if indeed he meant to offer it to me now."

"Of course he did," said his wife. "Who has such claims as you have?
Well, now we must hope and watch. Look cheerful to the children, for
they have been very anxious."

With this hint the meeting was not unhappy, and the evening passed
with amusement and interest. Endymion embraced his father with warmth,
and Myra kissed him on both cheeks. Mr. Ferrars had a great deal of
gossip which interested his wife, and to a certain degree his
children. The latter of course remembered Zenobia, and her sayings and
doings were always amusing. There were anecdotes, too, of illustrious
persons which always interest, especially when in the personal
experience of those with whom we are intimately connected. What the
Duke, or Sir Robert, or Lord Lyndhurst said to papa seemed doubly
wiser or brighter than if it had been said to a third person. Their
relations with the world of power, and fashion, and fame, seemed not
to be extinct, at least reviving from their torpid condition. Mr.
Ferrars had also brought a German book for Myra; and "as for you,
Endymion," he said, "I have been much more successful for you than for
your father, though I hope I shall not have myself in the long run to
complain. Our friends are faithful to us, and I have got you put down
on the private list for a clerkship both in the Foreign Office and the
Treasury. They are the two best things, and you will have one of the
first vacancies that will occur in either department. I know your
mother wishes you to be in the Foreign Office. Let it be so if it
come. I confess, myself, remembering your grandfather's career, I have
always a weakness for the Treasury, but so long as I see you well
planted in Whitehall, I shall be content. Let me see, you will be
sixteen in March. I could have wished you to wait another year, but we
must be ready when the opening occurs."

The general election in 1834-5, though it restored the balance of
parties, did not secure to Sir Robert Peel a majority, and the anxiety
of the family at Hurstley was proportionate to the occasion. Barron
was always sanguine, but the vote on the Speakership could not but
alarm them. Barron said it did not signify, and that Sir Robert had
resolved to go on and had confidence in his measures. His measures
were excellent, and Sir Robert never displayed more resource, more
energy, and more skill, than he did in the spring of 1835. But
knowledge of human nature was not Sir Robert Peel's strong point, and
it argued some deficiency in that respect, to suppose that the fitness
of his measures could disarm a vindictive opposition. On the contrary,
they rather whetted their desire of revenge, and they were doubly loth
that he should increase his reputation by availing himself of an
opportunity which they deemed the Tory party had unfairly acquired.

After the vote on the Speakership, Mr. Ferrars was offered a second-
class West Indian government. His wife would not listen to it. If it
were Jamaica, the offer might be considered, though it could scarcely
be accepted without great sacrifice. The children, for instance, must
be left at home. Strange to say, Mr. Ferrars was not disinclined to
accept the inferior post. Endymion he looked upon as virtually
provided for, and Myra, he thought, might accompany them; if only for
a year. But he ultimately yielded, though not without a struggle, to
the strong feeling of his wife.

"I do not see why I also should not be left behind," said Myra to her
brother in one of their confidential walks. "I should like to live in
London in lodgings with you."

The approaching appointment of her brother filled her from the first
with the greatest interest. She was always talking of it when they
were alone--fancying his future life, and planning how it might be
happier and more easy. "My only joy in life is seeing you," she
sometimes said, "and yet this separation does not make me unhappy. It
seems a chance from heaven for you. I pray every night it may be the
Foreign Office."

The ministry were still sanguine as to their prospects in the month of
March, and they deemed that public opinion was rallying round Sir
Robert. Perhaps Lord John Russell, who was the leader of the
opposition, felt this, in some degree, himself, and he determined to
bring affairs to a crisis by notice of a motion respecting the
appropriation of the revenues of the Irish Church. Then Barron wrote
to Mr. Ferrars that affairs did not look so well, and advised him to
come up to town, and take anything that offered. "It is something," he
remarked, "to have something to give up. We shall not, I suppose,
always be out of office, and they get preferred more easily whose
promotion contributes to patronage, even while they claim its
exercise."

The ministry were in a minority on the Irish Church on April 2, the
day on which Mr. Ferrars arrived in town. They did not resign, but the
attack was to be repeated in another form on the 6th. During the
terrible interval Mr. Ferrars made distracted visits to Downing
Street, saw secretaries of state, who sympathised with him not
withstanding their own chagrin, and was closeted daily and hourly with
under-secretaries, parliamentary and permanent, who really alike
wished to serve him. But there was nothing to be had. He was almost
meditating taking Sierra Leone, or the Gold Coast, when the
resignation of Sir Robert Peel was announced. At the last moment,
there being, of course, no vacancy in the Foreign Office, or the
Treasury, he obtained from Barron an appointment for Endymion, and so,
after having left Hurstley five months before to become Governor-
General of India, this man, "who had claims," returned to his
mortified home with a clerkship for his son in a second-rate
government office.



                             CHAPTER XIX

Disappointment and distress, it might be said despair, seemed fast
settling again over the devoted roof of Hurstley, after a three years'
truce of tranquillity. Even the crushing termination of her worldly
hopes was forgotten for the moment by Mrs. Ferrars in her anguish at
the prospect of separation from Endymion. Such a catastrophe she had
never for a moment contemplated. True it was she had been delighted
with the scheme of his entering the Foreign Office, but that was on
the assumption that she was to enter office herself, and that,
whatever might be the scene of the daily labours of her darling child,
her roof should be his home, and her indulgent care always at his
command. But that she was absolutely to part with Endymion, and that,
at his tender age, he was to be launched alone into the wide world,
was an idea that she could not entertain, or even comprehend. Who was
to clothe him, and feed him, and tend him, and save him from being run
over, and guide and guard him in all the difficulties and dangers of
this mundane existence? It was madness, it was impossible. But Mr.
Ferrars, though gentle, was firm. No doubt it was to be wished that
the event could have been postponed for a year; but its occurrence,
unless all prospect of establishment in life were surrendered, was
inevitable, and a slight delay would hardly render the conditions
under which it happened less trying. Though Endymion was only sixteen,
he was tall and manly beyond his age, and during the latter years of
his life, his naturally sweet temper and genial disposition had been
schooled in self-discipline and self-sacrifice. He was not to be
wholly left to strangers; Mr. Ferrars had spoken to Rodney about
receiving him, at least for the present, and steps would be taken that
those who presided over his office would be influenced in his favour.
The appointment was certainly not equal to what had been originally
anticipated; but still the department, though not distinguished, was
highly respectable, and there was no reason on earth, if the
opportunity offered, that Endymion should not be removed from his
present post to one in the higher departments of the state. But if
this opening were rejected, what was to be the future of their son?
They could not afford to send him to the University, nor did Mr.
Ferrars wish him to take refuge in the bosom of the Church. As for the
army, they had now no interest to acquire commissions, and if they
could succeed so far, they could not make him an allowance, which
would permit him to maintain himself as became his rank. The civil
service remained, in which his grandfather had been eminent, and in
which his own parent, at any rate, though the victim of a revolution,
had not disgraced himself. It seemed, under the circumstances, the
natural avenue for their child. At least, he thought it ought to be
tried. He wished nothing to be settled without the full concurrence of
Endymion himself. The matter should be put fairly and clearly before
him, "and for this purpose," concluded Mr. Ferrars, "I have just sent
for him to my room;" and he retired.

The interview between the father and the son was long. When Endymion
left the room his countenance was pale, but its expression was firm
and determined. He went forth into the garden, and there he saw Myra.
"How long you have been!" she said; "I have been watching for you.
What is settled?"

He took her arm, and in silence led her away into one of the glades
Then he said: "I have settled to go, and I am resolved, so long as I
live, that I will never cost dear papa another shilling. Things here
are very bad, quite as bad as you have sometimes fancied. But do not
say anything to poor mamma about them."

Mr. Ferrars resolved that Endymion should go to London immediately,
and the preparations for his departure were urgent. Myra did
everything. If she had been the head of a family she could not have
been more thoughtful or apparently more experienced. If she had a
doubt, she stepped over to Mrs. Penruddock and consulted her. As for
Mrs. Ferrars, she had become very unwell, and unable to attend to
anything. Her occasional interference, fitful and feverish, and
without adequate regard to circumstances, only embarrassed them. But,
generally speaking, she kept to her own room, and was always weeping.

The last day came. No one pretended not to be serious and grave. Mrs.
Ferrars did not appear, but saw Endymion alone. She did not speak, but
locked him in her arms for many minutes, and then kissed him on the
forehead, and, by a gentle motion, intimating that he should retire,
she fell back on her sofa with closed eyes. He was alone for a short
time with his father after dinner. Mr. Ferrars said to him: "I have
treated you in this matter as a man, and I have entire confidence in
you. Your business in life is to build up again a family which was
once honoured."

Myra was still copying inventories when he returned to the drawing-
room. "These are for myself," she said, "so I shall always know what
you ought to have. Though you go so early, I shall make your breakfast
to-morrow," and, leaning back on the sofa, she took his hand. "Things
are dark, and I fancy they will be darker; but brightness will come,
somehow or other, to you, darling, for you are born for brightness.
You will find friends in life, and they will be women."

It was nearly three years since Endymion had travelled down to
Hurstley by the same coach that was now carrying him to London. Though
apparently so uneventful, the period had not been unimportant in the
formation, doubtless yet partial, of his character. And all its
influences had been beneficial to him. The crust of pride and
selfishness with which large prosperity and illimitable indulgence had
encased a kind, and far from presumptuous, disposition had been
removed; the domestic sentiments in their sweetness and purity had
been developed; he had acquired some skills in scholarship and no
inconsiderable fund of sound information; and the routine of religious
thought had been superseded in his instance by an amount of knowledge
and feeling on matters theological, unusual at his time of life.
Though apparently not gifted with any dangerous vivacity, or fatal
facility of acquisition, his mind seemed clear and painstaking, and
distinguished by common sense. He was brave and accurate.

Mr. Rodney was in waiting for him at the inn. He seemed a most
distinguished gentleman. A hackney coach carried them to Warwick
Street, where he was welcomed by Mrs. Rodney, who was exquisitely
dressed. There was also her sister, a girl not older than Endymion,
the very image of Mrs. Rodney, except that she was a brunette--a
brilliant brunette. This sister bore the romantic name of Imogene, for
which she was indebted to her father performing the part of the
husband of the heroine in Maturin's tragedy of the "Castle of St.
Aldobrand," and which, under the inspiration of Kean, had set the town
in a blaze about the time of her birth. Tea was awaiting him, and
there was a mixture in their several manners of not ungraceful
hospitality and the remembrance of past dependence, which was genuine
and not uninteresting, though Endymion was yet too inexperienced to
observe all this.

Mrs. Rodney talked very much of Endymion's mother; her wondrous
beauty, her more wondrous dresses; the splendour of her fetes and
equipages. As she dilated on the past, she seemed to share its lustre
and its triumphs. "The first of the land were always in attendance on
her," and for Mrs. Rodney's part, she never saw a real horsewoman
since her dear lady. Her sister did not speak, but listened with rapt
attention to the gorgeous details, occasionally stealing a glance at
Endymion--a glance of deep interest, of admiration mingled as it were
both with reverence and pity.

Mr. Rodney took up the conversation if his wife paused. He spoke of
all the leading statesmen who had been the habitual companions of Mr.
Ferrars, and threw out several anecdotes respecting them from personal
experience. "I knew them all," continued Mr. Rodney, "I might say
intimately;" and then he told his great anecdote, how he had been so
fortunate as perhaps even to save the Duke's life during the Reform
Bill riots. "His Grace has never forgotten it, and only the day before
yesterday I met him in St. James' Street walking with Mr. Arbuthnot,
and he touched his hat to me."

All this gossip and good nature, and the kind and lively scene, saved
Endymion from the inevitable pang, or at least greatly softened it,
which accompanies our first separation from home. In due season, Mrs.
Rodney observed that she doubted not Mr. Endymion, for so they ever
called him, must be wearied with his journey, and would like to retire
to his room; and her husband, immediately lighting a candle, prepared
to introduce their new lodger to his quarters.

It was a tall house, which had recently been renovated, with a story
added to it, and on this story was Endymion's chamber; not absolutely
a garret, but a modern substitute for that sort of apartment. "It is
rather high," said Mr. Rodney, half apologising for the ascent, "but
Mr. Ferrars himself chose the room. We took the liberty of lighting a
fire to-night."

And the cheerful blaze was welcome. It lit up a room clean and not
uncomfortable. Feminine solicitude had fashioned a toilette-table for
him, and there was a bunch of geraniums in a blue vase on its
sparkling dimity garniture. "I suppose you have in your bag all that
you want at present?" said Mr. Rodney. "To-morrow we will unpack your
trunks and arrange your things in their drawers; and after breakfast,
if you please, I will show you your way to Somerset House."

Somerset House! thought Endymion, as he stood before the fire alone.
Is it so near as that? To-morrow, and I am to be at Somerset House!
And then he thought of what they were doing at Hurstley--of that
terrible parting with his mother, which made him choke--and of his
father's last words. And then he thought of Myra, and the tears stole
down his cheek. And then he knelt down by his bedside and prayed.



                              CHAPTER XX

Mr. Rodney would have accompanied Endymion to Somerset House under any
circumstances, but it so happened that he had reasons of his own for a
visit to that celebrated building. He had occasion to see a gentleman
who was stationed there. "Not," as he added to Endymion, "that I know
many here, but at the Treasury and in Downing Street I have several
acquaintances."

They separated at the door in the great quadrangle which led to the
department to which Endymion was attached, and he contrived in due
time to deliver to a messenger a letter addressed to his future chief.
He was kept some time in a gloomy and almost unfurnished waiting-room,
and his thoughts in a desponding mood were gathering round the dear
ones who were distant, when he was summoned, and, following the
messenger down a passage, was ushered into a lively apartment on which
the sun was shining, and which, with its well-lined book-shelves, and
tables covered with papers, and bright noisy clock, and general air of
habitation and business, contrasted favourably with the room he had
just quitted. A good-natured-looking man held out his hand and
welcomed him cordially, and said at once, "I served, Mr. Ferrars,
under your grandfather at the Treasury, and I am glad to see you
here." Then he spoke of the duties which Endymion would have at
present to discharge. His labours at first would be somewhat
mechanical; they would require only correctness and diligence; but the
office was a large one, and promotion not only sure, but sometimes
rapid, and as he was so young, he might with attention count on
attaining, while yet in the prime of life, a future of very
responsible duties and of no inconsiderable emolument. And while he
was speaking he rang the bell and commanded the attendance of a clerk,
under whose care Endymion was specially placed. This was a young man
of pleasant address, who invited Endymion with kindness to accompany
him, and leading him through several chambers, some capacious, and all
full of clerks seated on high stools and writing at desks, finally
ushered him into a smaller chamber where there were not above six or
eight at work, and where there was a vacant seat. "This is your
place," he said, "and now I will introduce you to your future
comrades. This is Mr. Jawett, the greatest Radical of the age, and
who, when he is President of the Republic, will, I hope, do a job for
his friends here. This is Mr. St. Barbe, who, when the public taste
has improved, will be the most popular author of the day. In the
meantime he will give you a copy of his novel, which has not sold as
it ought to have done, and in which we say he has quizzed all his
friends. This is Mr. Seymour Hicks, who, as you must perceive, is a
man of fashion." And so he went on, with what was evidently accustomed
raillery. All laughed, and all said something courteous to Endymion,
and then after a few minutes they resumed their tasks, Endymion's work
being to copy long lists of figures, and routine documents of public
accounts.

In the meantime, Mr. St. Barbe was busy in drawing up a public
document of a different but important character, and which was
conceived something in this fashion:--

"We, the undersigned, highly approving of the personal appearance and
manners of our new colleague, are unanimously of opinion that he
should be invited to join our symposium to-day at the immortal Joe's."

This was quietly passed round and signed by all present, and then
given to Mr. Trenchard, who, all unconsciously to the copying
Endymion, wrote upon it, like a minister of state, "Approved," with
his initial.

Joe's, more technically known as "The Blue Posts," was a celebrated
chop-house in Naseby Street, a large, low-ceilinged, wainscoted room,
with the floor strewn with sawdust, and a hissing kitchen in the
centre, and fitted up with what were called boxes, these being of
various sizes, and suitable to the number of the guests requiring
them. About this time the fashionable coffee-houses, George's and the
Piazza, and even the coffee-rooms of Stevens' or Long's, had begun to
feel the injurious competition of the new clubs that of late years had
been established; but these, after all, were limited, and,
comparatively speaking, exclusive societies. Their influence had not
touched the chop-houses, and it required another quarter of a century
before their cheerful and hospitable roofs and the old taverns of
London, so full, it ever seemed, of merriment and wisdom, yielded to
the gradually increasing but irresistible influence of those
innumerable associations, which, under classic names, or affecting to
be the junior branches of celebrated confederacies, have since secured
to the million, at cost price, all the delicacies of the season, and
substituted for the zealous energy of immortal JOES the inexorable but
frigid discipline of managing committees.

"You are our guest to-day," said Mr. Trenchard to Endymion. "Do not be
embarrassed. It is a custom with us, but not a ruinous one. We dine
off the joint, but the meat is first-rate, and you may have as much as
you like, and our tipple is half-and-half. Perhaps you do not know it.
Let me drink to your health."

They ate most heartily; but when their well-earned meal was
despatched, their conversation, assisted by a moderate portion of some
celebrated toddy, became animated, various, and interesting. Endymion
was highly amused; but being a stranger, and the youngest present, his
silence was not unbecoming, and his manner indicated that it was not
occasioned by want of sympathy. The talk was very political. They were
all what are called Liberals, having all of them received their
appointments since the catastrophe of 1830; but the shades in the
colour of their opinions were various and strong. Jawett was
uncompromising; ruthlessly logical, his principles being clear, he was
for what he called "carrying them out" to their just conclusions.
Trenchard, on the contrary, thought everything ought to be a
compromise, and that a public man ceased to be practical the moment he
was logical. St. Barbe believed that literature and the arts, and
intellect generally, had as little to hope for from one party as from
the other; while Seymour Hicks was of opinion that the Tories never
would rally, owing to their deficiency in social influences. Seymour
Hicks sometimes got an invitation to a ministerial soiree.

The vote of the House of Commons in favour of an appropriation of the
surplus revenues of the Irish Church to the purposes of secular
education--a vote which had just changed the government and expelled
the Tories--was much discussed. Jawett denounced it as a miserable
subterfuge, but with a mildness of manner and a mincing expression,
which amusingly contrasted with the violence of his principles and the
strength of his language.

"The whole of the revenues of the Protestant Church should be at once
appropriated to secular education, or to some other purpose of general
utility," he said. "And it must come to this."

Trenchard thought the ministry had gone as far in this matter as they
well could, and Seymour Hicks remarked that any government which
systematically attacked the Church would have "society" against it.
Endymion, who felt very nervous, but who on Church questions had
strong convictions, ventured to ask why the Church should be deprived
of its property.

"In the case of Ireland," replied Jawett, quite in a tone of
conciliatory condescension, "because it does not fulfil the purpose
for which it was endowed. It has got the property of the nation, and
it is not the Church of the people. But I go further than that. I
would disendow every Church. They are not productive institutions.
There is no reason why they should exist. There is no use in them."

"No use in the Church!" said Endymion, reddening; but Mr. Trenchard,
who had tact, here interfered, and said, "I told you our friend Jawett
is a great Radical; but he is in a minority among us on these matters.
Everybody, however, says what he likes at Joe's."

Then they talked of theatres, and critically discussed the articles in
the daily papers and the last new book, and there was much discussion
respecting a contemplated subscription boat; but still, in general, it
was remarkable how they relapsed into their favourite subject--
speculation upon men in office, both permanent and parliamentary, upon
their characters and capacity, their habits and tempers. One was a
good administrator, another did nothing; one had no detail, another
too much; one was a screw, another a spendthrift; this man could make
a set speech, but could not reply; his rival, capital at a reply but
clumsy in a formal oration.

At this time London was a very dull city, instead of being, as it is
now, a very amusing one. Probably there never was a city in the world,
with so vast a population, which was so melancholy. The aristocracy
probably have always found amusements adapted to the manners of the
time and the age in which they lived. The middle classes, half a
century ago, had little distraction from their monotonous toil and
melancholy anxieties, except, perhaps, what they found in religious
and philanthropic societies. Their general life must have been very
dull. Some traditionary merriment always lingered among the working
classes of England. Both in town and country they had always their
games and fairs and junketing parties, which have developed into
excursion trains and colossal pic-nics. But of all classes of the
community, in the days of our fathers, there was none so unfortunate
in respect of public amusements as the bachelors about town. There
were, one might almost say, only two theatres, and they so huge, that
it was difficult to see or hear in either. Their monopolies, no longer
redeemed by the stately genius of the Kembles, the pathos of Miss
O'Neill, or the fiery passion of Kean, were already menaced, and were
soon about to fall; but the crowd of diminutive but sparkling
substitutes, which have since taken their place, had not yet appeared,
and half-price at Drury Lane or Covent Garden was a dreary distraction
after a morning of desk work. There were no Alhambras then, and no
Cremornes, no palaces of crystal in terraced gardens, no casinos, no
music-halls, no aquaria, no promenade concerts. Evans' existed, but
not in the fulness of its modern development; and the most popular
place of resort was the barbarous conviviality of the Cider Cellar.

Mr. Trenchard had paid the bill, collected his quotas and rewarded the
waiter, and then, as they all rose, said to Endymion, "We are going to
the Divan. Do you smoke?"

Endymion shook his head; but Trenchard added, "Well, you will some
day; but you had better come with us. You need not smoke; you can
order a cup of coffee, and then you may read all the newspapers and
magazines. It is a nice lounge."

So, emerging from Naseby Street into the Strand, they soon entered a
tobacconist's shop, and passing through it were admitted into a
capacious saloon, well lit and fitted up with low, broad sofas, fixed
against the walls, and on which were seated, or reclining, many
persons, chiefly smoking cigars, but some few practising with the
hookah and other oriental modes. In the centre of the room was a table
covered with newspapers and publications of that class. The companions
from Joe's became separated after their entrance, and St. Barbe,
addressing Endymion, said, "I am not inclined to smoke to-day. We will
order some coffee, and you will find some amusement in this;" and he
placed in his hands a number of "SCARAMOUCH."

"I hope you will like your new life," said St. Barbe, throwing down a
review on the Divan, and leaning back sipping his coffee. "One thing
may be said in favour of it: you will work with a body of as true-
hearted comrades as ever existed. They are always ready to assist one.
Thorough good-natured fellows, that I will say for them. I suppose it
is adversity," he continued, "that develops the kindly qualities of
our nature. I believe the sense of common degradation has a tendency
to make the degraded amiable--at least among themselves. I am told it
is found so in the plantations in slave-gangs."

"But I hope we are not a slave-gang," said Endymion.

"It is horrible to think of gentlemen, and men of education, and
perhaps first-rate talents--who knows?--reduced to our straits," said
St. Barbe. "I do not follow Jawett in all his views, for I hate
political economy, and never could understand it; and he gives it you
pure and simple, eh? eh?--but, I say, it is something awful to think
of the incomes that some men are making, who could no more write an
article in 'SCARAMOUCH' than fly."

"But our incomes may improve," said Endymion. "I was told to-day that
promotion was even rapid in our office."

"Our incomes may improve when we are bent and grey," said St. Barbe,
"and we may even retire on a pension about as good as a nobleman
leaves to his valet. Oh, it is a horrid world! Your father is a privy
councillor, is not he?"

"Yes, and so was my grandfather, but I do not think I shall ever be
one."

"It is a great thing to have a father a privy councillor," said St.
Barbe, with a glance of envy. "If I were the son of a privy
councillor, those demons, Shuffle and Screw, would give me 500 pounds
for my novel, which now they put in their beastly magazine and print
in small type, and do not pay me so much as a powdered flunkey has in
St. James' Square. I agree with Jawett: the whole thing is rotten."

"Mr. Jawett seems to have very strange opinions," said Endymion. "I
did not like to hear what he said at dinner about the Church, but Mr.
Trenchard turned the conversation, and I thought it best to let it
pass."

"Trenchard is a sensible man, and a good fellow," said St. Barbe; "you
like him?"

"I find him kind."

"Do you know," said St. Barbe, in a whisper, and with a distressed and
almost vindictive expression of countenance, "that man may come any
day into four thousand a year. There is only one life between him and
the present owner. I believe it is a good life," he added, in a more
cheerful voice, "but still it might happen. Is it not horrible? Four
thousand a year! Trenchard with four thousand a year, and we receiving
little more than the pay of a butler!"

"Well, I wish, for his sake, he might have it," said Endymion, "though
I might lose a kind friend."

"Look at Seymour Hicks," said St. Barbe; "he has smoked his cigar, and
he is going. He never remains. He is going to a party, I'll be found.
That fellow gets about in a most extraordinary manner. Is it not
disgusting? I doubt whether he is asked much to dinner though, or I
think we should have heard of it. Nevertheless, Trenchard said the
other day that Hicks had dined with Lord Cinque-Ports. I can hardly
believe it; it would be too disgusting. No lord ever asked me to
dinner. But the aristocracy of this country are doomed!"

"Mr. Hicks," said Endymion, "probably lays himself out for society."

"I suppose you will," said St. Barbe, with a scrutinising air. "I
should if I were the son of a privy councillor. Hicks is nothing; his
father kept a stable-yard and his mother was an actress. We have had
several dignitaries of the Church in my family and one admiral. And
yet Hicks dines with Lord Cinque-Ports! It is positively revolting!
But the things he does to get asked!--sings, rants, conjures,
ventriloquises, mimics, stands on his head. His great performance is a
parliamentary debate. We will make him do it for you. And yet with all
this a dull dog--a very dull dog, sir. He wrote for 'Scaramouch' some
little time, but they can stand it no more. Between you and me, he has
had notice to quit. That I know; and he will probably get the letter
when he goes home from his party to-night. So much for success in
society! I shall now say good-night to you."



                             CHAPTER XXI

It was only ten o'clock when Endymion returned to Warwick Street, and
for the first time in his life used a pass-key, with which Mr. Rodney
had furnished him in the morning, and re-entered his new home. He
thought he had used it very quietly, and was lighting his candle and
about to steal up to his lofty heights, when from the door of the
parlour, which opened into the passage, emerged Miss Imogene, who took
the candlestick from his hand and insisted on waiting upon him.

"I thought I heard something," she said; "you must let me light you
up, for you can hardly yet know your way. I must see too if all is
right; you may want something."

So she tripped up lightly before him, showing, doubtless without
premeditation, as well-turned an ankle and as pretty a foot as could
fall to a damsel's fortunate lot. "My sister and Mr. Rodney have gone
to the play," she said, "but they left strict instructions with me to
see that you were comfortable, and that you wanted for nothing that we
could supply."

"You are too kind," said Endymion, as she lighted the candles on his
dressing-table, "and, to tell you the truth, these are luxuries I am
not accustomed to, and to which I am not entitled."

"And yet," she said, with a glance of blended admiration and pity,
"they tell me time was when gold was not good enough for you, and I do
not think it could be."

"Such kindness as this," said Endymion, "is more precious than gold."

"I hope you will find your things well arranged. All your clothes are
in these two drawers; the coats in the bottom one, and your linen in
those above. You will not perhaps be able to find your pocket-
handkerchiefs at first. They are in this sachet; my sister made it
herself. Mr. Rodney says you are to be called at eight o'clock and
breakfast at nine. I think everything is right. Good-night, Mr.
Endymion."

The Rodney household was rather a strange one. The first two floors,
as we have mentioned, were let, and at expensive rates, for the
apartments were capacious and capitally furnished, and the situation,
if not distinguished, was extremely convenient--quiet from not being a
thoroughfare, and in the heart of civilisation. They only kept a
couple of servants, but their principal lodgers had their personal
attendants. And yet after sunset the sisters appeared and presided at
their tea-table, always exquisitely dressed; seldom alone, for Mr.
Rodney had many friends, and lived in a capacious apartment, rather
finely furnished, with a round table covered with gaudy print-books, a
mantelpiece crowded with vases of mock Dresden, and a cottage piano,
on which Imogene could accompany her more than pleasing voice.

Somehow or other, the process is difficult to trace, Endymion not
unfrequently found himself at Mrs. Rodney's tea-table. On the first
occasion or so, he felt himself a little shy and embarrassed, but it
soon became natural to him, and he would often escape from the
symposia at Joe's, and, instead of the Divan, find in Warwick Street a
more congenial scene. There were generally some young men there, who
seemed delighted with the ladies, listened with enthusiasm to
Imogene's singing, and were allowed to smoke. They were evidently
gentlemen, and indeed Mr. Rodney casually mentioned to Endymion that
one of the most frequent guests might some day even be a peer of the
realm. Sometimes there was a rubber of whist, and, if wanted, Mrs.
Rodney took a hand in it; Endymion sitting apart and conversing with
her sister, who amused him by her lively observations, indicating even
flashes of culture; but always addressed him without the slightest
pretence and with the utmost naturalness. This was not the case with
Mr. Rodney; pretence with him was ingrained, and he was at first
somewhat embarrassed by the presence of Endymion, as he could hardly
maintain before his late patron's son his favourite character of the
aristocratic victim of revolution. And yet this drawback was more than
counterbalanced by the gratification of his vanity in finding a
Ferrars his habitual guest. Such a luxury seemed a dangerous
indulgence, but he could not resist it, and the moth was always flying
round the candle. There was no danger, however, and that Mr. Rodney
soon found out. Endymion was born with tact, and it came to him as
much from goodness of heart as fineness of taste. Mr. Rodney,
therefore, soon resumed his anecdotes of great men and his personal
experience of their sayings, manners, and customs, with which he was
in the habit of enlivening or ornamenting the whist table;
occasionally introducing Endymion to the notice of the table by
mentioning in a low tone, "That is Mr. Ferrars, in a certain sense
under my care; his father is a privy councillor, and had it not been
for the revolution--for I maintain, and always will, the Reform Bill
was neither more nor less than a revolution--would probably have been
Prime Minister. He was my earliest and my best friend."

When there were cards, there was always a little supper: a lobster and
a roasted potato and that sort of easy thing, and curious drinks,
which the sisters mixed and made, and which no one else, at least all
said so, could mix and make. On fitting occasions a bottle of
champagne appeared, and then the person for whom the wine was produced
was sure with wonderment to say, "Where did you get this champagne,
Rodney? Could you get me some?" Mr. Rodney shook his head and scarcely
gave a hope, but subsequently, when the praise in consequence had
continued and increased, would observe, "Do you really want some? I
cannot promise, but I will try. Of course they will ask a high
figure."

"Anything they like, my dear Rodney."

And in about a week's time the gentleman was so fortunate as to get
his champagne.

There was one subject in which Mr. Rodney appeared to be particularly
interested, and that was racing. The turf at that time had not
developed into that vast institution of national demoralisation which
it now exhibits. That disastrous character may be mainly attributed to
the determination of our legislators to put down gaming-houses, which,
practically speaking, substituted for the pernicious folly of a
comparatively limited class the ruinous madness of the community.
There were many influences by which in the highest classes persons
might be discouraged or deterred from play under a roof; and in the
great majority of cases such a habit was difficult, not to say
impossible, to indulge. But in shutting up gaming-houses, we brought
the gaming-table into the street, and its practices became the pursuit
of those who would otherwise have never witnessed or even thought of
them. No doubt Crockford's had its tragedies, but all its disasters
and calamities together would hardly equal a lustre of the ruthless
havoc which has ensued from its suppression.

Nevertheless, in 1835 men made books, and Mr. Rodney was not inexpert
in a composition which requires no ordinary qualities of character and
intelligence; method, judgment, self-restraint, not too much
imagination, perception of character, and powers of calculation. All
these qualities were now in active demand and exercise; for the Derby
was at hand, and the Rodney family, deeply interested in the result,
were to attend the celebrated festival.

One of the young gentlemen, who sometimes smoked a cigar and sometimes
tasted a lobster in their parlour, and who seemed alike and equally
devoted to Mrs. Rodney and her sister, insisted upon taking them to
Epsom in his drag, and they themselves were to select the party to
accompany them. That was not difficult, for they were naturally all
friends of their munificent host with one exception. Imogene
stipulated that Endymion should be asked, and Mr. Rodney supported the
suggestion. "He is the son of the privy councillor the Right Hon.
William Pitt Ferrars, my earliest and my best friend, and in a certain
sense is under my care."

The drive to the Derby was not then shorn of its humours and glories.
It was the Carnival of England, with equipages as numerous and
various, and with banter not less quick and witty. It was a bright day
--a day, no doubt, of wild hopes and terrible fears, but yet, on the
whole, of joy and exultation. And no one was happier and prouder than
pretty Mrs. Rodney, exquisitely dressed and sitting on the box of a
patrician drag, beside its noble owner. On the seat behind them was
Imogene, with Endymion on one side, and on the other the individual
"who might one day be a peer." Mr. Rodney and some others, including
Mr. Vigo, faced a couple of grooms, who sat with folded arms and
unmoved countenances, fastidiously stolid amid all the fun, and grave
even when they opened the champagne.

The right horse won. Mr. Rodney and his friends pocketed a good stake,
and they demolished their luncheon of luxuries with frantic gaiety.

"It is almost as happy as our little suppers in Warwick Street,"
whispered their noble driver to his companion.

"Oh! much more than anything you can find there," simpered Mrs.
Rodney.

"I declare to you, some of the happiest hours of my life have been
passed in Warwick Street," gravely murmured her friend.

"I wish I could believe that," said Mrs. Rodney.

As for Endymion, he enjoyed himself amazingly. The whole scene was new
to him--he had never been at a race before, and this was the most
famous of races. He did not know he had betted, but he found he too
had won a little money, Mr. Rodney having put him on something, though
what that meant he had not the remotest idea. Imogene, however,
assured him it was all right--Mr. Rodney constantly put her on
something. He enjoyed the luncheon too; the cold chicken, and the
French pies, the wondrous salads, and the iced champagne. It seemed
that Imogene was always taking care that his plate or his glass should
be filled. Everything was delightful, and his noble host, who, always
courteous, had hitherto been reserved, called him "Ferrars."

What with the fineness of the weather, the inspirations of the excited
and countless multitude, the divine stimulus of the luncheon, the
kindness of his charming companions, and the general feeling of
enjoyment and success that seemed to pervade his being, Endymion felt
as he were almost acting a distinguished part in some grand triumph of
antiquity, as returning home, the four splendid dark chestnuts swept
along, two of their gay company playing bugles, and the grooms sitting
with folded arms of haughty indifference.

Just at this moment his eye fell upon an omnibus full, inside and out,
of clerks in his office. There was a momentary stoppage, and while he
returned the salute of several of them, his quick eye could not avoid
recognising the slightly surprised glance of Trenchard, the curious
amazement of Seymour Hicks, and the indignant astonishment of St.
Barbe.

"Our friend Ferrars seems in tiptop company," said Trenchard.

"That may have been a countess on the box," said Seymour Hicks, "for I
observed an earl's coronet on the drag. I cannot make out who it is."

"There is no more advantage in going with four horses than with two,"
said St. Barbe; "indeed, I believe you go slower. It is mere pride;
puffed-up vanity. I should like to send those two grooms with their
folded arms to the galleys--I hate those fellows. For my part, I never
was behind four horses except in a stage-coach. No peer of the realm
ever took me on his drag. However, a day of reckoning will come; the
people won't stand this much longer."

Jawett was not there, for he disapproved of races.



                             CHAPTER XXII

Endymion had to encounter a rather sharp volley when he went to the
office next morning. After some general remarks as to the
distinguished party which he had accompanied to the races, Seymour
Hicks could not resist inquiring, though with some circumlocution,
whether the lady was a countess. The lady was not a countess. Who was
the lady? The lady was Mrs. Rodney. Who was Mrs. Rodney? She was the
wife of Mr. Rodney, who accompanied her. Was Mr. Rodney a relation of
Lord Rodney? Endymion believed he was not a relation of Lord Rodney.
Who was Mr. Rodney then?

"Mr. Rodney is an old friend of my father."

This natural solution of doubts and difficulties arrested all further
inquiry. Generally speaking, the position of Endymion in his new life
was satisfactory. He was regular and assiduous in his attendance at
office, was popular with his comrades, and was cherished by his chief,
who had even invited him to dinner. His duties were certainly at
present mechanical, but they were associated with an interesting
profession; and humble as was his lot, he began to feel the pride of
public life. He continued to be a regular guest at Joe's, and was
careful not to seem to avoid the society of his fellow-clerks in the
evenings, for he had an instinctive feeling that it was as well they
should not become acquainted with his circle in Warwick Street. And
yet to him the attractions of that circle became daily more difficult
to resist. And often when he was enduring the purgatory of the Divan,
listening to the snarls of St. Barbe over the shameful prosperity of
everybody in this world except the snarler, or perhaps went half-price
to the pit of Drury Lane with the critical Trenchard, he was, in
truth, restless and absent, and his mind was in another place,
indulging in visions which he did not care to analyse, but which were
very agreeable.

One evening, shortly after the expedition to Epsom, while the rest
were playing a rubber, Imogene said to him, "I wish you to be friends
with Mr. Vigo; I think he might be of use to you."

Mr. Vigo was playing whist at this moment; his partner was Sylvia, and
they were playing against Mr. Rodney and Waldershare.

Waldershare was a tenant of the second floor. He was the young
gentleman "who might some day be a peer." He was a young man of about
three or four and twenty years; fair, with short curly brown hair and
blue eyes; not exactly handsome, but with a countenance full of
expression, and the index of quick emotions, whether of joy or of
anger. Waldershare was the only child of a younger son of a patrician
house, and had inherited from his father a moderate but easy fortune.
He had been the earliest lodger of the Rodneys, and, taking advantage
of the Tory reaction, had just been returned to the House of Commons.

What he would do there was a subject of interesting speculation to his
numerous friends, and it may be said admirers. Waldershare was one of
those vivid and brilliant organisations which exercise a peculiarly
attractive influence on youth. He had been the hero of the debating
club at Cambridge, and many believed in consequence that he must
become prime minister. He was witty and fanciful, and, though
capricious and bad-tempered, could flatter and caress. At Cambridge he
had introduced the new Oxford heresy, of which Nigel Penruddock was a
votary. Waldershare prayed and fasted, and swore by Laud and
Strafford. He took, however, a more eminent degree at Paris than at
his original Alma Mater, and becoming passionately addicted to French
literature, his views respecting both Church and State became modified
--at least in private. His entrance into English society had been
highly successful, and as he had a due share of vanity, and was by no
means free from worldliness, he had enjoyed and pursued his triumphs.
But his versatile nature, which required not only constant, but novel
excitement, became palled, even with the society of duchesses. There
was a monotony in the splendour of aristocratic life which wearied
him, and for some time he had persuaded himself that the only people
who understood the secret of existence were the family under whose
roof he lodged.

Waldershare was profligate, but sentimental; unprincipled, but
romantic; the child of whim, and the slave of an imagination so
freakish and deceptive, that it was always impossible to foretell his
course. He was alike capable of sacrificing all his feelings to
worldly considerations or of forfeiting the world for a visionary
caprice. At present his favourite scheme, and one to which he seemed
really attached, was to educate Imogene. Under his tuition he had
persuaded himself that she would turn out what he styled "a great
woman." An age of vast change, according to Waldershare, was impending
over us. There was no male career in which one could confide. Most men
of mark would probably be victims, but "a great woman" must always
make her way. Whatever the circumstances, she would adapt herself to
them; if necessary, would mould and fashion them. His dream was that
Imogene should go forth and conquer the world, and that in the sunset
of life he should find a refuge in some corner of her palace.

Imogene was only a child when Waldershare first became a lodger. She
used to bring his breakfast to his drawing-room and arrange his table.
He encountered her one day, and he requested her to remain, and always
preside over his meal. He fell in love with her name, and wrote her a
series of sonnets, idealising her past, panegyrising her present, and
prophetic of her future life. Imogene, who was neither shy nor
obtrusive, was calm amid all his vagaries, humoured his fancies, even
when she did not understand them, and read his verses as she would a
foreign language which she was determined to master.

Her culture, according to Waldershare, was to be carried on chiefly by
conversations. She was not to read, or at least not to read much,
until her taste was formed and she had acquired the due share of
previous knowledge necessary to profitable study. As Waldershare was
eloquent, brilliant, and witty, Imogene listened to him with wondering
interest and amusement, even when she found some difficulty in
following him; but her apprehension was so quick and her tact so fine,
that her progress, though she was almost unconscious of it, was
remarkable. Sometimes in the evening, while the others were smoking
together or playing whist, Waldershare and Imogene, sitting apart,
were engaged in apparently the most interesting converse. It was
impossible not to observe the animation and earnestness of
Waldershare, and the great attention with which his companion
responded to his representations. Yet all this time he was only giving
her a lecture on Madame de Sevigne.

Waldershare used to take Imogene to the National Gallery and Hampton
Court, and other delightful scenes of popular education, but of late
Mrs. Rodney had informed her sister that she was no longer young
enough to permit these expeditions. Imogene accepted the announcement
without a murmur, but it occasioned Waldershare several sonnets of
heartrending remonstrance. Imogene continued, however, to make his
breakfast, and kept his Parliamentary papers in order, which he never
could manage, but the mysteries of which Imogene mastered with
feminine quickness and precision. Whenever Waldershare was away he
always maintained a constant correspondence with Imogene. In this he
communicated everything to her without the slightest reserve;
describing everything he saw, almost everything he heard, pages
teeming with anecdotes of a world of which she could know nothing--the
secrets of courts and coteries, memoirs of princes and ministers, of
dandies and dames of fashion. "If anything happens to me," Waldershare
would say to Imogene, "this correspondence may be worth thousands to
you, and when it is published it will connect your name with mine, and
assist my grand idea of your becoming 'a great woman.'"

"But I do not know Mr. Vigo," whispered Endymion to Imogene.

"But you have met him here, and you went together to Epsom. It is
enough. He is going to ask you to dine with him on Saturday. We shall
be there, and Mr. Waldershare is going. He has a beautiful place, and
it will be very pleasant." And exactly as Imogene had anticipated, Mr.
Vigo, in the course of the evening, did ask Endymion to do him the
honour of being his guest.

The villa of Mr. Vigo was on the banks of the Thames, and had once
belonged to a noble customer. The Palladian mansion contained a suite
of chambers of majestic dimensions--lofty ceilings, rich cornices, and
vast windows of plate glass; the gardens were rich with the products
of conservatories which Mr. Vigo had raised with every modern
improvement, and a group of stately cedars supported the dignity of
the scene and gave to it a name. Beyond, a winding walk encircled a
large field which Mr. Vigo called the park, and which sparkled with
gold and silver pheasants, and the keeper lived in a newly-raised
habitation at the extreme end, which took the form of a Swiss cottage.

The Rodney family, accompanied by Mr. Waldershare and Endymion, went
to the Cedars by water. It was a delightful afternoon of June, the
river warm and still, and the soft, fitful western breeze occasionally
rich with the perfume of the gardens of Putney and Chiswick.
Waldershare talked the whole way. It was a rhapsody of fancy, fun,
knowledge, anecdote, brilliant badinage--even passionate seriousness.
Sometimes he recited poetry, and his voice was musical; and, then,
when he had attuned his companions to a sentimental pitch, he would
break into mockery, and touch with delicate satire every mood of human
feeling. Endymion listened to him in silence and admiration. He had
never heard Waldershare talk before, and he had never heard anybody
like him. All this time, what was now, and ever, remarkable in
Waldershare were his manners. They were finished, even to courtliness.
Affable and winning, he was never familiar. He always addressed Sylvia
as if she were one of those duchesses round whom he used to linger. He
would bow deferentially to her remarks, and elicit from some of her
casual observations an acute or graceful meaning, of which she herself
was by no means conscious. The bow of Waldershare was a study. Its
grace and ceremony must have been organic; for there was no
traditionary type in existence from which he could have derived or
inherited it. He certainly addressed Imogene and spoke to her by her
Christian name; but this was partly because he was in love with the
name, and partly because he would persist in still treating her as a
child. But his manner to her always was that of tender respect. She
was almost as silent as Endymion during their voyage, but not less
attentive to her friend. Mr. Rodney was generally silent, and never
opened his mouth on this occasion except in answer to an inquiry from
his wife as to whom a villa might belong, and it seemed always that he
knew every villa, and every one to whom they belonged.

The sisters were in demi-toilette, which seemed artless, though in
fact it was profoundly devised. Sylvia was the only person who really
understood the meaning of "simplex munditiis," and this was one of the
secrets of her success. There were some ladies, on the lawn of the
Cedars when they arrived, not exactly of their school, and who were
finely and fully dressed. Mrs. Gamme was the wife of a sporting
attorney of Mr. Vigo, and who also, having a villa at hand, was looked
upon as a country neighbour. Mrs. Gamme was universally recognised to
be a fine woman, and she dressed up to her reputation. She was a
famous whist-player at high points, and dealt the cards with hands
covered with diamond rings. Another country neighbour was the chief
partner in the celebrated firm of Hooghley, Dacca, and Co., dealers in
Indian and other shawls. Mr. Hooghley had married a celebrated
actress, and was proud and a little jealous of his wife. Mrs. Hooghley
had always an opportunity at the Cedars of meeting some friends in her
former profession, for Mr. Vigo liked to be surrounded by genius and
art. "I must have talent," he would exclaim, as he looked round at the
amusing and motley multitude assembled at his splendid entertainments.
And to-day upon his lawn might be observed the first tenor of the
opera and a prima-donna who had just arrived, several celebrated
members of the English stage of both sexes, artists of great
reputation, whose principal works already adorned the well-selected
walls of the Cedars, a danseuse or two of celebrity, some literary
men, as Mr. Vigo styled them, who were chiefly brethren of the
political press, and more than one member of either House of
Parliament.

Just as the party were preparing to leave the lawn and enter the
dining-room arrived, breathless and glowing, the young earl who had
driven the Rodneys to the Derby.

"A shaver, my dear Vigo! Only returned to town this afternoon, and
found your invitation. How fortunate!" And then he looked around, and
recognising Mrs. Rodney, was immediately at her side. "I must have the
honour of taking you into dinner. I got your note, but only by this
morning's post."

The dinner was a banquet,--a choice bouquet before every guest, turtle
and venison and piles of whitebait, and pine-apples of prodigious
size, and bunches of grapes that had gained prizes. The champagne
seemed to flow in fountains, and was only interrupted that the guests
might quaff Burgundy or taste Tokay. But what was more delightful than
all was the enjoyment of all present, and especially of their host.
That is a rare sight. Banquets are not rare, nor choice guests, nor
gracious hosts; but when do we ever see a person enjoy anything? But
these gay children of art and whim, and successful labour and happy
speculation, some of them very rich and some of them without a sou,
seemed only to think of the festive hour and all its joys. Neither
wealth nor poverty brought them cares. Every face sparkled, every word
seemed witty, and every sound seemed sweet. A band played upon the
lawn during the dinner, and were succeeded, when the dessert
commenced, by strange choruses from singers of some foreign land, who
for the first time aired their picturesque costumes on the banks of
the Thames.

When the ladies had withdrawn to the saloon, the first comic singer of
the age excelled himself; and when they rejoined their fair friends,
the primo-tenore and the prima-donna gave them a grand scene,
succeeded by the English performers in a favourite scene from a famous
farce. Then Mrs. Gamme had an opportunity of dealing with her diamond
rings, and the rest danced--a waltz of whirling grace, or merry
cotillon of jocund bouquets.

"Well, Clarence," said Waldershare to the young earl, as they stood
for a moment apart, "was I right?"

"By Jove! yes. It is the only life. You were quite right. We should
indeed be fools to sacrifice ourselves to the conventional."

The Rodney party returned home in the drag of the last speaker. They
were the last to retire, as Mr. Vigo wished for one cigar with his
noble friend. As he bade farewell, and cordially, to Endymion, he
said, "Call on me to-morrow morning in Burlington Street in your way
to your office. Do not mind the hour. I am an early bird."



                            CHAPTER XXIII

"It is no favour," said Mr. Vigo; "it is not even an act of
friendliness; it is a freak, and it is my freak; the favour, if there
be one, is conferred by you."

"But I really do not know what to say," said Endymion, hesitating and
confused.

"I am not a classical scholar," said Mr. Vigo, "but there are two
things which I think I understand--men and horses. I like to back them
both when I think they ought to win."

"But I am scarcely a man," said Endymion, rather piteously, "and I
sometimes think I shall never win anything."

"That is my affair," replied Mr. Vigo; "you are a yearling, and I have
formed my judgment as to your capacity. What I wish to do in your case
is what I have done in others, and some memorable ones. Dress does not
make a man, but it often makes a successful one. The most precious
stone, you know, must be cut and polished. I shall enter your name in
my books for an unlimited credit, and no account to be settled till
you are a privy councillor. I do not limit the credit, because you are
a man of sense and a gentleman, and will not abuse it. But be quite as
careful not to stint yourself as not to be needlessly extravagant. In
the first instance, you would be interfering with my experiment, and
that would not be fair."

This conversation took place in Mr. Vigo's counting-house the morning
after the entertainment at his villa. Endymion called upon Mr. Vigo in
his way to his office, as he had been requested to do, and Mr. Vigo
had expressed his wishes and intentions with regard to Endymion, as
intimated in the preceding remarks.

"I have known many an heiress lost by her suitor being ill-dressed,"
said Mr. Vigo. "You must dress according to your age, your pursuits,
your object in life; you must dress too, in some cases, according to
your set. In youth a little fancy is rather expected, but if political
life be your object, it should be avoided, at least after one-and-
twenty. I am dressing two brothers now, men of considerable position;
one is a mere man of pleasure, the other will probably be a minister
of state. They are as like as two peas, but were I to dress the dandy
and the minister the same, it would be bad taste--it would be
ridiculous. No man gives me the trouble which Lord Eglantine does; he
has not made up his mind whether he will be a great poet or prime
minister. 'You must choose, my lord,' I tell him. 'I cannot send you
out looking like Lord Byron if you mean to be a Canning or a Pitt.' I
have dressed a great many of our statesmen and orators, and I always
dressed them according to their style and the nature of their duties.
What all men should avoid is the 'shabby genteel.' No man ever gets
over it. I will save you from that. You had better be in rags."



                             CHAPTER XXIV

When the twins had separated, they had resolved on a system of
communication which had been, at least on the part of Myra,
scrupulously maintained. They were to interchange letters every week,
and each letter was to assume, if possible, the shape of a journal, so
that when they again met no portion of the interval should be a blank
in their past lives. There were few incidents in the existence of
Myra; a book, a walk, a visit to the rectory, were among the chief.
The occupations of their father were unchanged, and his health seemed
sustained, but that of her mother was not satisfactory. Mrs. Ferrars
had never rallied since the last discomfiture of her political hopes,
and had never resumed her previous tenour of life. She was secluded,
her spirits uncertain, moods of depression succeeded by fits of
unaccountable excitement, and, on the whole, Myra feared a general and
chronic disturbance of her nervous system. His sister prepared
Endymion for encountering a great change in their parent when he
returned home. Myra, however, never expatiated on the affairs of
Hurstley. Her annals in this respect were somewhat dry. She fulfilled
her promise of recording them, but no more. Her pen was fuller and
more eloquent in her comments on the life of her brother, and of the
new characters with whom he had become acquainted. She delighted to
hear about Mr. Jawett, and especially about Mr. St. Barbe, and was
much pleased that he had been to the Derby, though she did not exactly
collect who were his companions. Did he go with that kind Mr.
Trenchant? It would seem that Endymion's account of the Rodney family
had been limited to vague though earnest acknowledgments of their
great civility and attention, which added much to the comfort of his
life. Impelled by some of these grateful though general remarks, Mrs.
Ferrars, in a paroxysm of stately gratitude, had sent a missive to
Sylvia, such as a sovereign might address to a deserving subject, at
the same time acknowledging and commending her duteous services. Such
was the old domestic superstition of the Rodneys, that, with all their
worldliness, they treasured this effusion as if it had really emanated
from the centre of power and courtly favour.

Myra, in her anticipation of speedily meeting her brother, was doomed
to disappointment. She had counted on Endymion obtaining some holidays
in the usual recess, but in consequence of having so recently joined
the office, Endymion was retained for summer and autumnal work, and
not until Christmas was there any prospect of his returning home.

The interval between midsummer and that period, though not devoid of
seasons of monotony and loneliness, passed in a way not altogether
unprofitable to Endymion. Waldershare, who had begun to notice him,
seemed to become interested in his career. Waldershare knew all about
his historic ancestor, Endymion Carey. The bubbling imagination of
Waldershare clustered with a sort of wild fascination round a living
link with the age of the cavaliers. He had some Stuart blood in his
veins, and his ancestors had fallen at Edgehill and Marston Moor.
Waldershare, whose fancies alternated between Stafford and St. Just,
Archbishop Laud and the Goddess of Reason, reverted for the moment to
his visions on the banks of the Cam, and the brilliant rhapsodies of
his boyhood. His converse with Nigel Penruddock had prepared Endymion
in some degree for these mysteries, and perhaps it was because
Waldershare found that Endymion was by no means ill-informed on these
matters, and therefore there was less opportunity of dazzling and
moulding him, which was a passion with Waldershare, that he soon
quitted the Great Rebellion for pastures new, and impressed upon his
pupil that all that had occurred before the French Revolution was
ancient history. The French Revolution had introduced the cosmopolitan
principle into human affairs instead of the national, and no public
man could succeed who did not comprehend and acknowledge that truth.
Waldershare lent Endymion books, and book with which otherwise he
would not have become acquainted. Unconsciously to himself, the talk
of Waldershare, teeming with knowledge, and fancy, and playfulness,
and airy sarcasm of life, taught him something of the art of
conversation--to be prompt without being stubborn, to refute without
argument, and to clothe grave matters in a motley garb.

But in August Waldershare disappeared, and at the beginning of
September, even the Rodneys had gone to Margate. St. Barbe was the
only clerk left in Endymion's room. They dined together almost every
day, and went on the top of an omnibus to many a suburban paradise. "I
tell you what," said St. Barbe, as they were watching one day together
the humours of the world in the crowded tea-garden and bustling
bowling-green of Canonbury Tavern; "a fellow might get a good chapter
out of this scene. I could do it, but I will not. What is the use of
lavishing one's brains on an ungrateful world? Why, if that fellow
Gushy were to write a description of this place, which he would do
like a penny-a-liner drunk with ginger beer, every countess in Mayfair
would be reading him, not knowing, the idiot, whether she ought to
smile or shed tears, and sending him cards with 'at home' upon them as
large as life. Oh! it is disgusting! absolutely disgusting. It is a
nefarious world, sir. You will find it out some day. I am as much
robbed by that fellow Gushy as men are on the highway. He is
appropriating my income, and the income of thousands of honest
fellows. And then he pretends he is writing for the people! The
people! What does he know about the people? Annals of the New Cut and
Saffron Hill. He thinks he will frighten some lord, who will ask him
to dinner. And that he calls Progress. I hardly know which is the
worst class in this country--the aristocracy, the middle class, or
what they call the people. I hate them all."

About the fall of the leaf the offices were all filled again, and
among the rest Trenchard returned. "His brother has been ill," said
St. Barbe. "They say that Trenchard is very fond of him. Fond of a
brother who keeps him out of four thousand pounds per annum! What will
man not say? And yet I could not go and congratulate Trenchard on his
brother's death. It would be 'bad taste.' Trenchard would perhaps
never speak to me again, though he had been lying awake all night
chuckling over the event. And Gushy takes an amiable view of this
world of hypocrisy and plunder. And that is why Gushy is so popular!"

There was one incident at the beginning of November, which eventually
exercised no mean influence on the life of Endymion. Trenchard offered
one evening to introduce him as a guest to a celebrated debating
society, of which Trenchard was a distinguished member. This society
had grown out of the Union at Cambridge, and was originally intended
to have been a metropolitan branch of that famous association. But in
process of time it was found that such a constitution was too limited
to ensure those numbers and that variety of mind desirable in such an
institution. It was therefore opened to the whole world duly
qualified. The predominant element, however, for a long time consisted
of Cambridge men.

This society used to meet in a large room, fitted up as much like the
House of Commons as possible, and which was in Freemason's Tavern, in
Great Queen Street. Some hundred and fifty members were present when
Endymion paid his first visit there, and the scene to Endymion was
novel and deeply interesting. Though only a guest, he was permitted to
sit in the body of the chamber, by the side of Trenchard, who kindly
gave him some information, as the proceedings advanced, as to the
principal personages who took part in them,

The question to-night was, whether the decapitation of Charles the
First were a justifiable act, and the debate was opened in the
affirmative by a young man with a singularly sunny face and a voice of
music. His statement was clear and calm. Though nothing could be more
uncompromising than his opinions, it seemed that nothing could be
fairer than his facts.

"That is Hortensius," said Trenchard; "he will be called this term.
They say he did nothing at the university, and is too idle to do
anything at the bar; but I think highly of him. You should hear him in
reply."

The opening speech was seconded by a very young man, in a most
artificial style, remarkable for its superfluity of intended sarcasm,
which was delivered in a highly elaborate tone, so that the speaker
seemed severe without being keen.

"'Tis the new Cambridge style," whispered Trenchard, "but it will not
go down here."

The question having been launched, Spruce arose, a very neat speaker;
a little too mechanical, but plausible. Endymion was astonished at the
dexterous turns in his own favour which he gave to many of the
statements of Hortensius, and how he mangled and massacred the
seconder, who had made a mistake in a date.

"He is the Tory leader," said Trenchard. "There are not twenty Tories
in our Union, but we always listen to him. He is sharp, Jawett will
answer him."

And, accordingly, that great man rose. Jawett, in dulcet tones of
philanthropy, intimated that he was not opposed to the decapitation of
kings; on the contrary, if there were no other way of getting rid of
them, he would have recourse to such a method. But he did not think
the case before them was justifiable.

"Always crotchety," whispered Trenchard.

Jawett thought the whole conception of the opening speech erroneous.
It proceeded on the assumption that the execution of Charles was the
act of the people; on the contrary, it was an intrigue of Cromwell,
who was the only person who profited by it.

Cromwell was vindicated and panegyrised in a flaming speech by
Montreal, who took this opportunity of denouncing alike kings and
bishops, Church and State, with powerful invective, terminating his
address by the expression of an earnest hope that he might be spared
to witness the inevitable Commonwealth of England.

"He only lost his election for Rattleton by ten votes," said
Trenchard. "We call him the Lord Protector, and his friends here think
he will be so."

The debate was concluded, after another hour, by Hortensius, and
Endymion was struck by the contrast between his first and second
manner. Safe from reply, and reckless in his security, it is not easy
to describe the audacity of his retorts, or the tumult of his
eloquence. Rapid, sarcastic, humorous, picturesque, impassioned, he
seemed to carry everything before him, and to resemble his former self
in nothing but the music of his voice, which lent melody to scorn, and
sometimes reached the depth of pathos.

Endymion walked home with Mr. Trenchard, and in a musing mood. "I
should not care how lazy I was," said Endymion, "if I could speak like
Hortensius."



                             CHAPTER XXV

The snow was falling about the time when the Swindon coach, in which
Endymion was a passenger, was expected at Hurstley, and the snow had
been falling all day. Nothing had been more dreary than the outward
world, or less entitled to the merry epithet which is the privilege of
the season. The gardener had been despatched to the village inn, where
the coach stopped, with a lantern and cloaks and umbrellas. Within the
house the huge blocks of smouldering beech sent forth a hospitable
heat, and, whenever there was a sound, Myra threw cones on the
inflamed mass, that Endymion might be welcomed with a blaze. Mrs.
Ferrars, who had appeared to-day, though late, and had been very
nervous and excited, broke down half an hour before her son could
arrive, and, murmuring that she would reappear, had retired. Her
husband was apparently reading, but his eye wandered and his mind was
absent from the volume.

The dogs barked, Mr. Ferrars threw down his book, Myra forgot her
cones; the door burst open, and she was in her brother's arms.

"And where is mamma?" said Endymion, after he had greeted his father.

"She will be here directly," said Mr. Ferrars. "You are late, and the
suspense of your arrival a little agitated her."

Three quarters of a year had elapsed since the twins had parted, and
they were at that period of life when such an interval often produces
no slight changes in personal appearance. Endymion, always tall for
his years, had considerably grown; his air, and manner, and dress were
distinguished. But three quarters of a year had produced a still
greater effect upon his sister. He had left her a beautiful girl: her
beauty was not less striking, but it was now the beauty of a woman.
Her mien was radiant but commanding, and her brow, always remarkable,
was singularly impressive.

They stood in animated converse before the fire, Endymion between his
father and his sister and retaining of each a hand, when Mr. Ferrars
nodded to Myra and said, "I think now;" and Myra, not reluctantly, but
not with happy eagerness, left the room.

"She is gone for your poor mother," said Mr. Ferrars; "we are uneasy
about her, my dear boy."

Myra was some time away, and when she returned, she was alone. "She
says she must see him first in her room," said Myra, in a low voice,
to her father; "but that will never do; you or I must go with him."

"You had better go," said Mr. Ferrars.

She took her brother's hand and led him away. "I go with you, to
prevent dreadful scenes," said his sister on the staircase. "Try to
behave just as in old times, and as if you saw no change."

Myra went into the chamber first, to give to her mother, if possible,
the keynote of the interview, and of which she had already furnished
the prelude. "We are all so happy to see Endymion again, dear mamma.
Papa is quite gay."

And then when Endymion, answering his sister's beckon, entered, Mrs.
Ferrars rushed forward with a sort of laugh, and cried out, "Oh! I am
so happy to see you again, my child. I feel quite gay."

He embraced her, but he could not believe it was his mother. A visage
at once haggard and bloated had supplanted that soft and rich
countenance which had captivated so many. A robe concealed her
attenuated frame; but the lustrous eyes were bleared and bloodshot,
and the accents of the voice, which used to be at once melodious and a
little drawling, hoarse, harsh, and hurried.

She never stopped talking; but it was all in one key, and that the
prescribed one--her happiness at his arrival, the universal gaiety it
had produced, and the merry Christmas they were to keep. After a time
she began to recur to the past, and to sigh; but instantly Myra
interfered with "You know, mamma, you are to dine downstairs to-day,
and you will hardly have time to dress;" and she motioned to Endymion
to retire.

Mrs. Ferrars kept the dinner waiting a long time, and, when she
entered the room, it was evident that she was painfully excited. She
had a cap on, and had used some rouge.

"Endymion must take me in to dinner," she hurriedly exclaimed as she
entered, and then grasped her son's arm.

It seemed a happy and even a merry dinner, and yet there was something
about it forced and constrained. Mrs. Ferrars talked a great deal, and
Endymion told them a great many anecdotes of those men and things
which most interested them, and Myra seemed to be absorbed in his
remarks and narratives, and his mother would drink his health more
than once, when suddenly she went into hysterics, and all was anarchy.
Mr. Ferrars looked distressed and infinitely sad; and Myra, putting
her arm round her mother, and whispering words of calm or comfort,
managed to lead her out of the room, and neither of them returned.

"Poor creature!" said Mr. Ferrars, with a sigh. "Seeing you has been
too much for her."

The next morning Endymion and his sister paid a visit to the rectory,
and there they met Nigel, who was passing his Christmas at home. This
was a happy meeting. The rector had written an essay on squirrels, and
showed them a glass containing that sportive little animal in all its
frolic forms. Farmer Thornberry had ordered a path to be cleared on
the green from the hall to the rectory; and "that is all," said Mrs.
Penruddock, "we have to walk upon, except the high road. The snow has
drifted to such a degree that it is impossible to get to the Chase. I
went out the day before yesterday with Carlo as a guide. When I did
not clearly make out my way, I sent him forward, and sometimes I could
only see his black head emerging from the snow. So I had to retreat."

Mrs. Ferrars did not appear this day. Endymion visited her in her
room. He found her flighty and incoherent. She seemed to think that he
had returned permanently to Hurstley, and said she never had any good
opinion of the scheme of his leaving them. If it had been the Foreign
Office, as was promised, and his father had been in the Cabinet, which
was his right, it might have been all very well. But, if he were to
leave home, he ought to have gone into the Guards, and it was not too
late. And then they might live in a small house in town, and look
after him. There were small houses in Wilton Crescent, which would do
very well. Besides, she herself wanted change of air. Hurstley did not
agree with her. She had no appetite. She never was well except in
London, or Wimbledon. She wished that, as Endymion was here, he would
speak to his father on the subject. She saw no reason why they should
not live at their place at Wimbledon as well as here. It was not so
large a house, and, therefore, would not be so expensive.

Endymion's holiday was only to last a week, and Myra seemed jealous of
his sparing any portion of it to Nigel; yet the rector's son was
sedulous in his endeavours to enjoy the society of his former
companion. There seemed some reason for his calling at the hall every
day. Mr. Ferrars broke through his habits, and invited Nigel to dine
with them; and after dinner, saying that he would visit Mrs. Ferrars,
who was unwell, left them alone. It was the only time they had yet
been alone. Endymion found that there was no change in the feelings
and views of Nigel respecting Church matters, except that his
sentiments and opinions were more assured, and, if possible, more
advanced. He would not tolerate any reference to the state of the
nation; it was the state of the Church which engrossed his being. No
government was endurable that was not divine. The Church was divine,
and on that he took his stand.

Nigel was to take his degree next term, and orders as soon as
possible. He looked forward with confidence, after doubtless a period
of disturbance, confusion, probably violence, and even anarchy, to the
establishment of an ecclesiastical polity that would be catholic
throughout the realm. Endymion just intimated the very contrary
opinions that Jawett held upon these matters, and mentioned, though
not as an adherent, some of the cosmopolitan sentiments of
Waldershare.

"The Church is cosmopolitan," said Nigel; "the only practicable means
by which you can attain to identity of motive and action."

Then they rejoined Myra, but Nigel soon returned to the absorbing
theme. His powers had much developed since he and Endymion used to
wander together over Hurstley Chase. He had great eloquence, his views
were startling and commanding, and his expressions forcible and
picturesque. All was heightened, too, by his striking personal
appearance and the beauty of his voice. He seemed something between a
young prophet and an inquisitor; a remarkable blending of enthusiasm
and self-control.

A person more experienced in human nature than Endymion might have
observed, that all this time, while Nigel was to all appearance
chiefly addressing himself to Endymion, he was, in fact, endeavouring
to impress his sister. Endymion knew, from the correspondence of Myra,
that Nigel had been, especially in the summer, much at Hurstley; and
when he was alone with his sister, he could not help remarking, "Nigel
is as strong as ever in his views."

"Yes," she replied; "he is very clever and very good-looking. It is a
pity he is going into the Church. I do not like clergymen."

On the third day of the visit, Mrs. Ferrars was announced to be
unwell, and in the evening very unwell; and Mr. Ferrars sent to the
nearest medical man, and he was distant, to attend her. The medical
man did not arrive until past midnight, and, after visiting his
patient, looked grave. She had fever, but of what character it was
difficult to decide. The medical man had brought some remedies with
him, and he stayed the night at the hall. It was a night of anxiety
and alarm, and the household did not retire until nearly the break of
dawn.

The next day it seemed that the whole of the Penruddock family were in
the house. Mrs. Penruddock insisted on nursing Mrs. Ferrars, and her
husband looked as if he thought he might be wanted. It was
unreasonable that Nigel should be left alone. His presence, always
pleasing, was a relief to an anxious family, and who were beginning to
get alarmed. The fever did not subside. On the contrary, it increased,
and there were other dangerous symptoms. There was a physician of fame
at Oxford, whom Nigel wished they would call in. Matters were too
pressing to wait for the posts, and too complicated to trust to an
ordinary messenger. Nigel, who was always well mounted, was in his
saddle in an instant. He seemed to be all resource, consolation, and
energy: "If I am fortunate, he will be here in four hours; at all
events, I will not return alone."

Four terrible hours were these: Mr. Ferrars, restless and sad, and
listening with a vacant air or an absent look to the kind and
unceasing talk of the rector; Myra, silent in her mother's chamber;
and Endymion, wandering about alone with his eyes full of tears. This
was the Merrie Christmas he had talked of, and this his long-looked-
for holiday. He could think of nothing but his mother's kindness; and
the days gone by, when she was so bright and happy, came back to him
with painful vividness. It seemed to him that he belonged to a doomed
and unhappy family. Youth and its unconscious mood had hitherto driven
this thought from his mind; but it occurred to him now, and would not
be driven away.

Nigel was fortunate. Before sunset he returned to Hurstley in a
postchaise with the Oxford physician, whom he had furnished with an
able and accurate diagnosis of the case. All that art could devise,
and all that devotion could suggest, were lavished on the sufferer,
but in vain; and four days afterwards, the last day of Endymion's
long-awaited holiday, Mr. Ferrars closed for ever the eyes of that
brilliant being, who, with some weaknesses, but many noble qualities,
had shared with no unequal spirit the splendour and the adversity of
his existence.



                             CHAPTER XXVI

Nigel took a high degree and obtained first-class honours. He was
ordained by the bishop of the diocese as soon after as possible. His
companions, who looked up to him with every expectation of his
eminence and influence, were disappointed, however, in the course of
life on which he decided. It was different from that which he had led
them to suppose it would be. They had counted on his becoming a
resident light of the University, filling its highest offices, and
ultimately reaching the loftiest stations in the Church. Instead of
that he announced that he had resolved to become a curate to his
father, and that he was about to bury himself in the solitude of
Hurstley.

It was in the early summer following the death of Mrs. Ferrars that he
settled there. He was frequently at the hall, and became intimate with
Mr. Ferrars. Notwithstanding the difference of age, there was between
them a sympathy of knowledge and thought. In spite of his decided
mind, Nigel listened to Mr. Ferrars with deference, soliciting his
judgment, and hanging, as it were, on his accents of wise experience
and refined taste. So Nigel became a favourite with Mr. Ferrars; for
there are few things more flattering than the graceful submission of
an accomplished intellect, and, when accompanied by youth, the spell
is sometimes fascinating.

The death of his wife seemed to have been a great blow to Mr. Ferrars.
The expression of his careworn, yet still handsome, countenance
became, if possible, more saddened. It was with difficulty that his
daughter could induce him to take exercise, and he had lost altogether
that seeming interest in their outer world which once at least he
affected to feel. Myra, though ever content to be alone, had given up
herself much to her father since his great sorrow; but she felt that
her efforts to distract him from his broodings were not eminently
successful, and she hailed with a feeling of relief the establishment
of Nigel in the parish, and the consequent intimacy that arose between
him and her father.

Nigel and Myra were necessarily under these circumstances thrown much
together. As time advanced he passed his evenings generally at the
hall, for he was a proficient in the only game which interested Mr.
Ferrars, and that was chess. Reading and writing all day, Mr. Ferrars
required some remission of attention, and his relaxation was chess.
Before the games, and between the games, and during delightful tea-
time, and for the happy quarter of an hour which ensued when the chief
employment of the evening ceased, Nigel appealed much to Myra, and
endeavoured to draw out her mind and feelings. He lent her books, and
books that favoured, indirectly at least, his own peculiar views--
volumes of divine poesy that had none of the twang of psalmody, tales
of tender and sometimes wild and brilliant fancy, but ever full of
symbolic truth.

Chess-playing requires complete abstraction, and Nigel, though he was
a double first, occasionally lost a game from a lapse in that
condensed attention that secures triumph. The fact is, he was too
frequently thinking of something else besides the moves on the board,
and his ear was engaged while his eye wandered, if Myra chanced to
rise from her seat or make the slightest observation.

The woods were beginning to assume the first fair livery of autumn,
when it is beautiful without decay. The lime and the larch had not yet
dropped a golden leaf, and the burnished beeches flamed in the sun.
Every now and then an occasional oak or elm rose, still as full of
deep green foliage as if it were midsummer; while the dark verdure of
the pines sprang up with effective contrast amid the gleaming and
resplendent chestnuts.

There was a glade at Hurstley, bounded on each side with masses of
yew, their dark green forms now studded with crimson berries. Myra was
walking one morning in this glade when she met Nigel, who was on one
of his daily pilgrimages, and he turned round and walked by her side.

"I am sure I cannot give you news of your brother," he said, "but I
have had a letter this morning from Endymion. He seems to take great
interest in his debating club."

"I am so glad he has become a member of it," said Myra. "That kind Mr.
Trenchard, whom I shall never see to thank him for all his goodness to
Endymion, proposed him. It occupies his evenings twice a week, and
then it gives him subjects to think of and read up in the interval."

"Yes; it is a good thing," said Nigel moodily; "and if he is destined
for public life, which perhaps he may be, no contemptible discipline."

"Dear boy!" said Myra, with a sigh. "I do not see what public life he
is destined to, except slaving at a desk. But sometimes one has
dreams."

"Yes; we all have dreams," said Nigel, with an air of abstraction.

"It is impossible to resist the fascination of a fine autumnal morn,"
said Myra; "but give me the long days of summer and its rich leafy
joys. I like to wander about, and dine at nine o'clock."

"Delightful, doubtless, with a sympathising companion."

"Endymion was such a charming companion," said Myra.

"But he has left us," said Nigel; "and you are alone."

"I am alone," said Myra; "but I am used to solitude, and I can think
of him."

"Would I were Endymion," said Nigel, "to be thought of by you!"

Myra looked at him with something of a stare; but he continued--

"All seasons would be to me fascination, were I only by your side.
Yes; I can no longer repress the irresistible confusion of my love. I
am here, and I am here only, because I love you. I quitted Oxford and
all its pride that I might have the occasional delight of being your
companion. I was not presumptuous in my thoughts, and believed that
would content me; but I can no longer resist the consummate spell, and
I offer you my heart and my life."

"I am amazed; I am a little overwhelmed," said Myra. "Pardon me, dear
Mr. Penruddock--dear Nigel--you speak of things of which I have not
thought."

"Think of them! I implore you to think of them, and now!"

"We are a fallen family," said Myra, "perhaps a doomed one. We are not
people to connect yourself with. You have witnessed some of our
sorrows, and soothed them. I shall be ever grateful to you for the
past. But I sometimes feel our cup is not yet full, and I have long
resolved to bear my cross alone. But, irrespective of all other
considerations, I can never leave my father."

"I have spoken to your father," said Nigel, "and he approved my suit."

"While my father lives I shall not quit him," said Myra; "but, let me
not mislead you, I do not live for my father--I live for another."

"For another?" inquired Nigel, with anxiety.

"For one you know. My life is devoted to Endymion. There is a mystic
bond between us, originating, perhaps, in the circumstance of our
birth; for we are twins. I never mean to embarrass him with a sister's
love, and perhaps hereafter may see less of him even than I see now;
but I shall be in the world, whatever be my lot, high or low--the
active, stirring world--working for him, thinking only of him. Yes;
moulding events and circumstances in his favour;" and she spoke with
fiery animation. "I have brought myself, by long meditation, to the
conviction that a human being with a settled purpose must accomplish
it, and that nothing can resist a will that will stake even existence
for its fulfilment."



                            CHAPTER XXVII

Endymion had returned to his labours, after the death of his mother,
much dispirited. Though young and hopeful, his tender heart could not
be insensible to the tragic end. There is anguish in the recollection
that we have not adequately appreciated the affection of those whom we
have loved and lost. It tortured him to feel that he had often
accepted with carelessness or indifference the homage of a heart that
had been to him ever faithful in its multiplied devotion. Then, though
he was not of a melancholy and brooding nature, in this moment of
bereavement he could not drive from his mind the consciousness that
there had long been hanging over his home a dark lot, as it were, of
progressive adversity. His family seemed always sinking, and he felt
conscious how the sanguine spirit of his mother had sustained them in
their trials. His father had already made him the depositary of his
hopeless cares; and if anything happened to that father, old and worn
out before his time, what would become of Myra?

Nigel, who in their great calamity seemed to have thought of
everything, and to have done everything, had written to the chief of
his office, and also to Mr. Trenchard, explaining the cause of the
absence of Endymion from his duties. There were no explanations,
therefore, necessary when he reappeared; no complaints, but only
sympathy and general kindness. In Warwick Street there was unaffected
sorrow; Sylvia wept and went into the prettiest mourning for her
patroness, and Mr. Rodney wore a crape on his hat. "I never saw her,"
said Imogene, "but I am told she was heavenly."

Waldershare was very kind to Endymion, and used to take him to the
House of Commons on interesting evenings, and, if he succeeded in
getting Endymion a place under the gallery, would come and talk to him
in the course of the night, and sometimes introduce him to the
mysteries of Bellamy's, where Endymion had the satisfaction of
partaking of a steak in the presence of statesmen and senators.

"You are in the precincts of public life," said Waldershare; "and if
you ever enter it, which I think you will," he would add thoughtfully,
"it will be interesting for you to remember that you have seen these
characters, many of whom will then have passed away. Like the shades
of a magic lantern," he added, with something between a sigh and a
smile. "One of my constituents send me a homily this morning, the
burthen of which was, I never thought of death. The idiot! I never
think of anything else. It is my weakness. One should never think of
death. One should think of life. That is real piety."

This spring and summer were passed tranquilly by Endymion, but not
unprofitably. He never went to any place of public amusement, and,
cherishing his sorrow, declined those slight openings to social life
which occasionally offered themselves even to him; but he attended his
debating club with regularity, and, though silent, studied every
subject which was brought before it. It interested him to compare
their sayings and doings with those of the House of Commons, and he
found advantage in the critical comparison. Though not in what is
styled society, his mind did not rust from the want of intelligent
companions. The clear perception, accurate knowledge, and unerring
judgment of Trenchard, the fantastic cynicism of St. Barbe, and all
the stores of the exuberant and imaginative Waldershare, were brought
to bear on a young and plastic intelligence, gifted with a quick
though not a too profound sensibility which soon ripened into tact,
and which, after due discrimination, was tenacious of beneficial
impressions.

In the autumn, Endymion returned home for a long visit and a happy
one. He found Nigel settled at Hurstley, and almost domesticated at
the hall; his father more cheerful than his sister's earlier letters
had led him to suppose; and she herself so delighted by the constant
companionship of her brother that she seemed to have resumed all her
original pride of life.

Nearly two years' acquaintance, however limited, with the world, had
already exercised a ripening influence over Endymion. Nigel soon
perceived this, though, with a native tact which circumstances had
developed, Endymion avoided obtruding his new conclusions upon his
former instructor. But that deep and eager spirit, unwilling ever to
let a votary escape, and absorbed intellectually by one vast idea,
would not be baffled. Nigel had not renounced the early view of
Endymion taking orders, and spoke of his London life as an incident
which, with his youth, he might in time only look upon as an episode
in his existence.

"I trust I shall ever be a devoted son of the Church," said Endymion;
"but I confess I feel no predisposition to take orders, even if I had
the opportunity, which probably I never shall have. If I were to
choose my career it would be public life. I am on the last step of the
ladder, and I do not suppose that I can ever be anything but a drudge.
But even that would interest me. It brings one in contact with those
who are playing the great game. One at least fancies one comprehends
something of the government of mankind. Mr. Waldershare takes me often
to the House of Commons, and I must say, I am passionately fond of
it."

After Endymion's return to London that scene occurred between Nigel
and Myra, in the glade at Hurstley, which we have noticed in the
preceding chapter. In the evening of that day Nigel did not pay his
accustomed visit to the hall, and the father and the daughter were
alone. Then it was, notwithstanding evident agitation, and even with
some degree of solemnity, that Mr. Ferrars broke to his daughter that
there was a subject on which he wished seriously to confer with her.

"Is it about Nigel?" she inquired with calmness.

"It is about Nigel."

"I have seen him, and he has spoken to me."

"And what have you replied?"

"What I fear will not be satisfactory to you, sir, but what is
irrevocable."

"Your union would give me life and hope," said Mr. Ferrars; and then,
as she remained silent, he continued after a pause: "For its happiness
there seems every security. He is of good family, and with adequate
means, and, I firmly believe, no inconsiderable future. His abilities
are already recognised; his disposition is noble. As for his personal
qualities, you are a better judge than I am; but, for my part, I never
saw a countenance that more became the beauty and nobility of his
character."

"I think him very good-looking," said Myra, "and there is no doubt he
is clever, and he has shown himself, on more than one occasion,
amiable."

"Then what more can you require?" said Mr. Ferrars.

"I require nothing; I do not wish to marry."

"But, my daughter, my dearest daughter," said Mr. Ferrars, "bear with
the anxiety of a parent who is at least devoted to you. Our separation
would be my last and severest sorrow, and I have had many; but there
is no necessity to consider that case, for Nigel is content, is more
than content, to live as your husband under this roof."

"So he told me."

"And that removed one objection that you might naturally feel?"

"I certainly should never leave you, sir," said Myra, "and I told
Nigel so; but that contingency had nothing to do with my decision. I
declined his offer, because I have no wish to marry."

"Women are born to be married," said Mr. Ferrars.

"And yet I believe most marriages are unhappy," said Myra.

"Oh! if your objection to marry Nigel arises from an abstract
objection to marriage itself," said Mr. Ferrars, "it is a subject
which we might talk over calmly, and perhaps remove your prejudices."

"I have no objection against marriage," rejoined Myra. "It is likely
enough that I may marry some day, and probably make an unhappy
marriage; but that is not the question before us. It is whether I
should marry Nigel. That cannot be, my dear father, and he knows it. I
have assured him so in a manner which cannot be mistaken."

"We are a doomed family!" exclaimed the unhappy Mr. Ferrars, clasping
his hands.

"So I have long felt," said Myra. "I can bear our lot; but I want no
strangers to be introduced to share its bitterness, and soothe us with
their sympathy."

"You speak like a girl," said Mr. Ferrars, "and a headstrong girl,
which you always have been. You know not what you are talking about.
It is a matter of life or death. Your decorous marriage would have
saved us from absolute ruin."

"Alone, I can meet absolute ruin," said Myra. "I have long
contemplated such a contingency, and am prepared for it. My marriage
with Nigel could hardly save you, sir, from such a visitation, if it
be impending. But I trust in that respect, if in no other, you have
used a little of the language of exaggeration. I have never received,
and I have never presumed to seek, any knowledge of your affairs; but
I have assumed, that for your life, somehow or other, you would be
permitted to exist without disgrace. If I survive you, I have neither
care nor fear."



                            CHAPTER XXVIII

In the following spring a vexatious incident occurred in Warwick
Street. The highly-considered county member, who was the yearly tenant
of Mr. Rodney's first floor, and had been always a valuable patron,
suddenly died. An adjourned debate, a tough beefsteak, a select
committee still harder, and an influenza caught at three o'clock in
the morning in an imprudent but irresistible walk home with a
confidential Lord of the Treasury, had combined very sensibly to
affect the income of Mr. Rodney. At first he was sanguine that such a
desirable dwelling would soon find a suitable inhabitant, especially
as Mr. Waldershare assured him that he would mention the matter to all
his friends. But time rolled on, and the rooms were still vacant; and
the fastidious Rodneys, who at first would only listen to a yearly
tenant, began to reduce their expectations. Matters had arrived at
such a pass in May, that, for the first time in their experience, they
actually condescended to hoist an announcement of furnished
apartments.

In this state of affairs a cab rattled up to the house one morning,
out of which a young gentleman jumped briskly, and, knocking at the
door, asked, of the servant who opened it, whether he might see the
apartments. He was a young man, apparently not more than one or two
and twenty, of a graceful figure, somewhat above the middle height,
fair, with a countenance not absolutely regular, but calm and high-
bred. His dress was in the best taste, but to a practised eye had
something of a foreign cut, and he wore a slight moustache.

"The rooms will suit me," he said, "and I have no doubt the price you
ask for them is a just one;" and he bowed with high-bred courtesy to
Sylvia, who was now in attendance on him, and who stood with her
pretty hands in the pretty pockets of her pretty apron.

"I am glad to hear that," said Sylvia. "We have never let them before,
except to a yearly tenant."

"And if we suit each other," said the gentleman, "I should have no
great objection to becoming such."

"In these matters," said Sylvia, after a little hesitation, "we give
and receive references. Mr. Rodney is well known in this neighbourhood
and in Westminster generally; but I dare say," she adroitly added, "he
has many acquaintances known to you, sir."

"Not very likely," replied the young gentleman; "for I am a foreigner,
and only arrived in England this morning;" though he spoke English
without the slightest accent.

Sylvia looked a little perplexed; but he continued: "It is quite just
that you should be assured to whom you are letting your lodgings. The
only reference I can give you is to my banker, but he is almost too
great a man for such matters. Perhaps," he added, pulling out a case
from his breast pocket, and taking out of it a note, which he handed
to Sylvia, "this may assure you that your rent will be paid."

Sylvia took a rapid glance at the hundred-pound-note, and twisting it
into her little pocket with apparent /sangfroid/, though she held it
with a tight grasp, murmured that it was quite unnecessary, and then
offered to give her new lodger an acknowledgment of it.

"That is really unnecessary," he replied. "Your appearance commands
from me that entire confidence which on your part you very properly
refuse to a stranger and a foreigner like myself."

"What a charming young man!" thought Sylvia, pressing with emotion her
hundred-pound-note.

"Now," continued the young gentleman, "I will return to the station to
release my servant, who is a prisoner there with my luggage. Be
pleased to make him at home. I shall myself not return probably till
the evening; and in the meantime," he added, giving Sylvia his card,
"you will admit anything that arrives here addressed to Colonel
Albert."

The settlement of Colonel Albert in Warwick Street was an event of no
slight importance. It superseded for a time all other topics of
conversation, and was discussed at length in the evenings, especially
with Mr. Vigo. Who was he? And in what service was he colonel? Mr.
Rodney, like a man of the world, assumed that all necessary
information would in time be obtained from the colonel's servant; but
even men of the world sometimes miscalculate. The servant, who was a
Belgian, had only been engaged by the colonel at Brussels a few days
before his departure for England, and absolutely knew nothing of his
master, except that he was a gentleman with plenty of money and
sufficient luggage. Sylvia, who was the only person who had seen the
colonel, was strongly in his favour. Mr. Rodney looked doubtful, and
avoided any definite opinion until he had had the advantage of an
interview with his new lodger. But this was not easy to obtain.
Colonel Albert had no wish to see the master of the house, and, if he
ever had that desire, his servant would accordingly communicate it in
the proper quarter. At present he was satisfied with all the
arrangements, and wished neither to make nor to receive remarks. The
habits of the new lodger were somewhat of a recluse. He was generally
engaged in his rooms the whole day, and seldom left them till the
evening, and nobody, as yet, had called upon him. Under these
circumstances, Imogene was instructed to open the matter to Mr.
Waldershare when she presided over his breakfast-table; and that
gentleman said he would make inquiries about the colonel at the
Travellers' Club, where Waldershare passed a great deal of his time.
"If he be anybody," said Mr. Waldershare, "he is sure in time to be
known there, for he will be introduced as a visitor." At present,
however, it turned out that the "Travellers'" knew nothing of Colonel
Albert; and time went on, and Colonel Albert was not introduced as a
visitor there.

After a little while there was a change in the habits of the colonel.
One morning, about noon, a groom, extremely well appointed, and having
under his charge a couple of steeds of breed and beauty, called at
Warwick Street, and the colonel rode out, and was long absent, and
after that, every day, and generally at the same hour, mounted his
horse. Mr. Rodney was never wearied of catching a glimpse of his
distinguished lodger over the blinds of the ground-floor room, and of
admiring the colonel's commanding presence in his saddle,
distinguished as his seat was alike by its grace and vigour.

In the course of a little time, another incident connected with the
colonel occurred which attracted notice and excited interest. Towards
the evening a brougham, marked, but quietly, with a foreign coronet,
stopped frequently at Mr. Rodney's house, and a visitor to the colonel
appeared in the form of a middle-aged gentleman who never gave his
name, and evaded, it seemed with practised dexterity, every effort,
however adroit, to obtain it. The valet was tried on this head also,
and replied with simplicity that he did not know the gentleman's name,
but he was always called the Baron.

In the middle of June a packet arrived one day by the coach, from the
rector of Hurstley, addressed to Endymion, announcing his father's
dangerous illness, and requesting him instantly to repair home. Myra
was too much occupied to write even a line.



                             CHAPTER XXIX

It was strange that Myra did not write, were it only a line. It was so
unlike her. How often this occurred to Endymion during his wearisome
and anxious travel! When the coach reached Hurstley, he found Mr.
Penruddock waiting for him. Before he could inquire after his father,
that gentleman said, "Myra is at the rectory; you are to come on
there."

"And my father?"----

"Matters are critical," said Mr. Penruddock, as it were avoiding a
direct answer, and hastening his pace.

It was literally not a five minutes' walk from the village inn to the
rectory, and they walked in silence. The rector took Endymion at once
into his study; for we can hardly call it a library, though some
shelves of books were there, and many stuffed birds.

The rector closed the door with care, and looked distressed; and,
beckoning to Endymion to be seated, he said, while still standing and
half turning away his head, "My dear boy, prepare yourself for the
worst."

"Ah! he is gone then! my dear, dear father!" and Endymion burst into
passionate tears, and leant on the table, his face hid in his hands.

The rector walked up and down the room with an agitated countenance.
He could not deny, it would seem, the inference of Endymion; and yet
he did not proffer those consolations which might be urged, and which
it became one in his capacity peculiarly to urge.

"I must see Myra," said Endymion eagerly, looking up with a wild air
and streaming eyes.

"Not yet," said the rector; "she is much disturbed. Your poor father
is no more; it is too true; but," and here the rector hesitated, "he
did not die happily."

"What do you mean?" said Endymion.

"Your poor father had much to try him," said the rector. "His life,
since he was amongst us here, was a life, for him, of adversity--
perhaps of great adversity--yet he bore up against it with a Christian
spirit; he never repined. There was much that was noble and exalted in
his character. But he never overcame the loss of your dear mother. He
was never himself afterwards. He was not always master of himself. I
could bear witness to that," said the rector, talking, as it were, to
himself. "Yes; I could conscientiously give evidence to that
effect"----

"What effect?" asked Endymion, with a painful scrutiny.

"I could show," said the rector, speaking slowly, and in a low voice,
"and others could show, that he was not master of himself when he
committed the rash act."

"O Mr. Penruddock!" exclaimed Endymion, starting from his chair, and
seizing the rector by the arm. "What is all this?"

"That a great sorrow has come upon you, and your sister, and all of
us," said Mr. Penruddock; "and you, and she, and all of us must bow
before the Divine will in trembling, though in hope. Your father's
death was not natural."

Such was the end of William Pitt Ferrars, on whom nature, opportunity,
and culture appeared to have showered every advantage. His abilities
were considerable, his ambition greater. Though intensely worldly, he
was not devoid of affections. He found refuge in suicide, as many do,
from want of imagination. The present was too hard for him, and his
future was only a chaotic nebula.

Endymion did not see his sister that evening. She was not made aware
of his arrival, and was alone with Mrs. Penruddock, who never left her
night or day. The rector took charge of her brother, and had a sofa-
bed made for him in the kind man's room. He was never to be alone.
Never the whole night did Endymion close his eyes; and he was almost
as much agitated about the impending interview with Myra, as about the
dark event of terror that had been disclosed to him.

Yet that dreaded interview must take place; and, about noon, the
rector told him that Myra was in the drawing-room alone, and would
receive him. He tottered as he crossed the hall; grief and physical
exhaustion had unmanned him; his eyes were streaming with tears; he
paused for a moment with his hand upon the door; he dreaded the
anguish of her countenance.

She advanced and embraced him with tenderness; her face was grave, and
not a tear even glistened.

"I have been living in a tragedy for years," said Myra, in a low,
hollow voice; "and the catastrophe has now arrived."

"Oh, my dear father!" exclaimed Endymion; and he burst into a renewed
paroxysm of grief.

"Yes; he was dear to us, and we were dear to him," said Myra; "but the
curtain has fallen. We have to exert ourselves. Energy and self-
control were never more necessary to two human beings than to us. Here
are his keys; his papers must be examined by no one but ourselves.
There is a terrible ceremony taking place, or impending. When it is
all over, we must visit the hall at least once more."

The whole neighbourhood was full of sorrow for the event, and of
sympathy for those bereft. It was universally agreed that Mr. Ferrars
had never recovered the death of his wife; had never been the same man
after it; had become distrait, absent, wandering in his mind, and the
victim of an invincible melancholy. Several instances were given of
his inability to manage his affairs. The jury, with Farmer Thornberry
for foreman, hesitated not in giving a becoming verdict. In those days
information travelled slowly. There were no railroads then, and no
telegraphs, and not many clubs. A week elapsed before the sad
occurrence was chronicled in a provincial paper, and another week
before the report was reproduced in London, and then in an obscure
corner of the journal, and in small print. Everything gets about at
last, and the world began to stare and talk; but it passed unnoticed
to the sufferers, except by a letter from Zenobia, received at
Hurstley after Myra had departed from her kind friends. Zenobia was
shocked, nay, overwhelmed, by what she had heard; wanted to know if
she could be of use; offered to do anything; begged Myra to come and
stay with her in St. James' Square; and assured her that, if that were
not convenient, when her mourning was over Zenobia would present her
at court, just the same as if she were her own daughter.

When the fatal keys were used, and the papers of Mr. Ferrars examined,
it turned out worse than even Myra, in her darkest prescience, had
anticipated. Her father had died absolutely penniless. As executor of
his father, the funds settled on his wife had remained under his sole
control, and they had entirely disappeared. There was a letter
addressed to Myra on this subject. She read it with a pale face, said
nothing, and without showing it to Endymion, destroyed it. There was
to be an immediate sale of their effects at the hall. It was
calculated that the expenses of the funeral and all the country bills
might be defrayed by its proceeds.

"And there will be enough left for me," said Myra. "I only want ten
pounds; for I have ascertained that there is no part of England where
ten pounds will not take me."

Endymion sighed and nearly wept when she said these things. "No," he
would add; "we must never part."

"That would ensure our common ruin," said Myra. "No; I will never
embarrass you with a sister. You can only just subsist; for you could
not well live in a garret, except at the Rodneys'. I see my way," said
Myra; "I have long meditated over this--I can draw, I can sing, I can
speak many tongues: I ought to be able to get food and clothing; I may
get something more. And I shall always be content; for I shall always
be thinking of you. However humble even my lot, if my will is
concentrated on one purpose, it must ultimately effect it. That is my
creed," she said, "and I hold it fervently. I will stay with these
dear people for a little while. They are not exactly the family on
which I ought to trespass. But never mind. You will be a great man
some day, Endymion, and you will remember the good Penruddocks."



                             CHAPTER XXX

One of the most remarkable families that have ever flourished in
England were the NEUCHATELS. Their founder was a Swiss, who had
established a banking house of high repute in England in the latter
part of the eighteenth century, and, irrespective of a powerful
domestic connection, had in time pretty well engrossed the largest and
best portion of foreign banking business. When the great French
Revolution occurred, all the emigrants deposited their jewels and
their treasure with the Neuchatels. As the disturbance spread, their
example was followed by the alarmed proprietors and capitalists of the
rest of Europe; and, independently of their own considerable means,
the Neuchatels thus had the command for a quarter of a century, more
or less, of adventitious millions. They were scrupulous and faithful
stewards, but they were doubtless repaid for their vigilance, their
anxiety, and often their risk, by the opportunities which these rare
resources permitted them to enjoy. One of the Neuchatels was a
favourite of Mr. Pitt, and assisted the great statesman in his vast
financial arrangements. This Neuchatel was a man of large capacity,
and thoroughly understood his period. The minister wished to introduce
him to public life, would have opened Parliament to him, and no doubt
have showered upon him honours and titles. But Neuchatel declined
these overtures. He was one of those strong minds who will concentrate
their energies on one object; without personal vanity, but with a
deep-seated pride in the future. He was always preparing for his
posterity. Governed by this passion, although he himself would have
been content to live for ever in Bishopsgate Street, where he was
born, he had become possessed of a vast principality, and which,
strange to say, with every advantage of splendour and natural beauty,
was not an hour's drive from Whitechapel.

HAINAULT HOUSE had been raised by a British peer in the days when
nobles were fond of building Palladian palaces. It was a chief work of
Sir William Chambers, and in its style, its beauty, and almost in its
dimensions, was a rival of Stowe or Wanstead. It stood in a deer park,
and was surrounded by a royal forest. The family that had raised it
wore out in the earlier part of this century. It was supposed that the
place must be destroyed and dismantled. It was too vast for a citizen,
and the locality was no longer sufficiently refined for a conscript
father. In this dilemma, Neuchatel stepped in and purchased the whole
affair--palace, and park, and deer, and pictures, and halls, and
galleries of statue and bust, and furniture, and even wines, and all
the farms that remained, and all the seigneurial rights in the royal
forest. But he never lived there. Though he spared nothing in the
maintenance and the improvement of the domain, except on a Sunday he
never visited it, and was never known to sleep under its roof. "It
will be ready for those who come after me," he would remark, with a
modest smile.

Those who came after him were two sons, between whom his millions were
divided; and Adrian, the eldest, in addition to his share, was made
the lord of Hainault. Adrian had inherited something more, and
something more precious, than his father's treasure--a not inferior
capacity, united, in his case, with much culture, and with a worldly
ambition to which his father was a stranger. So long as that father
lived, Adrian had been extremely circumspect. He seemed only devoted
to business, and to model his conduct on that of his eminent sire.
That father who had recognised with pride and satisfaction his
capacity, and who was without jealousy, had initiated his son during
his lifetime in all the secrets of his wondrous craft, and had
entrusted him with a leading part in their affairs. Adrian had waited
in Downing Street on Lord Liverpool, as his father years before had
waited on Mr. Pitt.

The elder Neuchatel departed this life a little before the second
French Revolution of 1830, which had been so fatal to Mr. Ferrars.
Adrian, who had never committed himself in politics, further than
sitting a short time for a reputed Tory borough, for which he paid a
rent of a thousand a year to the proprietor, but who was known to have
been nurtured in the school of Pitt and Wellington, astonished the
world by voting for Lord Grey's Reform Bill, and announcing himself as
a Liberal. This was a large fish for the new Liberal Treasury to
capture; their triumph was great, and they determined to show that
they appreciated the power and the influence of their new ally. At the
dissolution of 1831, Adrian Neuchatel was a candidate for a popular
constituency, and was elected at the head of the poll. His brother,
Melchior, was also returned, and a nephew. The Liberals were alarmed
by a subscription of fabulous dimensions said to have been collected
by the Tories to influence the General Election; and the undoubted
contribution of a noble duke was particularly mentioned, which alone
appalled the heart of Brooks'. The matter was put before Neuchatel, as
he entered the club, to which he had been recently elected with
acclamation. "So you are a little frightened," he said, with a
peculiarly witching smile which he had, half mockery and half good
nature; as much as to say, "I will do what you wish, but I see through
you and everybody else." "So you are a little frightened. Well; we
City men must see what we can do against the dukes. You may put me
down for double his amount."

Adrian purchased a very fine mansion in Portland Place, and took up
his residence formally at Hainault. He delighted in the place, and to
dwell there in a manner becoming the scene had always been one of his
dreams. Now he lived there with unbounded expenditure. He was
passionately fond of horses, and even in his father's lifetime had run
some at Newmarket in another name. The stables at Hainault had been
modelled on those at Chantilly, and were almost as splendid a pile as
the mansion itself. They were soon full, and of first-rate animals in
their different ways. With his choice teams Adrian could reach
Bishopsgate from Hainault, particularly if there were no stoppages in
Whitechapel, in much under an hour.

If he had fifty persons in his stables, there were certainly as many
in his park and gardens. These latter were most elaborate. It seemed
there was nothing that Hainault could not produce: all the fruits and
flowers of the tropics. The conservatories and forcing-houses looked,
in the distance, like a city of glass. But, after all, the portion of
this immense establishment which was most renowned, and perhaps, on
the whole, best appreciated, was the establishment of the kitchen. The
chef was the greatest celebrity of Europe; and he had no limit to his
staff, which he had selected with the utmost scrutiny, maintained with
becoming spirit, and winnowed with unceasing vigilance. Every day at
Hainault was a banquet. What delighted Adrian was to bring down
without notice a troop of friends, conscious they would be received as
well as if there had been a preparation of weeks. Sometimes it was a
body from the Stock Exchange, sometimes a host from the House of
Commons, sometimes a board of directors with whom he had been
transacting business in the morning. It delighted Adrian to see them
quaffing his burgundy, and stuffing down his truffles, and his choice
pies from Strasbourg, and all the delicate dishes which many of them
looked at with wonder, and tasted with timidity. And then he would,
with his particular smile, say to a brother bank director, whose mouth
was full, and who could only answer him with his eyes, "Business gives
one an appetite; eh, Mr. Trodgits?"

Sunday was always a great day at Hainault. The Royal and the Stock
Exchanges were both of them always fully represented; and then they
often had an opportunity, which they highly appreciated, of seeing and
conferring with some public characters, M.P.'s of note or promise, and
occasionally a secretary of the Treasury, or a privy councillor.
"Turtle makes all men equal," Adrian would observe. "Our friend
Trodgits seemed a little embarrassed at first, when I introduced him
to the Right Honourable; but when they sate next each other at dinner,
they soon got on very well."

On Sunday the guests walked about and amused themselves. No one was
allowed to ride or drive; Mrs. Neuchatel did not like riding and
driving on Sundays. "I see no harm in it," said Adrian, "but I like
women to have their way about religion. And you may go to the stables
and see the horses, and that might take up the morning. And then there
are the houses; they will amuse you. For my part, I am for a stroll in
the forest;" and then he would lead his companions, after a delightful
ramble, to some spot of agrestic charm, and, looking at it with
delight, would say, "Pretty, is it not? But then they say this place
is not fashionable. It will do, I think, for us City men."

Adrian had married, when very young, a lady selected by his father.
The selection seemed a good one. She was the daughter of a most
eminent banker, and had herself, though that was of slight importance,
a large portion. She was a woman of abilities, highly cultivated.
Nothing had ever been spared that she should possess every possible
accomplishment, and acquire every information and grace that it was
desirable to attain. She was a linguist, a fine musician, no mean
artist; and she threw out, if she willed it, the treasures of her
well-stored and not unimaginative mind with ease and sometimes
eloquence. Her person, without being absolutely beautiful, was
interesting. There was even a degree of fascination in her brown
velvet eyes. And yet Mrs. Neuchatel was not a contented spirit; and
though she appreciated the great qualities of her husband, and viewed
him even with reverence as well as affection, she scarcely contributed
to his happiness as much as became her. And for this reason. Whether
it were the result of physical organisation, or whether it were the
satiety which was the consequence of having been born, and bred, and
lived for ever, in a society of which wealth was the prime object of
existence, and practically the test of excellence, Mrs. Neuchatel had
imbibed not merely a contempt for money, but absolutely a hatred of
it. The prosperity of her house depressed her. The stables with their
fifty grooms, and the grounds with their fifty gardeners, and the
daily visit of the head cook to pass the bill of fare, were incidents
and circumstances that made her melancholy. She looked upon the Stock
Exchange coming down to dinner as she would on an invasion of the
Visigoths, and endured the stiff observations or the cumbrous
liveliness of the merchants and bank directors with gloomy grace.
Something less material might be anticipated from the members of
Parliament. But whether they thought it would please the genius of the
place, or whether Adrian selected his friends from those who
sympathised with his pursuits, the members of Parliament seemed
wonderfully to accord with the general tone of the conversation, or
varied it only by indulging in technical talk of their own. Sometimes
she would make a desperate effort to change the elements of their
society; something in this way: "I see M. Arago and M. Mignet have
arrived here, Adrian. Do not you think we ought to invite them here?
And then you might ask Mr. Macaulay to meet them. You said you wished
to ask Mr. Macaulay."

In one respect the alliance between Adrian and his wife was not an
unfortunate one. A woman, and a woman of abilities, fastidious, and
inclined to be querulous, might safely be counted on as, in general,
ensuring for both parties in their union an unsatisfactory and unhappy
life. But Adrian, though kind, generous, and indulgent, was so
absorbed by his own great affairs, was a man at the same time of so
serene a temper and so supreme a will, that the over-refined fantasies
of his wife produced not the slightest effect on the course of his
life. Adrian Neuchatel was what very few people are--master in his own
house. With a rich varnish of graciousness and favour, he never
swerved from his purpose; and, though willing to effect all things by
smiles and sweet temper, he had none of that morbid sensibility which
allows some men to fret over a phrase, to be tortured by a sigh, or to
be subdued by a tear.

There had been born of this marriage only one child, the greatest
heiress in England. She had been christened after her father, ADRIANA.
She was now about seventeen; and, had she not been endowed with the
finest disposition and the sweetest temper in the world, she must have
been spoiled, for both her parents idolised her. To see her every day
was for Adrian a reward for all his labours, and in the midst of his
greatest affairs he would always snatch a moment to think how he could
contribute to her pleasure or her happiness. All that was rare and
delightful and beautiful in the world was at her command. There was no
limit to the gratification of her wishes. But, alas! this favoured
maiden wished for nothing. Her books interested her, and a beautiful
nature; but she liked to be alone, or with her mother. She was
impressed with the horrible and humiliating conviction, that she was
courted and admired only for her wealth.

"What my daughter requires," said Adrian, as he mused over these
domestic contrarieties, "is a companion of her own age. Her mother is
the very worst constant companion she could have. She requires
somebody with charm, and yet of a commanding mind; with youthful
sympathy, and yet influencing her in the right way. It must be a
person of birth and breeding and complete self-respect. I do not want
to have any parasites in my house, or affected fine ladies. That would
do no good. What I do want is a thing very difficult to procure. And
yet they say everything is to be obtained. At least, I have always
thought so, and found it so. I have the greatest opinion of an
advertisement in the 'Times.' I got some of my best clerks by
advertisements in the 'Times.' If I had consulted friends, there would
have been no end of jobbing for such patronage. One could not trust,
in such matters, one's own brother. I will draw up an advertisement
and insert it in the 'Times,' and have the references to my counting-
house. I will think over the wording as I drive to town." This was the
wording:--


                            ADVERTISEMENT

  A Banker and his Wife require a Companion for their only child, a
  young lady whose accomplishments and acquirements are already
  considerable. The friend that they would wish for her must be of
  about the same age as herself, and in every other respect their
  lots will be the same. The person thus desired will be received
  and treated as a daughter of the house, will be allowed her own
  suite of apartments, her own servants and equipage. She must be a
  person of birth, breeding, and entire self-respect; with a mind
  and experience capable of directing conduct, and with manners
  which will engage sympathy.--Apply to H. H., 45 Bishopsgate Street
  Within.


This advertisement met the eye of Myra at Hurstley Rectory about a
month after her father's death, and she resolved to answer it. Her
reply pleased Mr. Neuchatel. He selected it out of hundreds, and
placed himself in communication with Mr. Penruddock. The result was,
that Miss Ferrars was to pay a visit to the Neuchatels; and if, on
experience, they liked each other, the engagement was to take place.

In the meantime the good rector of Hurstley arrived on the previous
evening with his precious charge at Hainault House; and was rewarded
for his kind exertions, not only by the prospect of assisting Myra,
but by some present experience of a splendid and unusual scene.



                             CHAPTER XXXI

"What do you think of her, mamma?" said Adriana, with glistening eyes,
as she ran into Mrs. Neuchatel's dressing-room for a moment before
dinner.

"I think her manners are perfect," replied Mrs. Neuchatel; "and as
there can be no doubt, after all we have heard, of her principles, I
think we are most fortunate. But what do you think of her, Adriana?
For, after all, that is the main question."

"I think she is divine," said Adriana; "but I fear she has no heart."

"And why? Surely it is early to decide on such a matter as that!"

"When I took her to her room," said Adriana, "I suppose I was nervous;
but I burst into tears, and threw my arms round her neck and embraced
her, but she did not respond. She touched my forehead with her lips,
and withdrew from my embrace."

"She wished, perhaps, to teach you to control your emotions," said
Mrs. Neuchatel. "You have known her only an hour, and you could not
have done more to your own mother."

It had been arranged that there should be no visitors to-day; only a
nephew and a foreign consul-general, just to break the formality of
the meeting. Mr. Neuchatel placed Myra next to himself at the round
table, and treated her with marked consideration--cordial but
courteous, and easy, with a certain degree of deference. His wife, who
piqued herself on her perception of character, threw her brown velvet
eyes on her neighbour, Mr. Penruddock, and cross-examined him in
mystical whispers. She soon recognised his love of nature; and this
allowed her to dissert on the subject, at once sublime and
inexhaustible, with copiousness worthy of the theme. When she found he
was an entomologist, and that it was not so much mountains as insects
which interested him, she shifted her ground, but treated it with
equal felicity. Strange, but nature is never so powerful as in insect
life. The white ant can destroy fleets and cities, and the locusts
erase a province. And then, how beneficent they are! Man would find it
difficult to rival their exploits: the bee, that gives us honey; the
worm, that gives us silk; the cochineal, that supplies our
manufactures with their most brilliant dye.

Mr. Penruddock did not seem to know much about manufactures, but
always recommended his cottagers to keep bees.

"The lime-tree abounds in our village, and there is nothing the bees
love more than its blossoms."

This direct reference to his village led Mrs. Neuchatel to an inquiry
as to the state of the poor about Hurstley, and she made the inquiry
in a tone of commiseration.

"Oh! we do pretty well," said Mr. Penruddock.

"But how can a family live on ten or twelve shillings a week?"
murmured Mrs. Neuchatel.

"There it is," said Mr. Penruddock. "A family has more than that. With
a family the income proportionately increases."

Mrs. Neuchatel sighed. "I must say," she said, "I cannot help feeling
there is something wrong in our present arrangements. When I sit down
to dinner every day, with all these dishes, and remember that there
are millions who never taste meat, I cannot resist the conviction that
it would be better if there were some equal division, and all should
have, if not much, at least something."

"Nonsense, Emily!" said Mr. Neuchatel, who had an organ like Fine-ear,
and could catch, when necessary, his wife's most mystical revelations.
"My wife, Mr. Penruddock, is a regular Communist. I hope you are not,"
he added, with a smile, turning to Myra.

"I think life would be very insipid," replied Myra, "if all our lots
were the same."

When the ladies withdrew, Adriana and Myra walked out together hand-
in-hand. Mr. Neuchatel rose and sate next to Mr. Penruddock, and began
to talk politics. His reverend guest could not conceal his alarm about
the position of the Church and spoke of Lord John Russell's
appropriation clause with well-bred horror.

"Well, I do not think there is much to be afraid of," said Mr.
Neuchatel. "This is a liberal age, and you cannot go against it. The
people must be educated, and where are the funds to come from? We must
all do something, and the Church must contribute its share. You know I
am a Liberal, but I am not for any rash courses. I am not at all sorry
that Sir Robert Peel gained so much at the last general election. I
like parties to be balanced. I am quite content with affairs. My
friends, the Liberals, are in office, and, being there, they can do
very little. That is the state of things, is it not, Melchior?" he
added, with a smile to his nephew, who was an M.P. "A balanced state
of parties, and the house of Neuchatel with three votes--that will do.
We poor City men get a little attention paid to us now, but before the
dissolution three votes went for nothing. Now, shall we go and ask my
daughter to give us a song?"

Mrs. Neuchatel accompanied her daughter on the piano, and after a time
not merely on the instrument. The organ of both was fine and richly
cultivated. It was choice chamber music. Mr. Neuchatel seated himself
by Myra. His tone was more than kind, and his manner gentle. "It is a
little awkward the first day," he said, "among strangers, but that
will wear off. You must bring your mind to feel that this is your
home, and we shall all of us do everything in our power to convince
you of it. Mr. Penruddock mentioned to me your wish, under present
circumstances, to enter as little as possible into society, and this
is a very social house. Your feeling is natural, and you will be in
this matter entirely your own mistress. We shall always be glad to see
you, but if you are not present we shall know and respect the cause.
For my own part, I am one of those who would rather cherish affection
than indulge grief, but every one must follow their mood. I hear you
have a brother, to whom you are much attached; a twin, too, and they
tell me strongly resembling you. He is in a public office, I believe?
Now, understand this; your brother can come here whenever he likes,
without any further invitation. Ask him whenever you please. We shall
always be glad to see him. No sort of notice is necessary. This is not
a very small house, and we can always manage to find a bed and a
cutlet for a friend."



                            CHAPTER XXXII

Nothing could be more successful than the connection formed between
the Neuchatel family and Myra Ferrars. Both parties to the compact
were alike satisfied. Myra had "got out of that hole" which she always
hated; and though the new life she had entered was not exactly the one
she had mused over, and which was founded on the tradition of her
early experience, it was a life of energy and excitement, of splendour
and power, with a total absence of petty vexations and miseries,
affording neither time nor cause for the wearing chagrin of a
monotonous and mediocre existence. But the crowning joy of her
emancipation was the prospect it offered of frequent enjoyment of the
society of her brother.

With regard to the Neuchatels, they found in Myra everything they
could desire. Mrs. Neuchatel was delighted with a companion who was
not the daughter of a banker, and whose schooled intellect not only
comprehended all her doctrines, however abstruse or fanciful, but who
did not hesitate, if necessary, to controvert or even confute them. As
for Adriana, she literally idolised a friend whose proud spirit and
clear intelligence were calculated to exercise a strong but salutary
influence over her timid and sensitive nature. As for the great banker
himself, who really had that faculty of reading character which his
wife flattered herself she possessed, he had made up his mind about
Myra from the first, both from her correspondence and her
conversation. "She has more common sense than any woman I ever knew,
and more," he would add, "than most men. If she were not so handsome,
people would find it out; but they cannot understand that so beautiful
a woman can have a headpiece, that, I really believe, could manage the
affairs in Bishopsgate Street."

In the meantime life at Hainault resumed its usual course; streams of
guests, of all parties, colours, and classes, and even nations.
Sometimes Mr. Neuchatel would say, "I really must have a quiet day
that Miss Ferrars may dine with us, and she shall ask her brother. How
glad I shall be when she goes into half-mourning! I scarcely catch a
glimpse of her." And all this time his wife and daughter did nothing
but quote her, which was still more irritating, for, as he would say,
half-grumbling and half-smiling, "If it had not been for me she would
not have been here."

At first Adriana would not dine at table without Myra, and insisted on
sharing her imprisonment. "It does not look like a cell," said Myra,
surveying, not without complacency, her beautiful little chamber,
beautifully lit, with its silken hangings and carved ceiling and
bright with books and pictures; "besides, there is no reason why you
should be a prisoner. You have not lost a father, and I hope never
will."

"Amen!" said Adriana; "that would indeed be the unhappiest day of my
life."

"You cannot be in society too much in the latter part of the day,"
said Myra. "The mornings should be sacred to ourselves, but for the
rest of the hours people are to see and to be seen, and," she added,
"to like and be liked."

Adriana shook her head; "I do not wish any one to like me but you."

"I am sure I shall always like you, and love you," said Myra, "but I
am equally sure that a great many other people will do the same."

"It will not be myself that they like or love," said Adriana with a
sigh.

"Now, spare me that vein, dear Adriana; you know I do not like it. It
is not agreeable, and I do not think it is true. I believe that women
are loved much more for themselves than is supposed. Besides, a woman
should be content if she is loved; that is the point; and she is not
to inquire how far the accidents of life have contributed to the
result. Why should you not be loved for yourself? You have an
interesting appearance. I think you very pretty. You have choice
accomplishments and agreeable conversation and the sweetest temper in
the world. You want a little self-conceit, my dear. If I were you and
admired, I should never think of my fortune."

"If you were the greatest heiress in the world, Myra, and were
married, nobody would suppose for a moment that it was for your
fortune."

"Go down to dinner and smile upon everybody, and tell me about your
conquests to-morrow. And say to your dear papa, that as he is so kind
as to wish to see me, I will join them after dinner."

And so, for the first two months, she occasionally appeared in the
evening, especially when there was no formal party. Endymion came and
visited her every Sunday, but he was also a social recluse, and though
he had been presented to Mrs. Neuchatel and her daughter, and been
most cordially received by them, it was some considerable time before
he made the acquaintance of the great banker.

About September Myra may be said to have formally joined the circle at
Hainault. Three months had elapsed since the terrible event, and she
felt, irrespective of other considerations, her position hardly
justified her, notwithstanding all the indulgent kindness of the
family, in continuing a course of life which she was conscious to them
was sometimes an inconvenience and always a disappointment. It was
impossible to deny that she was interested and amused by the world
which she now witnessed--so energetic, so restless, so various; so
full of urgent and pressing life; never thinking of the past and quite
heedless of the future, but worshipping an almighty present that
sometimes seemed to roll on like the car of Juggernaut. She was much
diverted by the gentlemen of the Stock Exchange, so acute, so
audacious, and differing so much from the merchants in the style even
of their dress, and in the ease, perhaps the too great facility, of
their bearing. They called each other by their Christian names, and
there were allusions to practical jokes which intimated a life
something between a public school and a garrison. On more solemn days
there were diplomatists and men in political office; sometimes great
musical artists, and occasionally a French actor. But the dinners were
always the same; dishes worthy of the great days of the Bourbons, and
wines of rarity and price, which could not ruin Neuchatel, for in many
instances the vineyards belonged to himself.

One morning at breakfast, when he rarely encountered them, but it was
a holiday in the City, Mr. Neuchatel said, "There are a few gentlemen
coming to dine here to-day whom you know, with one exception. He is a
young man, a very nice young fellow. I have seen a good deal of him of
late on business in the City, and have taken a fancy to him. He is a
foreigner, but he was partly educated in this country and speaks
English as well as any of us."

"Then I suppose he is not a Frenchman," said Mrs. Neuchatel, "for they
never speak English."

"I shall not say what he is. You must all find out; I dare say Miss
Ferrars will discover him; but, remember, you must all of you pay him
great attention, for he is not a common person, I can assure you."

"You are mysterious, Adrian," said his wife, "and quite pique our
curiosity."

"Well, I wish somebody would pique mine," said the banker. "These
holidays in the City are terrible things. I think I will go after
breakfast and look at the new house, and I dare say Miss Ferrars will
be kind enough to be my companion."

Several of the visitors, fortunately for the banker whose time hung
rather heavily on his hands, arrived an hour or so before dinner, that
they might air themselves in the famous gardens and see some of the
new plants. But the guest whom he most wished to greet, and whom the
ladies were most curious to welcome, did not arrive. They had all
entered the house and the critical moment was at hand, when, just as
dinner was about to be announced, the servants ushered in a young man
of distinguished appearance, and the banker exclaimed, "You have
arrived just in time to take Mrs. Neuchatel in to dinner," and he
presented to her--COLONEL ALBERT.



                            CHAPTER XXXIII

The ladies were much interested by Colonel Albert. Mrs. Neuchatel
exercised on him all the unrivalled arts by which she so unmistakably
discovered character. She threw on him her brown velvet eyes with a
subdued yet piercing beam, which would penetrate his most secret and
even undeveloped intelligence. She asked questions in a hushed
mystical voice, and as the colonel was rather silent and somewhat
short in his replies, though ever expressed in a voice of sensibility
and with refined deference of manner, Mrs. Neuchatel opened her own
peculiar views on a variety of subjects of august interest, such as
education, high art, the influence of women in society, the formation
of character, and the distribution of wealth, on all of which this
highly gifted lady was always in the habit of informing her audience,
by way of accompaniment, that she was conscious that the views she
entertained were peculiar. The views of Mrs. Neuchatel were peculiar,
and therefore not always, or even easily, comprehended. That indeed
she felt was rather her fate in life, but a superior intelligence like
hers has a degree of sublimated self-respect which defies destiny.

When she was alone with the ladies, the bulletin of Mrs. Neuchatel was
not so copious as had been expected. She announced that Colonel Albert
was sentimental, and she suspected a poet. But for the rest she had
discovered nothing, not even his nationality. She had tried him both
in French and German, but he persisted in talking English, although he
spoke of himself as a foreigner. After dinner he conversed chiefly
with the men, particularly with the Governor of the Bank, who seemed
to interest him much, and a director of one of the dock companies, who
offered to show him over their establishment, an offer which Colonel
Albert eagerly accepted. Then, as if he remembered that homage was due
at such a moment to the fairer sex, he went and seated himself by
Adriana, and was playful and agreeable, though when she was cross-
examined afterwards by her friends as to the character of his
conversation, she really could not recall anything particular except
that he was fond of horses, and said that he should like very much to
take a ride with her. Just before he took his departure, Colonel
Albert addressed Myra, and in a rather strange manner. He said, "I
have been puzzling myself all dinner, but I cannot help feeling that
we have met before."

Myra shook her head and said, "I think that is impossible."

"Well," said the colonel with a look a little perplexed and not
altogether satisfied, "I suppose then it was a dream. May dreams so
delightful," and he bowed, "never be wanting!"

"So you think he is a poet, Emily," said Mr. Neuchatel when they had
all gone. "We have got a good many of his papers in Bishopsgate
Street, but I have not met with any verses in them yet."

The visit of Colonel Albert was soon repeated, and he became a rather
frequent guest at Hainault. It was evident that he was a favourite
with Mr. Neuchatel. "He knows very few people," he would say, "and I
wish him to make some friends. Poor young fellow: he has had rather a
hard life of it, and seen some service for such a youth. He is a
perfect gentleman, and if he be a poet, Emily, that is all in your
way. You like literary people, and are always begging that I should
ask them. Well, next Saturday you will have a sort of a lion--one of
the principal writers in 'Scaramouch.' He is going to Paris as the
foreign correspondent of the 'Chuck-Farthing,' with a thousand a year,
and one of my friends in the Stock Exchange, who is his great ally,
asked me to give him some letters. So he came to Bishopsgate Street--
they all come to Bishopsgate Street--and I asked him to dine here on
Saturday. By the by, Miss Ferrars, ask your brother to come on the
same day and stay with us till Monday. I will take him up to town with
me quite in time for his office."

This was the first time that Endymion had remained at Hainault. He
looked forward to the visit with anticipation of great pleasure.
Hainault, and all the people there, and everything about it, delighted
him, and most of all the happiness of his sister and the
consideration, and generosity, and delicate affection with which she
was treated. One morning, to his astonishment, Myra had insisted upon
his accepting from her no inconsiderable sum of money. "It is no part
of my salary," she said, when he talked of her necessities. "Mr.
Neuchatel said he gave it to me for outfit and to buy gloves. But
being in mourning I want to buy nothing, and you, dear darling, must
have many wants. Besides, Mrs. Neuchatel has made me so many presents
that I really do not think that I shall ever want to buy anything
again."

It was rather a grand party at Hainault, such as Endymion had little
experience of. There was a cabinet minister and his wife, not only an
ambassador, but an ambassadress who had been asked to meet them, a
nephew Neuchatel, the M.P. with a pretty young wife, and several
apparently single gentlemen of note and position. Endymion was nervous
when he entered, and more so because Myra was not in the room. But his
trepidation was absorbed in his amazement when in the distance he
observed St. Barbe, with a very stiff white cravat, and his hair
brushed into unnatural order, and his whole demeanour forming a
singular contrast to the rollicking cynicisms of Joe's and the office.

Mr. Neuchatel presented St. Barbe to the lady of the mansion. "Here is
one of our greatest wits," said the banker, "and he is going to Paris,
which is the capital of wits." The critical moment prevented prolonged
conversation, but the lady of the mansion did contrive to convey to
St. Barbe her admiring familiarity with some of his effusions, and
threw out a phrase which proved how finely she could distinguish
between wit and humour.

Endymion at dinner sate between two M.P.'s, whom his experience at the
House of Commons allowed him to recognise. As he was a young man whom
neither of them knew, neither of them addressed him, but with delicate
breeding carried on an active conversation across him, as if in fact
he were not present. As Endymion had very little vanity, this did not
at all annoy him. On the contrary, he was amused, for they spoke of
matters with which he was not unacquainted, though he looked as if he
knew or heard nothing. Their conversation was what is called "shop:"
all about the House and office; criticisms on speakers, speculations
as to preferment, what Government would do about this, and how well
Government got out of that.

Endymion was amused by seeing Myra, who was remote from him, sitting
by St. Barbe, who, warmed by the banquet, was evidently holding forth
without the slightest conception that his neighbour whom he addressed
had long become familiar with his characteristics.

After dinner St. Barbe pounced upon Endymion. "Only think of our
meeting here!" he said. "I wonder why they asked you. You are not
going to Paris, and you are not a wit. What a family this is!" he
said; "I had no idea of wealth before! Did you observe the silver
plate? I could not hold mine with one hand, it was so heavy. I do not
suppose there are such plates in the world. It gives one an idea of
the galleons and Anson's plunder. But they deserve their wealth," he
added, "nobody grudges it to them. I declare when I was eating that
truffle, I felt a glow about my heart that, if it were not
indigestion, I think must have been gratitude; though that is an
article I had not believed in. He is a wonderful man, that Neuchatel.
If I had only known him a year ago! I would have dedicated my novel to
him. He is a sort of man who would have given you a cheque
immediately. He would not have read it, to be sure, but what of that?
If you had dedicated it to a lord, the most he would have done would
have been to ask you to dinner, and then perhaps cut up your work in
one of the Quality reviews, and taken money for doing it out of our
pockets! Oh! it's too horrid! There are some topsawyers here to-day,
Ferrars! It would make Seymour Hicks' mouth water to be here. We
should have had it in the papers, and he would have left us out of the
list, and called us, etc. Now I dare say that ambassador has been
blundering all his life, and yet there is something in that star and
ribbon; I do not know you feel, but I could almost go down on my knees
to him. And there is a cabinet minister; well, we know what he is; I
have been squibbing him for these two years, and now that I meet him I
feel like a snob. Oh! there is an immense deal of superstition left in
the world. I am glad they are going to the ladies. I am to be honoured
by some conversation with the mistress of the house. She seems a
first-rate woman, familiar with the glorious pages of a certain
classic work, and my humble effusions. She praised one she thought I
wrote, but between ourselves it was written by that fellow Seymour
Hicks, who imitates me; but I would not put her right, as dinner might
have been announced every moment. But she is a great woman, sir,--
wonderful eyes! They are all great women here. I sat next to one of
the daughters, or daughters-in-law, or nieces, I suppose. By Jove! it
was tierce and quart. If you had been there, you would have been run
through in a moment. I had to show my art. Now they are rising. I
should not be surprised if Mr. Neuchatel were to present me to some of
the grandees. I believe them to be all impostors, but still it is
pleasant to talk to a man with a star.

            "'Ye stars, which are the poetry of heaven,'

"Byron wrote; a silly line; he should have written,

            "'Ye stars, which are the poetry of dress.'"



                            CHAPTER XXXIV

St. Barbe was not disappointed in his hopes. It was an evening of
glorious success for him. He had even the honour of sitting for a time
by the side of Mrs. Neuchatel, and being full of good claret, he, as
he phrased it, showed his paces; that is to say, delivered himself of
some sarcastic paradoxes duly blended with fulsome flattery. Later in
the evening, he contrived to be presented both to the ambassador and
the cabinet minister, and treated them as if they were demigods;
listened to them as if with an admiration which he vainly endeavoured
to repress; never spoke except to enforce and illustrate the views
which they had condescended to intimate; successfully conveyed to his
excellency that he was conversing with an enthusiast for his exalted
profession; and to the minister that he had met an ardent sympathiser
with his noble career. The ambassador was not dissatisfied with the
impression he had made on one of the foreign correspondents of the
"Chuck-Farthing," and the minister flattered himself that both the
literary and the graphic representations of himself in "Scaramouch"
might possibly for the future be mitigated.

"I have done business to-night," said St. Barbe to Endymion, towards
the close of the evening. "You did not know I had left the old shop? I
kept it close. I could stand it no longer. One has energies, sir,
though not recognised--at least not recognised much," he added
thoughtfully. "But who knows what may happen? The age of mediocrity is
not eternal. You see this thing offered, and I saw an opening. It has
come already. You saw the big-wigs all talking to me? I shall go to
Paris now with some /eclat/. I shall invent a new profession; the
literary diplomatist. The bore is, I know nothing about foreign
politics. My line has been the other way. Never mind; I will read the
'Debats' and the 'Revue des Deux Mondes,' and make out something.
Foreign affairs are all the future, and my views may be as right as
anybody else's; probably more correct, not so conventional. What a
fool I was, Ferrars! I was asked to remain here to-night and refused!
The truth is, I could not stand those powdered gentlemen, and I should
have been under their care. They seem so haughty and supercilious. And
yet I was wrong. I spoke to one of them very rudely just now, when he
was handing coffee, to show I was not afraid, and he answered me like
a seraph. I felt remorse."

"Well, I have made the acquaintance of Mr. St. Barbe," said Myra to
Endymion. "Strange as he is, he seemed quite familiar to me, and he
was so full of himself that he never found me out. I hope some day to
know Mr. Trenchard and Mr. Waldershare. Those I look upon as your
chief friends."

On the following afternoon, Adriana, Myra, and Endymion took a long
walk together in the forest. The green glades in the autumnal woods
were inviting, and sometimes they stood before the vast form of some
doddered oak. The air was fresh and the sun was bright. Adriana was
always gay and happy in the company of her adored Myra, and her
happiness and her gaiety were not diminished by the presence of Myra's
brother. So it was a lively and pleasant walk.

At the end of a long glade they observed a horseman followed by a
groom approaching them. Endymion was some little way behind, gathering
wild flowers for Adriana. Cantering along, the cavalier soon reached
them, and then he suddenly pulled up his horse. It was Colonel Albert.

"You are walking, ladies? Permit me to join you," and he was by their
side. "I delight in forests and in green alleys," said Colonel Albert.
"Two wandering nymphs make the scene perfect."

"We are not alone," said Adriana, "but our guardian is picking some
wild flowers for us, which we fancied. I think it is time to return.
You are going to Hainault, I believe, Colonel Albert, so we can all
walk home together."

So they turned, and Endymion with his graceful offering in a moment
met them. Full of his successful quest, he offered with eager triumph
the flowers to Adriana, without casting a glance at her new companion.

"Beautiful!" exclaimed Adriana, and she stopped to admire and arrange
them. "See, dear Myra, is not this lovely? How superior to anything in
our glass-houses!"

Myra took the flower and examined it. Colonel Albert, who was silent,
was watching all this time Endymion with intentness, who now looked up
and encountered the gaze of the new comer. Their eyes met, their
countenances were agitated, they seemed perplexed, and then it seemed
that at the same time both extended their hands.

"It is a long time since we met," said Colonel Albert, and he retained
the hand of Endymion with affection. But Endymion, who was apparently
much moved, said nothing, or rather only murmured an echo to the
remarks of his new friend. And then they all walked on, but Myra fell
a little back and made a signal to Endymion to join her.

"You never told me, darling, that you knew Colonel Albert."

"Colonel Albert!" said Endymion, looking amazed, and then he added,
"Who is Colonel Albert?"

"That gentleman before us," said Myra.

"That is the Count of Otranto, whose fag I was at Eton."

"The Count of Otranto!"



                             CHAPTER XXXV

Colonel Albert from this day became an object of increased and deeper
interest to Myra. His appearance and manners had always been
attractive, and the mystery connected with him was not calculated to
diminish curiosity in his conduct or fate. But when she discovered
that he was the unseen hero of her childhood, the being who had been
kind to her Endymion in what she had ever considered the severest
trial of her brother's life, had been his protector from those who
would have oppressed him, and had cherished him in the desolate hour
of his delicate and tender boyhood, her heart was disturbed. How often
had they talked together of the Count of Otranto, and how often had
they wondered who he was! His memory had been a delightful mystery to
them in their Berkshire solitude, and Myra recalled with a secret
smile the numberless and ingenious inquiries by which she had
endeavoured to elicit from her brother some clue as to his friend, or
to discover some detail which might guide her to a conclusion.
Endymion had known nothing, and was clear always that the Count of
Otranto must have been, and was, an English boy. And now the Count of
Otranto called himself Colonel Albert, and though he persisted in
speaking English, had admitted to Mrs. Neuchatel that he was a
foreigner.

Who was he? She resolved, when she had an opportunity, to speak to the
great banker on the subject.

"Do you know, Mr. Neuchatel," she said, "that Endymion, my brother,
was at school with Colonel Albert?"

"Ah, ah!" said Mr. Neuchatel.

"But when he was at school he had another name," said Myra.

"Oh, oh!" said Mr. Neuchatel.

"He was then called the Count of Otranto."

"That is a very pretty name," said Mr. Neuchatel.

"But why did he change it?" asked Myra.

"The great world often change their names," said Mr. Neuchatel. "It is
only poor City men like myself who are always called Mr., and bear the
same name as their fathers."

"But when a person is called a count when he is a boy, he is seldom
called only a colonel when he is a man," said Myra. "There is a great
mystery in all this."

"I should not be surprised," said Mr. Neuchatel, "if he were to change
his name again before this time year."

"Why?" asked Myra.

"Well, when I have read all his papers in Bishopsgate Street, perhaps
I shall be able to tell you," said Mr. Neuchatel, and Myra felt that
she could pursue the theme no further.

She expected that Endymion would in time be able to obtain this
information, but it was not so. In their first private conversation
after their meeting in the forest, Endymion had informed Colonel
Albert that, though they had met now for the first time since his
return, they had been for some time lodgers in London under the same
roof. Colonel Albert smiled when Endymion told him this; then falling
into thought, he said; "I hope we may often meet, but for the moment
it may be as well that the past should be known only to ourselves. I
wish my life for the present to be as private as I can arrange it.
There is no reason why we should not be sometimes together--that is,
when you have leisure. I had the pleasure of making your acquaintance
at my banker's."

Parliament had been dissolved through the demise of the crown in the
summer of this year (1837), and London society had been prematurely
broken up. Waldershare had left town early in July to secure his
election, in which he was successful, with no intention of settling
again in his old haunts till the meeting of the new House of Commons,
which was to be in November. The Rodneys were away at some Kentish
watering-place during August and September, exhibiting to an admiring
world their exquisitely made dresses, and enjoying themselves
amazingly at balls and assemblies at the public rooms. The resources
of private society also were not closed to them. Mr. and Mrs. Gamme
were also there and gave immense dinners, and the airy Mrs. Hooghley,
who laughed a little at the Gammes' substantial gatherings and herself
improvised charming pic-nics. So there was really little embarrassment
in the social relations between Colonel Albert and Endymion. They
resolved themselves chiefly into arranging joint expeditions to
Hainault. Endymion had a perpetual invitation there, and it seemed
that the transactions between Mr. Neuchatel and the colonel required
much conference, for the banker always expected him, although it was
well known that they met not unfrequently in Bishopsgate Street in the
course of the week. Colonel Albert and Endymion always stayed at
Hainault from Saturday till Monday. It delighted the colonel to mount
Endymion on one of his choice steeds, and his former fag enjoyed all
this amazingly.

Colonel Albert became domiciled at Hainault. The rooms which were
occupied by him when there were always reserved for him. He had a
general invitation, and might leave his luggage and books and papers
behind him. It was evident that the family pleased him. Between Mr.
Neuchatel and himself there were obviously affairs of great interest;
but it was equally clear that he liked the female members of the
family--all of them; and all liked him. And yet it cannot be said that
he was entertaining, but there are some silent people who are more
interesting than the best talkers. And when he did speak he always
said the right thing. His manners were tender and gentle; he had an
unobtrusive sympathy with all they said or did, except, indeed, and
that was not rarely, when he was lost in profound abstraction.

"I delight in your friend the colonel, Adrian," said Mrs. Neuchatel,
"but I must say he is very absent."

"He has a good deal to think about," said Mr. Neuchatel.

"I wonder what it can be," thought Myra.

"He has a claim to a great estate," said Mr. Neuchatel, "and he has to
think of the best mode of establishing it; and he has been deprived of
great honours, and he believes unjustly, and he wishes to regain
them."

"No wonder, then, he is absent," said Mrs. Neuchatel. "If he only knew
what a burthen great wealth is, I am sure he would not wish to possess
it, and as for honours I never could make out why having a title or a
ribbon could make any difference in a human being."

"Nonsense, my dear Emily," said Mr. Neuchatel. "Great wealth is a
blessing to a man who knows what to do with it, and as for honours,
they are inestimable to the honourable."

"Well, I ardently hope Colonel Albert may succeed," said Myra,
"because he was so kind to my brother at Eton. He must have a good
heart."

"They say he is the most unscrupulous of living men," said Mr.
Neuchatel, with his peculiar smile.

"Good heavens!" exclaimed Mrs. Neuchatel.

"How terrible!" said Adriana. "It cannot be true."

"Perhaps he is the most determined," said Myra. "Moral courage is the
rarest of qualities, and often maligned."

"Well, he has got a champion," said Mr. Neuchatel.

"I ardently wish him success," said Myra, "in all his undertakings. I
only wish I knew what they were."

"Has not he told your brother, Miss Ferrars?" asked Mr. Neuchatel,
with laughing eyes.

"He never speaks of himself to Endymion," said Myra.

"He speaks a good deal of himself to me," said Mr. Neuchatel; "and he
is going to bring a friend here to-morrow who knows more about his
affairs even than I do. So you will have a very good opportunity, Miss
Ferrars, of making yourself acquainted with them, particularly if you
sit next to him at dinner, and are very winning."

The friend of Colonel Albert was Baron Sergius, the baron who used to
visit him in London at twilight in a dark brougham. Mrs. Neuchatel was
greatly taken by his appearance, by the calmness of his mien, his
unstudied politeness, and his measured voice. He conversed with her
entirely at dinner on German philosophy, of which he seemed a complete
master, explained to her the different schools, and probably the
successful ones, and imparted to her that precise knowledge which she
required on the subject, and which she had otherwise been unable to
obtain. It seemed, too, that he personally knew all the famous
professors, and he intimated their doctrines not only with profound
criticism, but described their persons and habits with vividness and
picturesque power, never, however, all this time, by any chance
raising his voice, the tones of which were ever distinct and a little
precise.

"Is this the first visit of your friend to this country?" asked Myra
of Colonel Albert.

"Oh no; he has been here often--and everywhere," added Colonel Albert.

"Everywhere! he must be a most interesting companion then."

"I find him so: I never knew any one whom I thought equal to him. But
perhaps I am not an impartial judge, for I have known him so long and
so intimately. In fact, I had never been out of his sight till I was
brought over to this country to be placed at Eton. He is the
counsellor of our family, and we all of us have ever agreed that if
his advice had been always followed we should never have had a
calamity."

"Indeed, a gifted person! Is he a soldier?"

"No; Baron Sergius has not followed the profession of arms."

"He looks a diplomatist."

"Well, he is now nothing but my friend," said the colonel. "He might
have been anything, but he is a peculiarly domestic character, and is
devoted to private life."

"You are fortunate in such a friend."

"Well, I am glad to be fortunate in something," said Colonel Albert.

"And are you not fortunate in everything?"

"I have not that reputation; but I shall be more than fortunate if I
have your kind wishes."

"Those you have," said Myra, rather eagerly. "My brother taught me,
even as a child, to wish nothing but good for you. I wish I knew only
what I was to wish for."

"Wish that my plans may succeed," said Colonel Albert, looking round
to her with interest.

"I will more than wish," said Myra; "I will believe that they will
succeed, because I think you have resolved to succeed."

"I shall tell Endymion when I see him," said Colonel Albert, "that his
sister is the only person who has read my character."



                            CHAPTER XXXVI

Colonel Albert and Baron Sergius drove up in their landau from
Hainault while Endymion was at the door in Warwick Street, returning
home. The colonel saluted him cordially, and said, "The baron is going
to take a cup of coffee with me; join us." So they went upstairs.
There was a packet on the table, which seemed to catch the colonel's
eye immediately, and he at once opened it with eagerness. It contained
many foreign newspapers. Without waiting for the servant who was about
to bring candles, the colonel lighted a taper on the table with a
lucifer, and then withdrew into the adjoining chamber, opening,
however, with folding doors to the principal and spacious apartment.

"A foreign newspaper always interests our friend," said the baron,
taking his coffee.

"Well, it must always be interesting to have news from home, I
suppose," said Endymion.

"Home!" said the baron. "News is always interesting, whether it come
from home or not."

"To public men," said Endymion.

"To all men if they be wise," said the baron; "as a general rule, the
most successful man in life is the man who has the best information."

"But what a rare thing is success in life!" said Endymion. "I often
wonder whether I shall ever be able to step out of the crowd."

"You may have success in life without stepping out of the crowd," said
the baron.

"A sort of success," said Endymion; "I know what you mean. But what I
mean is real success in life. I mean, I should like to be a public
man."

"Why?" asked the baron.

"Well, I should like to have power," said Endymion, blushing.

"The most powerful men are not public men," said the baron. "A public
man is responsible, and a responsible man is a slave. It is private
life that governs the world. You will find this out some day. The
world talks much of powerful sovereigns and great ministers; and if
being talked about made one powerful, they would be irresistible. But
the fact is, the more you are talked about the less powerful you are."

"But surely King Luitbrand is a powerful monarch; they say he is the
wisest of men. And the Emperor Harold, who has succeeded in
everything. And as for ministers, who is a great man if it be not
Prince Wenceslaus?"

"King Luitbrand is governed by his doctor, who is capable of governing
Europe, but has no ambition that way; the Emperor Harold is directed
by his mistress, who is a woman of a certain age with a vast sagacity,
but who also believes in sorcery; and as for Prince Wenceslaus, he is
inspired by an individual as obscure as ourselves, and who, for aught
I know, may be, at this moment, like ourselves, drinking a cup of
coffee in a hired lodging."

"What you say about public life amazes me," said Endymion musingly.

"Think over it," said the baron. "As an Englishman, you will have
difficulty in avoiding public life. But at any rate do not at present
be discontented that you are unknown. It is the first condition of
real power. When you have succeeded in life according to your views,
and I am inclined to believe you will so succeed, you will, some day,
sigh for real power, and denounce the time when you became a public
man, and belonged to any one but yourself. But our friend calls me. He
has found something startling. I will venture to say, if there be
anything in it, it has been brought about by some individual of whom
you never heard."



                            CHAPTER XXXVII

With the assembling of parliament in November recommenced the sittings
of the Union Society, of which Endymion had for some time been a
member, and of whose meetings he was a constant and critical, though
silent, attendant. There was a debate one night on the government of
dependencies, which, although all reference to existing political
circumstances was rigidly prohibited, no doubt had its origin in the
critical state of one of our most important colonies, then much
embarrassing the metropolis. The subject was one which Endymion had
considered, and on which he had arrived at certain conclusions. The
meeting was fully attended, and the debate had been conducted with a
gravity becoming the theme. Endymion was sitting on a back bench, and
with no companion near him with whom he was acquainted, when he rose
and solicited the attention of the president. Another and a well-known
speaker had also risen, and been called, but there was a cry of "new
member," a courteous cry, borrowed from the House of Commons, and
Endymion for the first time heard his own voice in public. He has
since admitted, though he has been through many trying scenes, that it
was the most nervous moment of his life. "After Calais," as a wise wit
said, "nothing surprises;" and the first time a man speaks in public,
even if only at a debating society, is also the unequalled incident in
its way. The indulgence of the audience supported him while the mist
cleared from his vision, and his palpitating heart subsided into
comparative tranquillity. After a few pardonable incoherencies, he was
launched into his subject, and spoke with the thoughtful fluency which
knowledge alone can sustain. For knowledge is the foundation of
eloquence.

"What a good-looking young fellow!" whispered Mr. Bertie Tremaine to
his brother Mr. Tremaine Bertie. The Bertie Tremaines were the two
greatest swells of the Union, and had a party of their own. "And he
speaks well."

"Who is he?" inquired Mr. Tremaine Bertie of their other neighbour.

"He is a clerk in the Treasury, I believe, or something of that sort,"
was the reply.

"I never saw such a good-looking young fellow," said Mr. Bertie
Tremaine. "He is worth getting hold of. I shall ask to be introduced
to him when we break up."

Accordingly, Mr. Bertie Tremaine, who was always playing at politics,
and who, being two-and-twenty, was discontented he was not Chancellor
of the Exchequer like Mr. Pitt, whispered to a gentleman who sate
behind him, and was, in short, the whip of his section, and signified,
as a minister of state would, that an introduction to Mr. Ferrars
should be arranged.

So when the meeting broke up, of which Mr. Ferrars' maiden speech was
quite the event, and while he was contemplating, not without some fair
self-complacency, walking home with Trenchard, Endymion found himself
encompassed by a group of bowing forms and smiling countenances, and,
almost before he was aware of it, had made the acquaintance of the
great Mr. Bertie Tremaine, and received not only the congratulations
of that gentleman, but an invitation to dine with him on the morrow;
"quite /sans facon/."

Mr. Bertie Tremaine, who had early succeeded to the family estate,
lived in Grosvenor Street, and in becoming style. His house was
furnished with luxury and some taste. The host received his guests in
a library, well stored with political history and political science,
and adorned with the busts of celebrated statesmen and of profound
political sages. Bentham was the philosopher then affected by young
gentleman of ambition, and who wished to have credit for profundity
and hard heads. Mr. Bertie Tremaine had been the proprietor of a close
borough, which for several generations had returned his family to
parliament, the faithful supporters of Pitt, and Perceval, and
Liverpool, and he had contemplated following the same line, though
with larger and higher objects than his ancestors. Being a man of
considerable and versatile ability, and of ample fortune, with the
hereditary opportunity which he possessed, he had a right to aspire,
and, as his vanity more than equalled his talents, his estimate of his
own career was not mean. Unfortunately, before he left Harrow, he was
deprived of his borough, and this catastrophe eventually occasioned a
considerable change in the views and conduct of Mr. Bertie Tremaine.
In the confusion of parties and political thought which followed the
Reform Act of Lord Grey, an attempt to govern the country by the
assertion of abstract principles, and which it was now beginning to be
the fashion to call Liberalism, seemed the only opening to public
life; and Mr. Bertie Tremaine, who piqued himself on recognising the
spirit of the age, adopted Liberal opinions with that youthful fervour
which is sometimes called enthusiasm, but which is a heat of
imagination subsequently discovered to be inconsistent with the
experience of actual life. At Cambridge Mr. Bertie Tremaine was at
first the solitary pupil of Bentham, whose principles he was prepared
to carry to their extreme consequences, but being a man of energy and
in possession of a good estate, he soon found followers, for the
sympathies of youth are quick, and, even with an original bias, it is
essentially mimetic. When Mr. Bertie Tremaine left the university he
found in the miscellaneous elements of the London Union many of his
former companions of school and college, and from them, and the new
world to which he was introduced, it delighted him to form parties and
construct imaginary cabinets. His brother Augustus, who was his junior
only by a year, and was destined to be a diplomatist, was an efficient
assistant in these enterprises, and was one of the guests who greeted
Endymion when he arrived next day in Grosvenor Street according to his
engagement. The other three were Hortensius, the whip of the party,
and Mr. Trenchard.

The dinner was refined, for Mr. Bertie Tremaine combined the Sybarite
with the Utilitarian sage, and it secretly delighted him to astonish
or embarrass an austere brother republican by the splendour of his
family plate or the polished appointments of his household. To-day the
individual to be influenced was Endymion, and the host, acting up to
his ideal of a first minister, addressed questions to his companions
on the subjects which were peculiarly their own, and, after eliciting
their remarks, continued to complete the treatment of the theme with
adequate ability, though in a manner authoritative, and, as Endymion
thought, a little pompous. What amused him most in this assemblage of
youth was their earnest affectation of public life. The freedom of
their comments on others was only equalled by their confidence in
themselves. Endymion, who only spoke when he was appealed to, had
casually remarked in answer to one of the observations which his host
with elaborate politeness occasionally addressed to him, that he
thought it was unpatriotic to take a certain course. Mr. Bertie
Tremaine immediately drew up, and said, with a deep smile, "that he
comprehended philanthropy, but patriotism he confessed he did not
understand;" and thereupon delivered himself of an address on the
subject which might have been made in the Union, and which
communicated to the astonished Endymion that patriotism was a false
idea, and entirely repugnant to the principles of the new philosophy.
As all present were more or less impregnated with these tenets, there
was no controversy on the matter. Endymion remained discreetly silent,
and Augustus--Mr. Bertie Tremaine's brother--who sate next to him, and
whose manners were as sympathising as his brother's were autocratic,
whispered in a wheedling tone that it was quite true, and that the
idea of patriotism was entirely relinquished except by a few old-
fashioned folks who clung to superstitious phrases. Hortensius, who
seemed to be the only one of the company who presumed to meet Mr.
Bertie Tremaine in conversation on equal terms, and who had already
astonished Endymion by what that inexperienced youth deemed the
extreme laxity of his views, both social and political, evinced, more
than once, a disposition to deviate into the lighter topics of
feminine character, and even the fortunes of the hazard-table; but the
host looked severe, and was evidently resolved that the conversation
to-day should resemble the expression of his countenance. After dinner
they returned to the library, and most of them smoked, but Mr. Bertie
Tremaine, inviting Endymion to seat himself by his side on a sofa at
the farther end of the room, observed, "I suppose you are looking to
parliament?"

"Well, I do not know," said the somewhat startled Endymion; "I have
not thought much about it, and I have not yet reached a parliamentary
age."

"A man cannot enter parliament too soon," said Mr. Bertie Tremaine; "I
hope to enter this session. There will be a certain vacancy on a
petition, and I have arranged to have the seat."

"Indeed!" said Endymion. "My father was in parliament, and so was my
grandfather, but I confess I do not very well see my way there."

"You must connect yourself with a party," said Mr. Bertie Tremaine,
"and you will soon enter; and being young, you should connect yourself
with the party of the future. The country is wearied with the present
men, who have no philosophical foundation, and are therefore
perpetually puzzled and inconsistent, and the country will not stand
the old men, as it is resolved against retrogression. The party of the
future and of the speedy future has its headquarters under this roof,
and I should like to see you belong to it."

"You are too kind," murmured Endymion.

"Yes, I see in you the qualities adapted to public life, and which may
be turned to great account. I must get you into parliament as soon as
you are eligible," continued Mr. Bertie Tremaine in a musing tone.
"This death of the King was very inopportune. If he had reigned a
couple of years more, I saw my way to half a dozen seats, and I could
have arranged with Lord Durham."

"That was unfortunate," said Endymion.

"What do you think of Hortensius?" inquired Mr. Bertie Tremaine.

"I think him the most brilliant speaker I know," said Endymion. "I
never met him in private society before; he talks well."

"He wants conduct," said Mr. Bertie Tremaine. "He ought to be my Lord
Chancellor, but there is a tone of levity about him which is
unfortunate. Men destined to the highest places should beware of
badinage."

"I believe it is a dangerous weapon."

"All lawyers are loose in their youth, but an insular country subject
to fogs, and with a powerful middle class, requires grave statesmen. I
attribute a great deal of the nonsense called Conservative Reaction to
Peel's solemnity. The proper minister for England at this moment would
be Pitt. Extreme youth gives hope to a country; coupled with
ceremonious manners, hope soon assumes the form of confidence."

"Ah!" murmured Endymion.

"I had half a mind to ask Jawett to dinner to-day. His powers are
unquestionable, but he is not a practical man. For instance, I think
myself our colonial empire is a mistake, and that we should
disembarrass ourselves of its burthen as rapidly as is consistent with
the dignity of the nation; but were Jawett in the House of Commons
to-morrow, nothing would satisfy him but a resolution for the total
and immediate abolition of the empire, with a preamble denouncing the
folly of our fathers in creating it. Jawett never spares any one's
self-love."

"I know him very well," said Endymion; "he is in my office. He is very
uncompromising."

"Yes," said Mr. Bertie Tremaine musingly; "if I had to form a
government, I could hardly offer him the cabinet." Then speaking more
rapidly, he added, "The man you should attach yourself to is my
brother Augustus--Mr. Tremaine Bertie. There is no man who understands
foreign politics like Augustus, and he is a thorough man of the
world."



                           CHAPTER XXXVIII

When parliament reassembled in February, the Neuchatels quitted
Hainault for their London residence in Portland Place. Mrs. Neuchatel
was sadly troubled at leaving her country home, which, notwithstanding
its distressing splendour, had still some forms of compensatory
innocence in its flowers and sylvan glades. Adriana sighed when she
called to mind the manifold and mortifying snares and pitfalls that
awaited her, and had even framed a highly practical and sensible
scheme which would permit her parents to settle in town and allow Myra
and herself to remain permanently in the country; but Myra brushed
away the project like a fly, and Adriana yielding, embraced her with
tearful eyes.

The Neuchatel mansion in Portland Place was one of the noblest in that
comely quarter of the town, and replete with every charm and
convenience that wealth and taste could provide. Myra, who, like her
brother, had a tenacious memory, was interested in recalling as fully
and as accurately as possible her previous experience of London life.
She was then indeed only a child, but a child who was often admitted
to brilliant circles, and had enjoyed opportunities of social
observation which the very youthful seldom possess. Her retrospection
was not as profitable as she could have desired, and she was
astonished, after a severe analysis of the past, to find how entirely
at that early age she appeared to have been engrossed with herself and
with Endymion. Hill Street and Wimbledon, and all their various life,
figured as shadowy scenes; she could realise nothing very definite for
her present guidance; the past seemed a phantom of fine dresses, and
bright equipages, and endless indulgence. All that had happened after
their fall was distinct and full of meaning. It would seem that
adversity had taught Myra to feel and think.

Forty years ago the great financiers had not that commanding, not to
say predominant, position in society which they possess at present,
but the Neuchatels were an exception to this general condition. They
were a family which not only had the art of accumulating wealth, but
of expending it with taste and generosity--an extremely rare
combination. Their great riches, their political influence, their high
integrity and their social accomplishments, combined to render their
house not only splendid, but interesting and agreeable, and gave them
a great hold upon the world. At first the fine ladies of their
political party called on them as a homage of condescending gratitude
for the public support which the Neuchatel family gave to their sons
and husbands, but they soon discovered that this amiable descent from
their Olympian heights on their part did not amount exactly to the
sacrifice or service which they had contemplated. They found their
host as refined as themselves, and much more magnificent, and in a
very short time it was not merely the wives of ambassadors and
ministers of state that were found at the garden fetes of Hainault, or
the balls, and banquets, and concerts of Portland Place, but the
fitful and capricious realm of fashion surrendered like a fair country
conquered as it were by surprise. To visit the Neuchatels became the
mode; all solicited to be their guests, and some solicited in vain.

Although it was only February, the world began to move, and some of
the ministers' wives, who were socially strong enough to venture on
such a step, received their friends. Mr. Neuchatel particularly liked
this form of society. "I cannot manage balls," he used to say, "but I
like a ministerial reception. There is some chance of sensible
conversation and doing a little business. I like talking with
ambassadors after dinner. Besides, in this country you meet the
leaders of the opposition, because, as they are not invited by the
minister, but by his wife, anybody can come without committing
himself."

Myra, faithful to her original resolution, not to enter society while
she was in mourning, declined all the solicitudes of her friends to
accompany them to these assemblies. Mrs. Neuchatel always wished Myra
should be her substitute, and it was only at Myra's instance that
Adriana accompanied her parents. In the meantime, Myra saw much of
Endymion. He was always a welcome guest by the family, and could call
upon his sister at all the odds and ends of time that were at his
command, and chat with her at pleasant ease in her pretty room.
Sometimes they walked out together, and sometimes they went together
to see some exhibition that everybody went to see. Adriana became
almost as intimate with Endymion as his sister, and altogether the
Neuchatel family became by degrees to him as a kind of home. Talking
with Endymion, Myra heard a good deal of Colonel Albert, for he was
her brother's hero--but she rarely saw that gentleman. She was aware
from her brother, and from some occasional words of Mr. Neuchatel,
that the great banker still saw Colonel Albert and not unfrequently,
but the change of residence from Hainault to London made a difference
in their mode of communication. Business was transacted in Bishopsgate
Street, and no longer combined with a pleasant ride to an Essex
forest. More than once Colonel Albert had dined in Portland Place, but
at irregular and miscellaneous parties. Myra observed that he was
never asked to meet the grand personages who attended the celebrated
banquets of Mr. Neuchatel. And why not? His manners were
distinguished, but his whole bearing that of one accustomed to
consideration. The irrepressible curiosity of woman impelled her once
to feel her way on the subject with Mr. Neuchatel, but with the utmost
dexterity and delicacy.

"No," said Mr. Neuchatel with a laughing eye, and who saw through
everybody's purpose, though his own manner was one of simplicity
amounting almost to innocence, "I did not say Colonel Albert was going
to dine here on Wednesday; I have asked him to dine here on Sunday. On
Wednesday I am going to have the premier and some of his colleagues. I
must insist upon Miss Ferrars dining at table. You will meet Lord
Roehampton; all the ladies admire him and he admires all the ladies.
It will not do to ask Colonel Albert to meet such a party, though
perhaps," added Mr. Neuchatel with a merry smile, "some day they may
be asked to meet Colonel Albert. Who knows, Miss Ferrars? The wheel of
Fortune turns round very strangely."

"And who then is Colonel Albert?" asked Myra with decision.

"Colonel Albert is Colonel Albert, and nobody else, so far as I know,"
replied Mr. Neuchatel; "he has brought a letter of credit on my house
in that name, and I am happy to honour his drafts to the amount in
question, and as he is a foreigner, I think it is but kind and
courteous occasionally to ask him to dinner."

Miss Ferrars did not pursue the inquiry, for she was sufficiently
acquainted with Mr. Neuchatel to feel that he did not intend to
gratify her curiosity.

The banquet of the Neuchatels to the premier, and some of the
principal ambassadors and their wives, and to those of the premier's
colleagues who were fashionable enough to be asked, and to some of the
dukes and duchesses and other ethereal beings who supported the
ministry, was the first event of the season. The table blazed with
rare flowers and rarer porcelain and precious candelabra of sculptured
beauty glittering with light; the gold plate was less remarkable than
the delicate ware that had been alike moulded and adorned for a Du
Barri or a Marie Antoinette, and which now found a permanent and
peaceful home in the proverbial land of purity and order; and amid the
stars and ribbons, not the least remarkable feature of the whole was
Mr. Neuchatel himself, seated at the centre of his table, alike free
from ostentation or over-deference, talking to the great ladies on
each side of him, as if he had nothing to do in life but whisper in
gentle ears, and partaking of his own dainties as if he were eating
bread and cheese at a country inn.

Perhaps Mrs. Neuchatel might have afforded a companion picture. Partly
in deference to their host, and partly because this evening the first
dance of the season was to be given, the great ladies in general wore
their diamonds, and Myra was amused as she watched their dazzling
tiaras and flashing rivieres, while not a single ornament adorned the
graceful presence of their hostess, who was more content to be
brilliant only by her conversation. As Mr. Neuchatel had only a few
days before presented his wife with another diamond necklace, he might
be excused were he slightly annoyed. Nothing of the sort; he only
shrugged his shoulders, and said to his nephew, "Your aunt must feel
that I give her diamonds from love and not from vanity, as she never
lets me have the pleasure of seeing them." The sole ornament of
Adriana was an orchid, which had arrived that morning from Hainault,
and she had presented its fellow to Myra.

There was one lady who much attracted the attention of Myra,
interested in all she observed. This lady was evidently a person of
importance, for she sate between an ambassador and a knight of the
garter, and they vied in homage to her. They watched her every word,
and seemed delighted with all she said. Without being strictly
beautiful, there was an expression of sweet animation in her
physiognomy which was highly attractive: her eye was full of summer
lightning, and there was an arch dimple in her smile, which seemed to
irradiate her whole countenance. She was quite a young woman, hardly
older than Myra. What most distinguished her was the harmony of her
whole person; her graceful figure, her fair and finely moulded
shoulders, her pretty teeth, and her small extremities, seemed to
blend with and become the soft vivacity of her winning glance.

"Lady Montfort looks well to-night," said the neighbour of Myra.

"And is that Lady Montfort? Do you know, I never saw her before."

"Yes; that is the famous Berengaria, the Queen of Society, and the
genius of Whiggism."

In the evening, a great lady, who was held to have the finest voice in
society, favoured them with a splendid specimen of her commanding
skill, and then Adriana was induced to gratify her friends with a
song, "only one song," and that only on condition that Myra should
accompany her. Miss Neuchatel had a sweet and tender voice, and it had
been finely cultivated; she would have been more than charming if she
had only taken interest in anything she herself did, or believed for a
moment that she could interest others. When she ceased, a gentleman
approached the instrument and addressed her in terms of sympathy and
deferential praise. Myra recognised the knight of the garter who had
sat next to Lady Montfort. He was somewhat advanced in middle life,
tall and of a stately presence, with a voice more musical even than
the tones which had recently enchanted every one. His countenance was
impressive, a truly Olympian brow, but the lower part of the face
indicated not feebleness, but flexibility, and his mouth was somewhat
sensuous. His manner was at once winning; natural, and singularly
unaffected, and seemed to sympathise entirely with those whom he
addressed.

"But I have never been at Hainault," said the gentleman, continuing a
conversation, "and therefore could not hear the nightingales. I am
content you have brought one of them to town."

"Nightingales disappear in June," said Miss Ferrars; "so our season
will be short."

"And where do they travel to?" asked the gentleman.

"Ah! that is a mystery," said Myra. "You must ask Miss Neuchatel."

"But she will not tell me," said the gentleman, for in truth Miss
Neuchatel, though he had frequently addressed her, had scarcely opened
her lips.

"Tell your secret, Adriana," said Miss Ferrars, trying to force her to
converse.

"Adriana!" said the gentleman. "What a beautiful name! You look with
that flower, Miss Neuchatel, like a bride of Venice."

"Nay," said Myra; "the bride of Venice was a stormy ocean."

"And have you a Venetian name?" asked the gentleman.

There was a pause, and then Miss Neuchatel, with an effort, murmured,
"She has a very pretty name. Her name is Myra."

"She seems to deserve it," said the gentleman.

"So you like my daughter's singing," said Mr. Neuchatel, coming up to
them. "She does not much like singing in public, but she is a very
good girl, and always gives me a song when I come home from business."


"Fortunate man!" said the gentleman. "I wish somebody would sing to me
when I come home from business."

"You should marry, my lord," said Mr. Neuchatel, "and get your wife to
sing to you. Is it not so, Miss Ferrars? By the by, I ought to
introduce you to--Lord Roehampton."



                            CHAPTER XXXIX

The Earl of Roehampton was the strongest member of the government,
except, of course, the premier himself. He was the man from whose
combined force and flexibility of character the country had confidence
that in all their councils there would be no lack of courage, yet
tempered with adroit discretion. Lord Roehampton, though an
Englishman, was an Irish peer, and was resolved to remain so, for he
fully appreciated the position, which united social distinction with
the power of a seat in the House of Commons. He was a very ambitious,
and, as it was thought, worldly man, deemed even by many to be
unscrupulous, and yet he was romantic. A great favourite in society,
and especially with the softer sex, somewhat late in life, he had
married suddenly a beautiful woman, who was without fortune, and not a
member of the enchanted circle in which he flourished. The union had
been successful, for Lord Roehampton was gifted with a sweet temper,
and, though people said he had no heart, with a winning tenderness of
disposition, or at least of manner, which at the same time charmed and
soothed. He had been a widower for two years, and the world was of
opinion that he ought to marry again, and form this time a becoming
alliance. In addition to his many recommendations he had now the
inestimable reputation, which no one had ever contemplated for him, of
having been a good husband.

Berengaria, Countess of Montfort, was a great friend of Lord
Roehampton. She was accustomed to describe herself as "the last of his
conquests," and though Lord Roehampton read characters and purposes
with a glance, and was too sagacious to be deceived by any one, even
by himself, his gratified taste, for he scarcely had vanity, cherished
the bright illusion of which he was conscious, and he responded to
Lady Montfort half sportively, half seriously, with an air of
flattered devotion. Lord Roehampton had inherited an ample estate, and
he had generally been in office; for he served his apprenticeship
under Perceval and Liverpool, and changed his party just in time to
become a member of the Cabinet of 1831. Yet with all these advantages,
whether it were the habit of his life, which was ever profuse, or that
neglect of his private interests which almost inevitably accompanies
the absorbing duties of public life, his affairs were always somewhat
confused, and Lady Montfort, who wished to place him on a pinnacle,
had resolved that he should marry an heiress. After long observation
and careful inquiry and prolonged reflection, the lady she had fixed
upon was Miss Neuchatel; and she it was who had made Lord Roehampton
cross the room and address Adriana after her song.

"He is not young," reasoned Lady Montfort to herself, "but his mind
and manner are young, and that is everything. I am sure I meet youth
every day who, compared with Lord Roehampton, could have no chance
with my sex--men who can neither feel, nor think, nor converse. And
then he is famous, and powerful, and fashionable, and knows how to
talk to women. And this must all tell with a banker's daughter, dying,
of course, to be a /grande dame/. It will do. He may not be young, but
he is irresistible. And the father will like it, for he told me in
confidence, at dinner, that he wished Lord Roehampton to be prime
minister; and with this alliance he will be."

The plot being devised by a fertile brain never wanting in expedients,
its development was skilfully managed, and its accomplishment
anticipated with confidence. It was remarkable with what dexterity the
Neuchatel family and Lord Roehampton were brought together.
Berengaria's lord and master was in the country, which he said he
would not quit; but this did not prevent her giving delightful little
dinners and holding select assemblies on nights when there was no
dreadful House of Commons, and Lord Roehampton could be present. On
most occasions, and especially on these latter ones, Lady Montfort
could not endure existence without her dear Adriana. Mr. Neuchatel,
who was a little in the plot, who at least smiled when Berengaria
alluded to her enterprise, was not wanting in his contributions to its
success. He hardly ever gave one of his famous banquets to which Lord
Roehampton was not invited, and, strange to say, Lord Roehampton, who
had the reputation of being somewhat difficult on this head, always
accepted the invitations. The crowning social incident, however, was
when Lord Roehampton opened his own house for the first time since his
widowhood, and received the Neuchatels at a banquet not inferior to
their own. This was a great triumph for Lady Montfort, who thought the
end was at hand.

"Life is short," she said to Lord Roehampton that evening. "Why not
settle it to-night?"

"Well," said Lord Roehampton, "you know I never like anything
precipitate. Besides, why should the citadel surrender when I have
hardly entered on my first parallel?"

"Ah! those are old-fashioned tactics," said Lady Montfort.

"Well, I suppose I am an old-fashioned man."

"Be serious, now. I want it settled before Easter. I must go down to
my lord then, and even before; and I should like to see this settled
before we separate."

"Why does not Montfort come up to town?" said Lord Roehampton. "He is
wanted."

"Well," said Lady Montfort, with half a sigh, "it is no use talking
about it. He will not come. Our society bores him, and he must be
amused. I write to him every day, and sometimes twice a day, and pass
my life in collecting things to interest him. I would never leave him
for a moment, only I know then that he would get wearied of me; and he
thinks now--at least, he once said so--that he has never had a dull
moment in my company."

"How can he find amusement in the country?" said Lord Roehampton.
"There is no sport now, and a man cannot always be reading French
novels."

"Well, I send amusing people down to him," said Berengaria. "It is
difficult to arrange, for he does not like toadies, which is so
unreasonable, for I know many toadies who are very pleasant. Treeby is
with him now, and that is excellent, for Treeby contradicts him, and
is scientific as well as fashionable, and gives him the last news of
the Sun as well as of White's. I want to get this great African
traveller to go down to him; but one can hardly send a perfect
stranger as a guest. I wanted Treeby to take him, but Treeby refused--
men are so selfish. Treeby could have left him there, and the
traveller might have remained a week, told all he had seen, and as
much more as he liked. My lord cannot stand Treeby more than two days,
and Treeby cannot stand my lord for a longer period, and that is why
they are such friends."

"A sound basis of agreement," said Lord Roehampton. "I believe absence
is often a great element of charm."

"But, /a nos moutons/," resumed Lady Montfort. "You see now why I am
so anxious for a conclusion of our affair. I think it is ripe?"

"Why do you?" said Lord Roehampton.

"Well, she must be very much in love with you."

"Has she told you so?"

"No; but she looks in love."

"She has never told me so," said Lord Roehampton.

"Have you told her?"

"Well, I have not," said her companion. "I like the family--all of
them. I like Neuchatel particularly. I like his house and style of
living. You always meet nice people there, and bear the last thing
that has been said or done all over the world. It is a house where you
are sure not to be dull."

"You have described a perfect home," said Lady Montfort, "and it
awaits you."

"Well, I do not know," said Lord Roehampton. "Perhaps I am fastidious,
perhaps I am content; to be noticed sometimes by a Lady Montfort
should, I think, satisfy any man."

"Well, that is gallant, but it is not business, my dear lord. You can
count on my devotion even when you are married; but I want to see you
on a pinnacle, so that if anything happens there shall be no question
who is to be the first man in this country."



                              CHAPTER XL

The meeting of parliament caused also the return of Waldershare to
England, and brought life and enjoyment to our friends in Warwick
Street. Waldershare had not taken his seat in the autumn session.
After the general election, he had gone abroad with Lord Beaumaris,
the young nobleman who had taken them to the Derby, and they had seen
and done many strange things. During all their peregrinations,
however, Waldershare maintained a constant correspondence with
Imogene, occasionally sending her a choice volume, which she was not
only to read, but to prove her perusal of it by forwarding to him a
criticism of its contents.

Endymion was too much pleased to meet Waldershare again, and told him
of the kind of intimacy he had formed with Colonel Albert and all
about the baron. Waldershare was much interested in these details, and
it was arranged that an opportunity should be taken to make the
colonel and Waldershare acquainted.

This, however, was not an easy result to bring about, for Waldershare
insisted on its not occurring formally, and as the colonel maintained
the utmost reserve with the household, and Endymion had no room of
reception, weeks passed over without Waldershare knowing more of
Colonel Albert personally than sometimes occasionally seeing him mount
his horse.

In the meantime life in Warwick Street, so far as the Rodney family
were concerned, appeared to have re-assumed its pleasant, and what
perhaps we are authorised in styling its normal condition. They went
to the play two or three times a week, and there Waldershare or Lord
Beaumaris, frequently both, always joined them; and then they came
home to supper, and then they smoked; and sometimes there was a little
singing, and sometimes a little whist. Occasionally there was only
conversation, that is to say, Waldershare held forth, dilating on some
wondrous theme, full of historical anecdote, and dazzling paradox, and
happy phrase. All listened with interest, even those who did not
understand him. Much of his talk was addressed really to Beaumaris,
whose mind he was forming, as well as that of Imogene. Beaumaris was
an hereditary Whig, but had not personally committed himself, and the
ambition of Waldershare was to transform him not only into a Tory, but
one of the old rock, a real Jacobite. "Is not the Tory party,"
Waldershare would exclaim, "a succession of heroic spirits, 'beautiful
and swift,' ever in the van, and foremost of their age?--Hobbes and
Bolingbroke, Hume and Adam Smith, Wyndham and Cobham, Pitt and
Grenville, Canning and Huskisson?--Are not the principles of Toryism
those popular rights which men like Shippen and Hynde Cotton flung in
the face of an alien monarch and his mushroom aristocracy?--Place
bills, triennial bills, opposition to standing armies, to peerage
bills?--Are not the traditions of the Tory party the noblest pedigree
in the world? Are not its illustrations that glorious martyrology,
that opens with the name of Falkland and closes with the name of
Canning?"

"I believe it is all true," whispered Lord Beaumaris to Sylvia, who
had really never heard of any of these gentlemen before, but looked
most sweet and sympathetic.

"He is a wonderful man--Mr. Waldershare," said Mr. Vigo to Rodney,
"but I fear not practical."

One day, not very long after his return from his travels, Waldershare
went to breakfast with his uncle, Mr. Sidney Wilton, now a cabinet
minister, still unmarried, and living in Grosvenor Square.
Notwithstanding the difference of their politics, an affectionate
intimacy subsisted between them; indeed Waldershare was a favourite of
his uncle, who enjoyed the freshness of his mind, and quite
appreciated his brilliancy of thought and speech, his quaint reading
and effervescent imagination.

"And so you think we are in for life, George," said Mr. Wilson, taking
a piece of toast. "I do not."

"Well, I go upon this," said Waldershare. "It is quite clear that Peel
has nothing to offer the country, and the country will not rally round
a negation. When he failed in '34 they said there had not been
sufficient time for the reaction to work. Well, now, since then, it
has had nearly three years, during which you fellows have done
everything to outrage every prejudice of the constituency, and yet
they have given you a majority."

"Yes, that is all very well," replied Mr. Wilton, "but we are the
Liberal shop, and we have no Liberal goods on hand; we are the party
of movement, and must perforce stand still. The fact is, all the great
questions are settled. No one will burn his fingers with the Irish
Church again, in this generation certainly not, probably in no other;
you could not get ten men together in any part of the country to
consider the corn laws; I must confess I regret it. I still retain my
opinion that a moderate fixed duty would be a wise arrangement, but I
quite despair in my time of any such advance of opinion; as for the
ballot, it is hardly tolerated in debating societies. The present
government, my dear George, will expire from inanition. I always told
the cabinet they were going on too fast. They should have kept back
municipal reform. It would have carried us on for five years. It was
our only /piece de resistance/."

"I look upon the House of Commons as a mere vestry," said Waldershare.
"I believe it to be completely used up. Reform has dished it. There
are no men, and naturally, because the constituencies elect
themselves, and the constituencies are the most mediocre of the
nation. The House of Commons now is like a spendthrift living on his
capital. The business is done and the speeches are made by men formed
in the old school. The influence of the House of Commons is mainly
kept up by old social traditions. I believe if the eldest sons of
peers now members would all accept the Chiltern hundreds, and the
House thus cease to be fashionable, before a year was past, it would
be as odious and as contemptible as the Rump Parliament."

"Well, you are now the eldest son of a peer," said Sidney Wilton,
smiling. "Why do you not set an example, instead of spending your
father's substance and your own in fighting a corrupt borough?"

"I am /vox clamantis/," said Waldershare. "I do not despair of its
being done. But what I want is some big guns to do it. Let the eldest
son of a Tory duke and the eldest son of a Whig duke do the same thing
on the same day, and give the reason why. If Saxmundham, for example,
and Harlaxton would do it, the game would be up."

"On the contrary," said Mr. Wilton, "Saxmundham, I can tell you, will
be the new cabinet minister."

"Degenerate land!" exclaimed Waldershare. "Ah! in the eighteenth
century there was always a cause to sustain the political genius of
the country,--the cause of the rightful dynasty."

"Well, thank God, we have got rid of all those troubles," said Mr.
Wilton.

"Rid of them! I do not know that. I saw a great deal of the Duke of
Modena this year, and tried as well as I could to open his mind to the
situation."

"You traitor!" exclaimed Mr. Wilton. "If I were Secretary of State, I
would order the butler to arrest you immediately, and send you to the
Tower in a hack cab; but as I am only a President of a Board and your
uncle, you will escape."

"Well, I should think all sensible men," said Waldershare, "of all
parties will agree, that before we try a republic, it would be better
to give a chance to the rightful heir."

"Well, I am not a republican," said Mr. Wilton, "and I think Queen
Victoria, particularly if she make a wise and happy marriage, need not
much fear the Duke of Modena."

"He is our sovereign lord, all the same," said Waldershare. "I wish he
were more aware of it himself. Instead of looking to a restoration to
his throne, I found him always harping on the fear of French invasion.
I could not make him understand that France was his natural ally, and
that without her help, Charlie was not likely to have his own again."

"Well, as you admire pretenders, George, I wish you were in my shoes
this morning, for I have got one of the most disagreeable interviews
on hand which ever fell to my lot."

"How so, my dear uncle?" said Waldershare, in a tone of sympathy, for
he saw that the countenance of Mr. Wilton was disturbed.

"My unhappy ward," said Mr. Wilton; "you know, of course, something
about him."

"Well, I was at school and college," said Waldershare, "when it all
happened. But I have just heard that you had relations with him."

"The most intimate; and there is the bitterness. There existed between
his mother Queen Agrippina and myself ties of entire friendship. In
her last years and in her greatest adversity she appealed to me to be
the guardian of her son. He inherited all her beauty and apparently
all her sweetness of disposition. I took the greatest pains with him.
He was at Eton, and did well there. He was very popular; I never was
so deceived in a boy in my life. I though him the most docile of human
beings, and that I had gained over him an entire influence. I am sure
it would have been exercised for his benefit. In short, I may say it
now, I looked upon him as a son, and he certainly would have been my
heir; and yet all this time, from his seventeenth year, he was
immersed in political intrigue, and carrying on plots against the
sovereign of his country, even under my own roof."

"How very interesting!" said Waldershare.

"It may be interesting to you; I know what it cost me. The greatest
anxiety and sorrow, and even nearly compromised my honour. Had I not a
large-hearted chief and a true man of the world to deal with, I must
have retired from the government."

"How could he manage it?" said Waldershare.

"You have no conception of the devices and resources of the secret
societies of Europe," said Mr. Wilton. "His drawing-master, his
fencing-master, his dancing-master, all his professors of languages,
who delighted me by their testimony to his accomplishments and their
praises of his quickness and assiduity, were active confederates in
bringing about events which might have occasioned an European war. He
left me avowedly to pay a visit in the country, and I even received
letters from him with the postmark of the neighbouring town; letters
all prepared beforehand. My first authentic information as to his
movements was to learn, that he had headed an invading force, landed
on the shores which he claimed as his own, was defeated and a
prisoner."

"I remember it," said Waldershare. "I had just then gone up to St.
John's, and I remember reading it with the greatest excitement."

"All this was bad enough," said Mr. Wilton, "but this is not my
sorrow. I saved him from death, or at least a dreadful imprisonment.
He was permitted to sail to America on his parole that he would never
return to Europe, and I was required, and on his solemn appeal I
consented, to give my personal engagement that the compact should be
sacred. Before two years had elapsed, supported all this time, too, by
my bounty, there was an attempt, almost successful, to assassinate the
king, and my ward was discovered and seized in the capital. This time
he was immured, and for life, in the strongest fortress of the
country; but secret societies laugh at governments, and though he
endured a considerable imprisonment, the world has recently been
astounded by hearing that he had escaped. Yes; he is in London and has
been here, though in studied obscurity, for some little time. He has
never appealed to me until within these few days, and now only on the
ground that there are some family affairs which cannot be arranged
without my approval. I had great doubts whether I should receive him.
I feel I ought not to have done so. But I hesitated, and I know not
what may be the truth about women, but of this I am quite sure, the
man who hesitates is lost."

"How I should like to present at the interview, my dear uncle!" said
Waldershare.

"And I should not be sorry to have a witness," said Mr. Wilton, "but
it is impossible. I am ashamed to say how unhinged I feel; no person,
and no memories, ought to exercise such an influence over one. To tell
you the truth, I encouraged your pleasant gossip at breakfast by way
of distraction at this moment, and now"----

At this moment, the groom of the chambers entered and announced "His
royal highness, Prince Florestan."

Mr. Wilton, who was too agitated to speak, waved his hand to
Waldershare to retire, and his nephew vanished. As Waldershare was
descending the staircase, he drew back on a landing-place to permit
the prince to advance undisturbed. The prince apparently did not
observe him, but when Waldershare caught the countenance of the
visitor, he started.



                             CHAPTER XLI

"I know, sir, you are prejudiced against me," said Prince Florestan,
bowing before Mr. Wilton with a sort of haughty humility, "and
therefore I the more appreciate your condescension in receiving me."

"I have no wish to refer to the past," said Mr. Wilton somewhat
sternly. "You mentioned in your letter that my co-operation was
necessary with reference to your private affairs, of which I once was
a trustee, and under those circumstances I felt it my duty to accede
to your request. I wish our communication to be limited to that
business."

"It shall be so strictly," said the prince; "you may remember, sir,
that at the unhappy period when we were deprived of our throne, the
name of Queen Agrippina was inscribed on the great book of the state
for a considerable sum, for which the credit of the state was pledged
to her. It was strictly her private property, and had mainly accrued
through the sale of the estates of her ancestors. This sum was
confiscated, and several other amounts, which belonged to members of
our house and to our friends. It was an act of pure rapine, so gross,
that as time revolved, and the sense of justice gradually returned to
the hearts of men, restitution was made in every instance except my
own, though I have reason to believe that individual claim was the
strongest. My bankers, the house of Neuchatel, who have much
interested themselves in this matter, and have considerable influence
with the government that succeeded us, have brought things to this
pass, that we have reason to believe our claim would be conceded, if
some of the foreign governments, and especially the government of this
country, would signify that the settlement would not be disagreeable
to them." And the prince ceased, and raising his eyes, which were
downcast as he spoke, looked Mr. Wilton straight in the face.

"Before such a proposal could even be considered by Her Majesty's
Government," said Mr. Wilton with a reddening cheek, "the intimation
must be made to them by authority. If the minister of your country has
such an intimation to make to ours, he should address himself to the
proper quarter, to Lord Roehampton."

"I understand," said Prince Florestan; "but governments, like
individuals, sometimes shrink from formality. The government of my
country will act on the intimation, but they do not care to make it an
affair of despatches."

"There is only one way of transacting business," said Mr. Wilton
frigidly, and as if, so far as he was concerned, the interview was
ended.

"I have been advised on high authority," said Prince Florestan,
speaking very slowly, "that if any member of the present cabinet will
mention in conversation to the representative of my country here, that
the act of justice would not be disagreeable to the British
Government, the affair is finished."

"I doubt whether any one of my colleagues would be prepared to
undertake a personal interference of that kind with a foreign
government," said Mr. Wilton stiffly. "For my own part, I have had
quite enough of such interpositions never to venture on them again."

"The expression of feeling desired would involve no sort of
engagement," said the imperturbable prince.

"That depends on the conscience of the individual who interferes. No
man of honour would be justified in so interposing if he believed he
was thus furnishing arms against the very government of which he
solicited the favour."

"But why should he believe this?" asked the prince with great
calmness.

"I think upon reflection," said Mr. Wilton, taking up at the same time
an opened letter which was before him, as if he wished to resume the
private business on which he had been previously engaged, "that your
royal highness might find very adequate reasons for the belief."

"I would put this before you with great deference, sir," said the
prince. "Take my own case; is it not more likely that I should lead
that life of refined retirement, which I really desire, were I in
possession of the means to maintain such a position with becoming
dignity, than if I were distressed, and harassed, and disgusted, every
day, with sights and incidents which alike outrage my taste and self-
respect? It is not prosperity, according to common belief, that makes
conspirators."

"You /were/ in a position, and a refined position," rejoined Mr.
Wilton sharply; "you had means adequate to all that a gentleman could
desire, and might have been a person of great consideration, and you
wantonly destroyed all this."

"It might be remembered that I was young."

"Yes, you were young, very young, and your folly was condoned. You
might have begun life again, for to the world at least you were a man
of honour. You had not deceived the world, whatever you might have
done to others."

"If I presume to make another remark," said the prince calmly, but
pale, "it is only, believe me, sir, from the profound respect I feel
for you. Do not misunderstand these feelings, sir. They are not
unbecoming the past. Now that my mother has departed, there is no one
to whom I am attached except yourself. I have no feeling whatever
towards any other human being. All my thought and all my sentiment are
engrossed by my country. But pardon me, dear sir, for so let me call
you, if I venture to say that, in your decision on my conduct, you
have never taken into consideration the position which I inherited."

"I do not follow you, sir."

"You never will remember that I am the child of destiny," said Prince
Florestan. "That destiny will again place me on the throne of my
fathers. That is as certain as I am now speaking to you. But destiny
for its fulfilment ordains action. Its decrees are inexorable, but
they are obscure, and the being whose career it directs is as a man
travelling in a dark night; he reaches his goal even without the aid
of stars or moon."

"I really do not understand what destiny means," said Mr. Wilton. "I
understand what conduct means, and I recognise that it should be
regulated by truth and honour. I think a man had better have nothing
to do with destiny, particularly if it is to make him forfeit his
parole."

"Ah! sir, I well know that on that head you entertain a great
prejudice in my respect. Believe me it is not just. Even lawyers
acknowledge that a contract which is impossible cannot be violated. My
return from America was inevitable. The aspirations of a great people
and of many communities required my presence in Europe. My return was
the natural development of the inevitable principle of historical
necessity."

"Well, that principle is not recognised by Her Majesty's Ministers,"
said Mr. Wilton, and both himself and the prince seemed to rise at the
same time.

"I thank you, sir, for this interview," said his royal highness. "You
will not help me, but what I require will happen by some other means.
It is necessary, and therefore it will occur."

The prince remounted his horse, and rode off quickly till he reached
the Strand, where obstacles to rapid progress commenced, and though
impatient, it was some time before he reached Bishopsgate Street. He
entered the spacious courtyard of a noble mansion, and, giving his
horse to the groom, inquired for Mr. Neuchatel, to whom he was at once
ushered,--seated in a fine apartment at a table covered with many
papers.

"Well, my prince," said Mr. Neuchatel with a smiling eye, "what brings
such a great man into the City to-day? Have you seen your great
friend?" And then Prince Florestan gave Mr. Neuchatel a succinct but
sufficient summary of his recent interview.

"Ah!" said Mr. Neuchatel, "so it is, so it is; I dare say if you were
received at St. James', Mr. Sidney Wilton would not be so very
particular; but we must take things as we find them. If our fine
friends will not help us, you must try us poor business men in the
City. We can manage things here sometimes which puzzle them at the
West End. I saw you were disturbed when you came in. Put on a good
countenance. Nobody should ever look anxious except those who have no
anxiety. I dare say you would like to know how your account is. I will
send for it. It is not so bad as you think. I put a thousand pounds to
it in the hope that your fine friend would help us, but I shall not
take it off again. My Louis is going to-night to Paris, and he shall
call upon the ministers and see what can be done. In the meantime,
good appetite, sir. I am going to luncheon, and there is a place for
you. And I will show you my Gainsborough that I have just bought, from
a family for whom it was painted. The face is divine, very like our
Miss Ferrars. I am going to send the picture down to Hainault. I won't
tell you what I gave for it, because perhaps you would tell my wife
and she would be very angry. She would want the money for an infant
school. But I think she has schools enough. Now to lunch."

On the afternoon of this day there was a half-holiday at the office,
and Endymion had engaged to accompany Waldershare on some expedition.
They had been talking together in his room where Waldershare was
finishing his careless toilette, which however was never finished, and
they had just opened the house door and were sallying forth when
Colonel Albert rode up. He gave a kind nod to Endymion, but did not
speak, and the companions went on. "By the by, Ferrars," said
Waldershare, pressing his arm and bubbling with excitement, "I have
found out who your colonel is. It is a wondrous tale, and I will tell
it all to you as we go on."



                             CHAPTER XLII

Endymion had now passed three years of his life in London, and
considering the hard circumstances under which he had commenced this
career, he might on the whole look back to those years without
dissatisfaction. Three years ago he was poor and friendless, utterly
ignorant of the world, and with nothing to guide him but his own good
sense. His slender salary had not yet been increased, but with the
generosity and aid of his sister and the liberality of Mr. Vigo, he
was easy in his circumstances. Through the Rodneys, he had become
acquainted with a certain sort of miscellaneous life, a knowledge of
which is highly valuable to a youth, but which is seldom attained
without risk. Endymion, on the contrary, was always guarded from
danger. Through his most unexpected connection with the Neuchatel
family, he had seen something of life in circles of refinement and
high consideration, and had even caught glimpses of that great world
of which he read so much and heard people talk more, the world of the
Lord Roehamptons and the Lady Montforts, and all those dazzling people
whose sayings and doings form the taste, and supply the conversation,
and leaven the existence of admiring or wondering millions.

None of these incidents, however, had induced any change in the scheme
of his existence. Endymion was still content with his cleanly and airy
garret; still dined at Joe's; was still sedulous at his office, and
always popular with his fellow clerks. Seymour Hicks, indeed, who
studied the "Morning Post" with intentness, had discovered the name of
Endymion in the elaborate lists of attendants on Mrs. Neuchatel's
receptions, and had duly notified the important event to his
colleagues; but Endymion was not severely bantered on the occasion,
for, since the withdrawal of St. Barbe from the bureau, the stock of
envy at Somerset House was sensibly diminished.

His lodging at the Rodneys', however, had brought Endymion something
more valuable than an innocuous familiarity with their various and
suggestive life. In the friendship of Waldershare he found a rich
compensation for being withdrawn from his school and deprived of his
university. The care of his father had made Endymion a good classical
scholar, and he had realised a degree of culture which it delighted
the brilliant and eccentric Waldershare to enrich and to complete.
Waldershare guided his opinions, and directed his studies, and formed
his taste. Alone at night in his garret, there was no solitude, for he
had always some book or some periodical, English or foreign, with
which Waldershare had supplied him, and which he assured Endymion it
was absolutely necessary that he should read and master.

Nor was his acquaintance with Baron Sergius less valuable, or less
fruitful of results. He too became interested in Endymion, and poured
forth to him, apparently without reserve, all the treasures of his
vast experience of men and things, especially with reference to the
conduct of external affairs. He initiated him in the cardinal
principles of the policies of different nations; he revealed to him
the real character of the chief actors in the scene. "The first
requisite," Baron Sergius would say, "in the successful conduct of
public affairs is a personal acquaintance with the statesmen engaged.
It is possible that events may not depend now, so much as they did a
century ago, on individual feeling, but, even if prompted by general
principles, their application and management are always coloured by
the idiosyncrasy of the chief actors. The great advantage which your
Lord Roehampton, for example, has over all his colleagues in /la haute
politique/, is that he was one of your plenipotentiaries at the
Congress of Vienna. There he learned to gauge the men who govern the
world. Do you think a man like that, called upon to deal with a
Metternich or a Pozzo, has no advantage over an individual who never
leaves his chair in Downing Street except to kill grouse? Pah!
Metternich and Pozzo know very well that Lord Roehampton knows them,
and they set about affairs with him in a totally different spirit from
that with which they circumvent some statesman who has issued from the
barricades of Paris."

Nor must it be forgotten that his debating society and the
acquaintance which he had formed there, were highly beneficial to
Endymion. Under the roof of Mr. Bertie Tremaine he enjoyed the
opportunity of forming an acquaintance with a large body of young men
of breeding, of high education, and full of ambition, that was a
substitute for the society, becoming his youth and station, which he
had lost by not going to the university.

With all these individuals, and with all their circles, Endymion was a
favourite. No doubt his good looks, his mien--which was both cheerful
and pensive--his graceful and quiet manners, all told in his favour,
and gave him a good start, but further acquaintance always sustained
the first impression. He was intelligent and well-informed, without
any alarming originality, or too positive convictions. He listened not
only with patience but with interest to all, and ever avoided
controversy. Here are some of the elements of a man's popularity.

What was his intellectual reach, and what his real character, it was
difficult at this time to decide. He was still very young, only on the
verge of his twentieth year; and his character had no doubt been
influenced, it might be suppressed, by the crushing misfortunes of his
family. The influence of his sister was supreme over him. She had
never reconciled herself to their fall. She had existed only on the
solitary idea of regaining their position, and she had never omitted
an occasion to impress upon him that he had a great mission, and that,
aided by her devotion, he would fulfil it. What his own conviction on
this subject was may be obscure. Perhaps he was organically of that
cheerful and easy nature, which is content to enjoy the present, and
not brood over the past. The future may throw light upon all these
points; at present it may be admitted that the three years of
seemingly bitter and mortifying adversity have not been altogether
wanting in beneficial elements in the formation of his character and
the fashioning of his future life.



                            CHAPTER XLIII

Lady Montfort heard with great satisfaction from Mr. Neuchatel that
Lord Roehampton was going to pay a visit to Hainault at Easter, and
that he had asked himself. She playfully congratulated Mrs. Neuchatel
on the subject, and spoke as if the affair was almost concluded. That
lady, however, received the intimation with a serious, not to say
distressed countenance. She said that she should be grieved to lose
Adriana under any circumstances; but if her marriage in time was a
necessity, she trusted she might be united to some one who would not
object to becoming a permanent inmate of their house. What she herself
desired for her daughter was a union with some clergyman, and if
possible, the rector of their own parish. But it was too charming a
dream to realise. The rectory at Hainault was almost in the Park, and
was the prettiest house in the world, with the most lovely garden. She
herself much preferred it to the great mansion--and so on.

Lady Montfort stared at her with impatient astonishment, and then
said, "Your daughter, Mrs. Neuchatel, ought to make an alliance which
would place her at the head of society."

"What a fearful destiny," said Mrs. Neuchatel, "for any one, but
overwhelming for one who must feel the whole time that she occupies a
position not acquired by her personal qualities!"

"Adriana is pretty," said Lady Montfort. "I think her more than
pretty; she is highly accomplished and in every way pleasing. What can
you mean, then, my dear madam, by supposing she would occupy a
position not acquired by her personal qualities?"

Mrs. Neuchatel sighed and shook her head, and then said, "We need not
have any controversy on this subject. I have no reason to believe
there is any foundation for my fears. We all like and admire Lord
Roehampton. It is impossible not to admire and like him. So great a
man, and yet so gentle and so kind, so unaffected--I would say, so
unsophisticated; but he has never given the slightest intimation,
either to me or her father, that he seriously admired Adriana, and I
am sure if he had said anything to her she would have told us."

"He is always here," said Lady Montfort, "and he is a man who used to
go nowhere except for form. Besides, I know that he admires her, that
he is in love with her, and I have not a doubt that he has invited
himself to Hainault in order to declare his feelings to her."

"How very dreadful!" exclaimed Mrs. Neuchatel. "What are we to do?"

"To do!" said Lady Montfort; "why, sympathise with his happiness, and
complete it. You will have a son-in-law of whom you may well be proud,
and Adriana a husband who, thoroughly knowing the world, and women,
and himself, will be devoted to her; will be a guide and friend, a
guide that will never lecture, and a friend who will always charm, for
there is no companion in the world like him, and I think I ought to
know," added Lady Montfort, "for I always tell him that I was the last
of his conquests, and I shall ever be grateful to him for his having
spared to me so much of his society."

"Adriana on this matter will decide for herself," said Mrs. Neuchatel,
in a serious tone, and with a certain degree of dignity. "Neither Mr.
Neuchatel, nor myself, have ever attempted to control her feelings in
this respect."

"Well, I am now about to see Adriana," said Lady Montfort; "I know she
is at home. If I had not been obliged to go to Princedown, I would
have asked you to let me pass Easter at Hainault myself."

On this very afternoon, when Myra, who had been walking in Regent's
Park with her brother, returned home, she found Adriana agitated, and
really in tears.

"What is all this, dearest?" inquired her friend.

"I am too unhappy," sobbed Adriana, and then she told Myra that she
had had a visit from Lady Montfort, and all that had occurred in it.
Lady Montfort had absolutely congratulated her on her approaching
alliance with Lord Roehampton, and when she altogether disclaimed it,
and expressed her complete astonishment at the supposition, Lady
Montfort had told her she was not justified in giving Lord Roehampton
so much encouragement and trifling with a man of his high character
and position.

"Fancy my giving encouragement to Lord Roehampton!" exclaimed Adriana,
and she threw her arms round the neck of the friend who was to console
her.

"I agree with Lady Montfort," said Myra, releasing herself with
gentleness from her distressed friend. "It may have been unconsciously
on your part, but I think you have encouraged Lord Roehampton. He is
constantly conversing with you, and he is always here, where he never
was before, and, as Lady Montfort says, why should he have asked
himself to pass the Easter at Hainault if it were not for your
society?"

"He invited himself to Hainault, because he is so fond of papa," said
Adriana.

"So much the better, if he is to be your husband. That will be an
additional element of domestic happiness."

"O Myra! that you should say such things!" exclaimed Adriana.

"What things?"

"That I should marry Lord Roehampton."

"I never said anything of the kind. Whom you should marry is a
question you must decide for yourself. All that I said was, that if
you marry Lord Roehampton, it is fortunate he is so much liked by Mr.
Neuchatel."

"I shall not marry Lord Roehampton," said Adriana with some
determination, "and if he has condescended to think of marrying me,"
she continued, "as Lady Montfort says, I think his motives are so
obvious that if I felt for him any preference it would be immediately
extinguished."

"Ah! now you are going to ride your hobby, my dear Adriana. On that
subject we never can agree; were I an heiress, I should have as little
objection to be married for my fortune as my face. Husbands, as I have
heard, do not care for the latter too long. Have more confidence in
yourself, Adriana. If Lord Roehampton wishes to marry you, it is that
he is pleased with you personally, that he appreciates your
intelligence, your culture, your accomplishments, your sweet
disposition, and your gentle nature. If in addition to these gifts you
have wealth, and even great wealth, Lord Roehampton will not despise
it, will not--for I wish to put it frankly--be uninfluenced by the
circumstances, for Lord Roehampton is a wise man; but he would not
marry you if he did not believe that you would make for him a
delightful companion in life, that you would adorn his circle and
illustrate his name."

"Ah! I see you are all in the plot against me," said Adriana. "I have
no friend."

"My dear Adriana, I think you are unreasonable; I could say even
unkind."

"Oh! pardon me, dear Myra," said Adriana, "but I really am so very
unhappy."

"About what? You are your own mistress in this matter. If you do not
like to marry Lord Roehampton, nobody will attempt to control you.
What does it signify what Lady Montfort says? or anybody else, except
your own parents, who desire nothing but your happiness? I should
never have mentioned Lord Roehampton to you had you not introduced the
subject yourself. And all that I meant to say was, what I repeat, that
your creed that no one can wish to marry you except for your wealth is
a morbid conviction, and must lead to unhappiness; that I do not
believe that Lord Roehampton is influenced in his overture, if he make
one, by any unworthy motive, and that any woman whose heart is
disengaged should not lightly repudiate such an advance from such a
man, by which, at all events, she should feel honoured."

"But my heart is engaged," said Adriana in an almost solemn tone.

"Oh! that is quite a different thing!" said Myra, turning pale.

"Yes!" said Adriana; "I am devoted to one whose name I cannot now
mention, perhaps will never mention, but I am devoted to him. Yes!"
she added with fire, "I am not altogether so weak a thing as the Lady
Montforts and some other persons seem to think me--I can feel and
decide for myself, and it shall never be said of me that I purchased
love."



                             CHAPTER XLIV

There was to be no great party at Hainault; Lord Roehampton
particularly wished that there should be no fine folks asked, and
especially no ambassadors. All that he wanted was to enjoy the fresh
air, and to ramble in the forest, of which he had heard so much, with
the young ladies.

"And, by the by, Miss Ferrars," said Mr. Neuchatel, "we must let what
we were talking about the other day drop. Adriana has been with me
quite excited about something Lady Montfort said to her. I soothed her
and assured her she should do exactly as she liked, and that neither I
nor her mother had any other wishes on such a subject than her own.
The fact is, I answered Lady Montfort originally only half in earnest.
If the thing might have happened, I should have been content--but it
really never rested on my mind, because such matters must always
originate with my daughter. Unless they come from her, with me they
are mere fancies. But now I want you to help me in another matter, if
not more grave, more businesslike. My lord must be amused, although it
is a family party. He likes his rubber; that we can manage. But there
must be two or three persons that he is not accustomed to meet, and
yet who will interest him. Now, do you know, Miss Ferrars, whom I
think of asking?"

"Not I, my dear sir."

"What do you think of the colonel?" said Mr. Neuchatel, looking in her
face with a rather laughing eye.

"Well, he is very agreeable," said Myra, "and many would think
interesting, and if Lord Roehampton does not know him, I think he
would do very well."

"Well, but Lord Roehampton knows all about him," said Mr. Neuchatel.

"Well, that is an advantage," said Myra.

"I do not know," said Mr. Neuchatel. "Life is a very curious thing,
eh, Miss Ferrars? One cannot ask one person to meet another even in
one's own home, without going through a sum of moral arithmetic."

"Is it so?" said Myra.

"Well, Miss Ferrars," said Mr. Neuchatel, "I want your advice and I
want your aid; but then it is a long story, at which I am rather a bad
hand," and Mr. Neuchatel hesitated. "You know," he said, suddenly
resuming, "you once asked me who Colonel Albert was."

"But I do not ask you now," said Myra, "because I know."

"Hah, hah!" exclaimed Mr. Neuchatel, much surprised.

"And what you want to know is," continued Myra, "whether Lord
Roehampton would have any objection to meet Prince Florestan?"

"That is something; but that is comparatively easy. I think I can
manage that. But when they meet--that is the point. But, in the first
place, I should like very much to know how you became acquainted with
the secret."

"In a very natural way; my brother was my information," she replied.

"Ah! now you see," continued Mr. Neuchatel, with a serious air, "a
word from Lord Roehampton in the proper quarter might be of vast
importance to the prince. He has a large inheritance, and he has been
kept out of it unjustly. Our house has done what we could for him, for
his mother, Queen Agrippina, was very kind to my father, and the house
of Neuchatel never forgets its friends. But we want something else, we
want the British Government to intimate that they will not disapprove
of the restitution of the private fortune of the prince. I have felt
my way with the premier; he is not favourable; he is prejudiced
against the prince; and so is the cabinet generally; and yet all
difficulties would vanish at a word from Lord Roehampton."

"Well, this is a good opportunity for you to speak to him," said Myra.

"Hem!" said Mr. Neuchatel, "I am not so sure about that. I like Lord
Roehampton, and, between ourselves, I wish he were first minister. He
understands the Continent, and would keep things quiet. But, do you
know, Miss Ferrars, with all his playful, good-tempered manner, as if
he could not say a cross word or do an unkind act, he is a very severe
man in business. Speak to him on business, and he is completely
changed. His brows knit, he penetrates you with the terrible scrutiny
of that deep-set eye; he is more than stately, he is austere. I have
been up to him with deputations--the Governor of the Bank, and all the
first men in the City, half of them M.P.s, and they trembled before
him like aspens. No, it will not do for me to speak to him, it will
spoil his visit. I think the way will be this; if he has no objection
to meet the prince, we must watch whether the prince makes a
favourable impression on him, and if that is the case, and Lord
Roehampton likes him, what we must do next is this--/you/ must speak
to Lord Roehampton."

"I!"

"Yes, Miss Ferrars, you. Lord Roehampton likes ladies. He is never
austere to them, even if he refuses their requests, and sometimes he
grants them. I thought first of Mrs. Neuchatel speaking to him, but my
wife will never interfere in anything in which money is concerned;
then I thought Adriana might express a hope when they were walking in
the garden, but now that is all over; and so you alone remain. I have
great confidence in you," added Mr. Neuchatel, "I think you would do
it very well. Besides, my lord rather likes you, for I have observed
him often go and sit by you at parties, at our house."

"Yes, he is very high-bred in that," said Myra, gravely and rather
sadly; "and the fact of my being a dependent, I have no doubt,
influences him."

"We are all dependents in this house," said Mr. Neuchatel with his
sweetest smile; "and I depend upon Miss Ferrars."

Affairs on the whole went on in a promising manner. The weather was
delightful, and Lord Roehampton came down to Hainault just in time for
dinner, the day after their arrival, and in the highest spirits. He
seemed to be enjoying a real holiday; body and mind were in a like
state of expansion; he was enchanted with the domain; he was delighted
with the mansion, everything pleased and gratified him, and he pleased
and gratified everybody. The party consisted only of themselves,
except one of the nephews, with whom indeed Lord Roehampton was
already acquainted; a lively youth, a little on the turf, not too
much, and this suited Lord Roehampton, who was a statesman of the old
aristocratic school, still bred horses, and sometimes ran one, and in
the midst of an European crisis could spare an hour to Newmarket.
Perhaps it was his only affectation.

Mrs. Neuchatel, by whom he was seated, had the happy gift of
conversation; but the party was of that delightful dimension, that it
permitted talk to be general. Myra sate next to Lord Roehampton, and
he often addressed her. He was the soul of the feast, and yet it is
difficult to describe his conversation; it was a medley of graceful
whim, interspersed now and then with a very short anecdote of a very
famous person, or some deeply interesting reminiscence of some
critical event. Every now and then he appealed to Adriana, who sate
opposite to him in the round table, and she trusted that her
irrepressible smiles would not be interpreted into undue
encouragement.

Lord Roehampton had no objection to meet Prince Florestan, provided
there were no other strangers, and the incognito was observed. He
rather welcomed the proposal, observing he liked to know public men
personally; so, you can judge of their calibre, which you never can do
from books and newspapers, or the oral reports of their creatures or
their enemies. And so on the next day Colonel Albert was expected.

Lord Roehampton did not appear till luncheon; he had received so many
boxes from Downing Street which required his attention. "Business will
follow one," he said; "yesterday I thought I had baffled it. I do not
like what I shall do without my secretaries. I think I shall get you
young ladies to assist me."

"You cannot have better secretaries," said Mr. Neuchatel; "Miss
Ferrars often helps me."

Then what was to be done after luncheon? Would he ride, or would he
drive? And where should they drive and ride to? But Lord Roehampton
did not much care to drive, and was tired of riding. He would rather
walk and ramble about Hainault. He wanted to see the place, and the
forest and the fern, and perhaps hear one of those nightingales that
they had talked of in Portland Place. But Mrs. Neuchatel did not care
to walk, and Mr. Neuchatel, though it was a holiday in the City, had a
great many letters to write, and so somehow or other it ended in Lord
Roehampton and the two young ladies walking out together, and
remaining so long and so late, that Mrs. Neuchatel absolutely
contemplated postponing the dinner hour.

"We shall just be in time, dear Mrs. Neuchatel," said Myra; "Lord
Roehampton has gone up to his rooms. We have heard a nightingale, and
Lord Roehampton insisted upon our sitting on the trunk of a tree till
it ceased--and it never ceased."

Colonel Albert, who had arrived, was presented to Lord Roehampton
before dinner. Lord Roehampton received him with stately courtesy. As
Myra watched, not without interest, the proceeding, she could scarcely
believe, as she marked the lofty grace and somewhat haughty mien of
Lord Roehampton, that it could be the same being of frolic and fancy,
and even tender sentiment, with whom she had been passing the
preceding hours.

Colonel Albert sate next to Myra at dinner, and Lord Roehampton
between Mrs. Neuchatel and her daughter. His manner was different
to-day, not less pleased and pleasing, but certainly more restrained.
He encouraged Mrs. Neuchatel to occupy the chief part in conversation,
and whispered to Adriana, who became somewhat uneasy; but the whispers
mainly consisted of his delight in their morning adventures. When he
remarked that it was one of the most agreeable days of his life, she
became a little alarmed. Then he addressed Colonel Albert across the
table, and said that he had heard from Mr. Neuchatel that the colonel
had been in America, and asked some questions about public men, which
brought him out. Colonel Albert answered with gentleness and modesty,
never at any length, but in language which indicated, on all the
matters referred to, thought and discrimination."

"I suppose their society is like the best society in Manchester?" said
Lord Roehampton.

"It varies in different cities," said Colonel Albert. "In some there
is considerable culture, and then refinement of life always follows."

"Yes, but whatever they may be, they will always be colonial. What is
colonial necessarily lacks originality. A country that borrows its
language, its laws, and its religion, cannot have its inventive powers
much developed. They got civilised very soon, but their civilisation
was second-hand."

"Perhaps their inventive powers may develop themselves in other ways,"
said the prince. "A nation has a fixed quantity of invention, and it
will make itself felt."

"At present," said Lord Roehampton, "the Americans, I think, employ
their invention in imaginary boundary lines. They are giving us plenty
of trouble now about Maine."

After dinner they had some music; Lord Roehampton would not play
whist. He insisted on comparing the voices of his companions with that
of the nightingales of the morning. He talked a great deal to Adriana,
and Colonel Albert, in the course of the evening much to Myra, and
about her brother. Lord Roehampton more than once had wished to tell
her, as he had already told Miss Neuchatel, how delightful had been
their morning; but on every occasion he had found her engaged with the
colonel.

"I rather like your prince," he had observed to Mr. Neuchatel, as they
came from the dining-room. "He never speaks without thinking; very
reserved, I apprehend. They say, an inveterate conspirator."

"He has had enough of that," said Mr. Neuchatel. "I believe he wants
to be quiet."

"That class of man is never quiet," said Lord Roehampton.

"But what can he do?" said Mr. Neuchatel.

"What can he not do? Half Europe is in a state of chronic conspiracy."

"You must keep us right, my dear lord. So long as you are in Downing
Street I shall sleep at nights."

"Miss Ferrars," said Lord Roehampton abruptly to Mr. Neuchatel, "must
have been the daughter of William Ferrars, one of my great friends in
old days. I never knew it till to-day, and she did not tell me, but it
flashed across me from something she said."

"Yes, she is his daughter, and is in mourning for him at this moment.
She has had sorrows," said Mr. Neuchatel. "I hope they have ceased. It
was one of the happiest days of my life when she entered this family."

"Ah!" said Lord Roehampton.

The next day, after they had examined the famous stud and stables,
there was a riding party, and in the evening Colonel Albert offered to
perform some American conjuring tricks, of which he had been speaking
in the course of the day. This was a most wonderful performance, and
surprised and highly amused everybody. Colonel Albert was the last
person who they expected would achieve such marvels; he was so quiet,
not to say grave. They could hardly credit that he was the same person
as he poured floods of flowers over Myra from her own borrowed pocket-
handkerchief, and without the slightest effort or embarrassment,
robbed Lord Roehampton of his watch, and deposited it in Adriana's
bosom. It was evident that he was a complete master of slight-of-hand.

"Characteristic!" murmured Lord Roehampton to himself.

It was the day after this, that Myra being in the music room and
alone, Lord Roehampton opened the door, looked in, and then said,
"Where is Miss Neuchatel?"

"I think she is on the terrace."

"Let us try to find her, and have one of our pleasant strolls. I sadly
want one, for I have been working very hard all this morning, and half
the night."

"I will be with you, Lord Roehampton, in a moment."

"Do not let us have anybody else," he said, as she left the room.

They were soon on the terrace, but Adriana was not there.

"We must find her," said Lord Roehampton; "you know her haunts. Ah!
what a delight it is to be in this air and this scene after those
dreadful boxes! I wish they would turn us out. I think they must
soon."

"Now for the first time," said Myra, "Lord Roehampton is not sincere."

"Then you think me always sincere?" he replied.

"I have no reason to think you otherwise."

"That is very true," said Lord Roehampton, "truer perhaps than you
imagine." Then rather abruptly he said, "You know Colonel Albert very
well?"

"Pretty well. I have seen him here frequently, and he is also a friend
of my brother."

"Ah! a friend of your brother." Then, after a slight pause, he said,
"He is an interesting man."

"I think so," said Myra. "You know all about him, of course."

"Very good-looking."

"Well, he looks unhappy, I think, and worn."

"One is never worn when one is young," said Lord Roehampton.

"He must have great anxieties and great sorrows," said Myra. "I cannot
imagine a position more unfortunate than that of an exiled prince."

"I can," said Lord Roehampton. "To have the feelings of youth and the
frame of age."

Myra was silent, one might say dumbfounded. She had just screwed
herself up to the task which Mr. Neuchatel had imposed on her, and was
about to appeal to the good offices of Lord Roehampton in favour of
the prince, when he had indulged in a remark which was not only
somewhat strange, but from the manner in which it was introduced
hardly harmonised with her purpose.

"Yes, I would give up everything," said Lord Roehampton. "I would even
be an exile to be young; to hear that Miss Ferrars deems me
interesting and good-looking, though worn."

"What is going to happen?" thought Myra. "Will the earth open to
receive me?"

"You are silent," said Lord Roehampton. "You will not speak, you will
not sigh, you will not give a glance of consolation or even pity. But
I have spoken too much not to say more. Beautiful, fascinating being,
let me at least tell you of my love."

Myra could not speak, but put her left hand to her face. Gently taking
her other hand, Lord Roehampton pressed it to his lips. "From the
first moment I met you, my heart was yours. It was love at first
sight; indeed I believe in no other. I was amused with the projects of
my friend, and I availed myself of them, but not unfairly. No one can
accuse me of trifling with the affections of your sweet companion, and
I must do her the justice to say that she did everything to convince
me that she shrank from my attentions. But her society was an excuse
to enjoy yours. I was an habitual visitor in town that I might cherish
my love, and, dare I say it, I came down here to declare it. Do not
despise it, dearest of women; it is not worthy of you, but it is not
altogether undeserving. It is, as you kindly believed it,--it is
sincere!"



                             CHAPTER XLV

On the following day, Mr. Neuchatel had good-naturedly invited
Endymion down to Hainault, and when he arrived there, a servant
informed him that Miss Ferrars wished to see him in her room.

It was a long interview and an agitated one, and when she had told her
tale, and her brother had embraced her, she sat for a time in silence,
holding his hand, and intimating, that, for a while, she wished that
neither of them should speak. Suddenly, she resumed, and said, "Now
you know all, dear darling; it is so sudden, and so strange, that you
must be almost as much astounded as gratified. What I have sighed for,
and prayed for--what, in moments of inspiration, I have sometimes
foreseen--has happened. Our degradation is over. I seem to breathe for
the first time for many years. I see a career, ay, and a great one;
and what is far more important, I see a career for you."

"At this moment, dear Myra, think only of yourself."

"You are myself," she replied, rather quickly, "never more so than at
this moment;" and then she said in a tone more subdued, and even
tender, "Lord Roehampton has every quality and every accident of life
that I delight in; he has intellect, eloquence, courage, great station
and power; and, what I ought perhaps more to consider, though I do
not, a sweet disposition and a tender heart. There is every reason why
we should be happy--yes, very happy. I am sure I shall sympathise with
him; perhaps, I may aid him; at least, he thinks so. He is the noblest
of men. The world will talk of the disparity of our years; but Lord
Roehampton says that he is really the younger of the two, and I think
he is right. My pride, my intense pride, never permitted to me any
levity of heart."

"And when is it to happen?" inquired Endymion.

"Not immediately. I could not marry till a year had elapsed after our
great sorrow; and it is more agreeable, even to him, that our union
should be delayed till the session is over. He wants to leave England;
go abroad; have a real holiday. He has always had a dream of
travelling in Spain; well, we are to realise the dream. If we could
get off at the end of July, we might go to Paris, and then to Madrid,
and travel in Andalusia in the autumn, and then catch the packet at
Gibraltar, and get home just in time for the November cabinets."

"Dear Myra! how wonderful it all seems!" involuntarily exclaimed
Endymion.

"Yes, but more wonderful things will happen. We have now got a lever
to move the world. Understand, my dear Endymion, that nothing is to be
announced at present. It will be known only to this family, and the
Penruddocks. I am bound to tell them, even immediately; they are
friends that never can be forgotten. I have always kept up my
correspondence with Mrs. Penruddock. Besides, I shall tell her in
confidence, and she is perfectly to be depended on. I am going to ask
my lord to let Mr. Penruddock marry us."

"Oh! that will be capital," said Endymion.

"There is another person, by the by, who must know it, at least my
lord says so," said Myra, "and that is Lady Montfort; you have heard
of that lady and her plans. Well, she must be told--at least, sooner
or later. She will be annoyed, and she will hate me. I cannot help it;
every one is hated by somebody."

During the three months that had to elapse before the happy day,
several incidents occurred that ought to be noted. In the first place,
Lady Montfort, though disappointed and very much astonished, bore the
communication from Lord Roehampton more kindly than he had
anticipated. Lord Roehampton made it by letter, and his letters to
women were more happy even than his despatches to ministers, and they
were unrivalled. He put the matter in the most skilful form. Myra had
been born in a social position not inferior to his own, and was the
daughter of one of his earliest political friends. He did not dilate
too much on her charms and captivating qualities, but sufficiently for
the dignity of her who was to become his wife. And then he confessed
to Lady Montfort how completely his heart and happiness were set on
Lady Roehampton being welcomed becomingly by his friends; he was well
aware, that in these matters things did not always proceed as one
could wish, but this was the moment, and this the occasion, to test a
friend, and he believed he had the dearest, the most faithful, the
most fascinating, and the most powerful in Lady Montfort.

"Well, we must put the best face upon it," exclaimed that lady; "he
was always romantic. But, as he says, or thinks, what is the use of
friends if they do not help you in a scrape?"

So Lady Montfort made the acquaintance of Myra, and welcomed her new
acquaintance cordially. She was too fine a judge of beauty and
deportment not to appreciate them, even when a little prejudice lurked
behind. She was amused also, and a little gratified, by being in the
secret; presented Myra with a rare jewel, and declared that she should
attend the wedding; though when the day arrived, she was at
Princedown, and could not, unfortunately, leave her lord.

About the end of June, a rather remarkable paragraph appeared in the
journal of society:

"We understand that His Royal Highness Prince Florestan, who has been
for some little time in this country, has taken the mansion in Carlton
Gardens, recently occupied by the Marquis of Katterfelto. The mansion
is undergoing very considerable repairs, but it is calculated that it
will be completed in time for the reception of His Royal Highness by
the end of the autumn; His Royal Highness has taken the extensive
moors of Dinniewhiskie for the coming season."

In the earlier part of July, the approaching alliance of the Earl of
Roehampton with Miss Ferrars, the only daughter of the late Right
Honourable William Pitt Ferrars, of Hurstley Hall, in the county of
Berks, was announced, and great was the sensation, and innumerable the
presents instantly ordered.

But on no one did the announcement produce a greater effect than on
Zenobia; that the daughter of her dearest friend should make so
interesting and so distinguished an alliance was naturally most
gratifying to her. She wrote to Myra a most impassioned letter, as if
they had only separated yesterday, and a still longer and more fervent
one to Lord Roehampton; Zenobia and he had been close friends in other
days, till he wickedly changed his politics, and was always in office
and Zenobia always out. This was never to be forgiven. But the bright
lady forgot all this now, and sent to Myra the most wondrous bracelet
of precious stones, in which the word "Souvenir" was represented in
brilliants, rubies, and emeralds.

"For my part," said Myra to Endymion, "my most difficult task are the
bridesmaids. I am to have so many, and know so few. I feel like a
recruiting sergeant. I began to Adriana, but my lord helps me very
much out of his family, and says, when we have had a few family
dinners, all will be right."

Endymion did not receive the banter he expected at the office. The
event was too great for a jest. Seymour Hicks, with a serious
countenance, said Ferrars might get anywhere now,--all the ministerial
receptions of course. Jawett said there would be no ministerial
receptions soon; they were degrading functions. Clear-headed Trenchard
congratulated him quietly, and said, "I do not think you will stay
much longer among us, but we shall always remember you with interest."

At last the great day arrived, and at St. George's, Hanover Square,
the Right Honourable the Earl of Roehampton, K.G., was united to Miss
Ferrars. Mr. Penruddock joined their hands. His son Nigel had been
invited to assist him, but did not appear, though Myra had written to
him. The great world assembled in force, and Endymion observed Mr. and
Mrs. Rodney and Imogene in the body of the church. After the ceremony
there was an entertainment in Portland Place, and the world ate
ortolans and examined the presents. These were remarkable for number
and splendour. Myra could not conceal her astonishment at possessing
so many friends; but it was the fashion for all Lord Roehampton's
acquaintance to make him offerings, and to solicit his permission to
present gifts to his bride. Mr. Neuchatel placed on her brow a diamond
tiara, and Mrs. Neuchatel encircled her neck with one of her diamond
necklaces. "I should like to give the other one to Adriana," she
observed, "but Adriana says that nothing will ever induce her to wear
jewels." Prince Florestan presented Lady Roehampton with a vase which
had belonged to his mother, and which had been painted by Boucher for
Marie Antoinette. It was matchless, and almost unique.

Not long after this, Lord Beaumaris, with many servants and many guns,
took Waldershare and Endymion down with him to Scotland.



                             CHAPTER XLVI

The end of the season is a pang to society. More hopes have been
baffled than realised. There is something melancholy in the last ball,
though the music ever seems louder, and the lights more glaring than
usual. Or it may be, the last entertainment is that hecatomb they call
a wedding breakfast, which celebrates the triumph of a rival. That is
pleasant. Society, to do it justice, struggles hard to revive in other
scenes the excitement that has expired. It sails to Cowes, it scuds to
bubbling waters in the pine forests of the continent, it stalks even
into Scotland; but it is difficult to restore the romance that has
been rudely disturbed, and to gather again together the threads of the
intrigue that have been lost in the wild flight of society from that
metropolis, which is now described as "a perfect desert"--that is to
say, a park or so, two or three squares, and a dozen streets where
society lives; where it dines, and dances, and blackballs, and bets,
and spouts.

But to the world in general, the mighty million, to the professional
classes, to all men of business whatever, the end of the season is the
beginning of carnival. It is the fulfilment of the dream over which
they have been brooding for ten months, which has sustained them in
toil, lightened anxiety, and softened even loss. It is air, it is
health, it is movement, it is liberty, it is nature--earth, sea, lake,
moor, forest, mountain, and river. From the heights of the Engadine to
Margate Pier, there is equal rapture, for there is an equal cessation
of routine.

Few enjoy a holiday more than a young clerk in a public office, who
has been bred in a gentle home, and enjoyed in his boyhood all the
pastimes of gentlemen. Now he is ever toiling, with an uncertain
prospect of annual relaxation, and living hardly. Once on a time, at
the paternal hall, he could shoot, or fish, or ride, every day of his
life, as a matter of course; and now, what would he not give for a
good day's sport? Such thoughts had frequently crossed the mind of
Endymion when drudging in London during the autumn, and when all his
few acquaintances were away. It was, therefore, with no ordinary zest
that he looked forward to the unexpected enjoyment of an unstinted
share of some of the best shooting in the United Kingdom. And the
relaxation and the pastime came just at the right moment, when the
reaction, from all the excitement attendant on the marvellous change
in his sister's position, would have made him, deprived of her
consoling society, doubly sensible of his isolated position.

It so happened that the moors of Lord Beaumaris were contiguous to the
celebrated shootings of Dinniewhiskie, which were rented by Prince
Florestan, and the opportunity now offered which Waldershare desired
of making the acquaintance of the prince in an easy manner. Endymion
managed this cleverly. Waldershare took a great fancy to the prince.
He sympathised with him, and imparted to Endymion his belief that they
could not do a better thing than devote their energies to a
restoration of his rights. Lord Beaumaris, who hated foreigners, but
who was always influenced by Waldershare, also liked the prince, and
was glad to be reminded by his mentor that Florestan was half an
Englishman, not to say a whole one, for he was an Eton boy. What was
equally influential with Lord Beaumaris was, that the prince was a
fine shot, and indeed a consummate sportsman, and had in his manners
that calm which is rather unusual with foreigners, and which is always
pleasing to an English aristocrat. So in time they became intimate,
sported much together, and visited each other at their respective
quarters. The prince was never alone. What the county paper described
as distinguished foreigners were perpetually paying him visits, long
or short, and it did not generally appear that these visits were
influenced by a love of sport. One individual, who arrived shortly
after the prince, remained, and, as was soon known, was to remain
permanently. This was a young gentleman, short and swarthy, with
flashing eyes and a black moustache, known by the name of the Duke of
St. Angelo, but who was really only a cadet of that illustrious house.
The Duke of St. Angelo took the management of the household of the
prince--was evidently the controller; servants trembled at his nod,
and he rode any horse he liked; he invited guests, and arranged the
etiquette of the interior. He said one day very coolly to Waldershare:
"I observe that Lord Beaumaris and his friends never rise when the
prince moves."

"Why should we?"

"His rank is recognised and guaranteed by the Treaty of Vienna," said
the Duke of St. Angelo, with an arrogant air.

"His princely rank," replied Waldershare, "but not his royalty."

"That is a mere refinement," said the duke contemptuously.

"On the contrary, a clear distinction, and specifically made in the
treaty. I do not think the prince himself would desire such a
ceremony, and let me recommend you, duke," added Waldershare, "not to
go out of your way to insist on these points. They will not increase
the prince's popularity."

"The time will come, and before long, when the Treaty of Vienna, with
its clear distinctions, will be at the bottom of the Red Sea," said
the Duke of St. Angelo, "and then no one will sit when His Majesty
rises."

"Amen!" said Waldershare. "All diplomacy since the Treaty of Utrecht
seems to me to be fiddle-faddle, and the country rewarded the great
man who made that treaty by an attainder."

Endymion returned to town towards the end of September, Waldershare
went to Paris, and Lord Beaumaris and the prince, who had become
intimate, repaired together to Conington, the seat of Lord Beaumaris,
to kill pheasants. Even the Rodneys, who had gone to the Rhine this
year, had not returned. Endymion had only the society of his fellow
clerks. He liked Trenchard, who was acute, full of official
information, and of gentle breeding. Still it must be confessed that
Endymion felt the change in his society. Seymour Hicks was hardly a
fit successor to Waldershare, and Jawett's rabid abstractions on
government were certainly not so interesting as /la haute politique/
of the Duke of St. Angelo. Were it not for the letters which he
constantly received from his sister, he would have felt a little
despondent. As it was, he renewed his studies in his pleasant garret,
trained himself in French and German, and got up several questions for
the Union.

The month seemed very long, but it was not unprofitably spent. The
Rodneys were still absent. They had not returned as they had intended
direct to England, but had gone to Paris to meet Mr. Waldershare.

At the end of October there was a semi-official paragraph announcing
the approaching meeting of the Cabinet, and the movements of its
members. Some were in the north, and some were in the south; some were
killing the last grouse, and some, placed in green ridings, were
blazing in battues. But all were to be at their post in ten days, and
there was a special notification that intelligence had been received
of the arrival of Lord and Lady Roehampton at Gibraltar.



                            CHAPTER XLVII

Lady Roehampton, in her stately mansion in St. James' Square, found
life very different from what she had experienced in her Andalusian
dream. For three months she had been the constant companion of one of
the most fascinating of men, whose only object had been to charm and
delight her. And in this he had entirely succeeded. From the moment
they arrived in London, however, they seemed to be separated, and
although when they met, there was ever a sweet smile and a kind and
playful word for her, his brow, if not oppressed with care, was always
weighty with thought. Lord Roehampton was little at his office; he
worked in a spacious chamber on the ground floor of his private
residence, and which was called the Library, though its literature
consisted only of Hansard, volumes of state papers, shelves of
treatises, and interminable folios of parliamentary reports. He had
not been at home a week before the floor of the apartment was
literally covered with red boxes, all containing documents requiring
attention, and which messengers were perpetually bringing or carrying
away. Then there were long meetings of the Cabinet almost daily, and
daily visits from ambassadors and foreign ministers, which prevented
the transaction of the current business, and rendered it necessary
that Lord Roehampton should sit up late in his cabinet, and work
sometimes nearly till the hours of dawn. There had been of course too
some arrears of business, for secretaries of state cannot indulge with
impunity in Andalusian dreams, but Lord Roehampton was well served.
His under-secretaries of state were capable and experienced men, and
their chief had not been altogether idle in his wanderings. He had
visited Paris, and the capital of France in those days was the capital
of diplomacy. The visit of Lord Roehampton had settled some questions
which might have lingered for years, and had given him that
opportunity of personal survey which to a statesman is invaluable.

Although it was not the season, the great desert had, comparatively
speaking, again become peopled. There were many persons in town, and
they all called immediately on Lady Roehampton. The ministerial
families and the diplomatic corps alone form a circle, but there is
also a certain number of charming people who love London in November,
and lead there a wondrous pleasant life of real amusement, until their
feudal traditions and their domestic duties summon them back to their
Christmas homes.

Lord and Lady Roehampton gave constant dinners, and after they had
tried two or three, he expressed his wish to his wife that she should
hold a small reception after these dinners. He was a man of great
tact, and he wished to launch his wife quietly and safely on the
social ocean. "There is nothing like practising before Christmas, my
love," he would say; "you will get your hand in, and be able to hold
regular receptions in the spring." And he was quite right. The dinners
became the mode, and the assemblies were eagerly appreciated. The
Secretary of the Treasury whispered to an Under-Secretary of State,--
"This marriage was a /coup/. We have got another house."

Myra had been a little anxious about the relations between Lord
Roehampton and her brother. She felt, with a woman's instinct, that
her husband might not be overpleased by her devotion to Endymion, and
she could not resist the conviction that the disparity of age which is
easily forgotten in a wife, and especially in a wife who adores you,
assumes a different, and somewhat distasteful character, when a great
statesman is obliged to recognise it in the shape of a boyish brother-
in-law. But all went right, for the sweetness of Lord Roehampton's
temper was inexhaustible. Endymion had paid several visits to St.
James' square before Myra could seize the opportunity, for which she
was ever watching, to make her husband and her brother acquainted.

"And so you are one of us," said Lord Roehampton, with his sweetest
smile and in his most musical tone, "and in office. We must try to
give you a lift." And then he asked Endymion who was his chief, and
how he liked him, and then he said, "A good deal depends on a man's
chief. I was under your grandfather when I first entered parliament,
and I never knew a pleasanter man to do business with. He never made
difficulties; he always encouraged one. A younker likes that."

Lady Roehampton was desirous of paying some attention to all those who
had been kind to her brother; particularly Mr. Waldershare and Lord
Beaumaris--and she wished to invite them to her house. "I am sure
Waldershare would like to come," said Endymion, "but Lord Beaumaris, I
know, never goes anywhere, and I have myself heard him say he never
would."

"Yes, my lord was telling me Lord Beaumaris was quite /farouche/, and
it is feared that we may lose him. That would be sad," said Myra, "for
he is powerful."

"I should like very much if you could give me a card for Mr.
Trenchard," said Endymion; "he is not in society, but he is quite a
gentleman."

"You shall have it, my dear. I have always liked Mr. Trenchard, and I
dare say, some day or other, he may be of use to you."

The Neuchatels were not in town, but Myra saw them frequently, and Mr.
Neuchatel often dined in St. James' Square--but the ladies always
declined every invitation of the kind. They came up from Hainault to
see Myra, but looked as if nothing but their great affection would
prompt such a sacrifice, and seemed always pining for Arcadia.
Endymion, however, not unfrequently continued his Sunday visits to
Hainault, to which Mr. Neuchatel had given him a general welcome. This
young gentleman, indeed, soon experienced a considerable change in his
social position. Invitations flocked to him, and often from persons
whom he did not know, and who did not even know him. He went by the
name of Lady Roehampton's brother, and that was a sufficient passport.

"We are trying to get up a carpet dance to-night," said Belinda to a
fair friend. "What men are in town?"

"Well, there is Mr. Waldershare, who has just left me."

"I have asked him.

"Then there is Lord Willesden and Henry Grantley--I know they are
passing through town--and there is the new man, Lady Roehampton's
brother."

"I will send to Lord Willesden and Henry Grantley immediately, and
perhaps you will send a card, which I will write here, for me to the
new man."

And in this way Mr. Ferrars soon found that he was what is called
"everywhere."

One of the most interesting acquaintances that Lady Roehampton made
was a colleague of her husband, and that was Mr. Sidney Wilton, once
the intimate friend of her father. He had known herself and her
brother when they were children, indeed from the cradle. Mr. Sidney
Wilton was in the perfection of middle life, and looked young for his
years. He was tall and pensive, and naturally sentimental, though a
long political career, for he had entered the House of Commons for the
family borough the instant he was of age, had brought to this
susceptibility a salutary hardness. Although somewhat alienated from
the friend of his youth by the course of affairs, for Mr. Sidney
Wilton had followed Lord Roehampton, while Mr. Ferrars had adhered to
the Duke of Wellington, he had not neglected Ferrars in his fall, but
his offers of assistance, frankly and generously made, had been coldly
though courteously rejected, and no encouragement had been given to
the maintenance of their once intimate acquaintance.

Mr. Sidney Wilton was much struck by the appearance of Lady
Roehampton. He tried to compare the fulfilment of her promise with the
beautiful and haughty child whom he used to wonder her parents so
extravagantly spoiled. Her stature was above the average height of
women and finely developed and proportioned. But it was in the
countenance--in the pellucid and commanding brow, the deep splendour
of her dark blue eyes softened by long lashes, her short upper lip,
and the rich profusion of her dark chestnut hair--that his roused
memory recalled the past; and he fell into a mood of agitated
contemplation.

The opportunities which he enjoyed of cultivating her society were
numerous, and Mr. Wilton missed none. He was frequently her guest, and
being himself the master of a splendid establishment, he could offer
her a hospitality which every one appreciated. Lord Roehampton was
peculiarly his political chief, and they had always been socially
intimate. As the trusted colleague of her husband--as one who had
known her in her childhood, and as himself a man singularly qualified,
by his agreeable conversation and tender and deferential manner, to
make his way with women--Mr. Sidney Wilton had no great difficulty,
particularly in that happy demi-season which precedes Christmas, in
establishing relations of confidence and intimacy with Lady
Roehampton.

The cabinets were over: the government had decided on their measures,
and put them in a state of preparation, and they were about to
disperse for a month. The seat of Lord Roehampton was in the extreme
north of England, and a visit to it was inconvenient at this moment,
and especially at this season. The department of Lord Roehampton was
very active at this time, and he was unwilling that the first
impression by his wife of her future home should be experienced at a
season little favourable to the charms of a northern seat. Mr. Sidney
Wilton was the proprietor of the most beautiful and the most
celebrated villa in England; only twenty miles from town, seated on a
wooded crest of the swan-crowned Thames, with gardens of delight, and
woods full of pheasants, and a terrace that would have become a court,
glancing over a wide expanse of bower and glade, studded with bright
halls and delicate steeples, and the smoke of rural homes.

It was arranged that Lord and Lady Roehampton should pass their
Christmas at Gaydene with Mr. Sidney Wilton, stay as long as they
liked, go where they chose, but make it their headquarters. It was a
most successful visit; for a great deal of business was done, as well
as pleasure enjoyed. The ambassadors, who were always a little uneasy
at Christmas when everybody is away, and themselves without country
homes, were all invited down for that week. Lord Roehampton used to
give them audiences after the shooting parties. He thought it was a
specific against their being too long. He used to say, "The first
dinner-bell often brings things to a point." After Christmas there was
an ever-varying stream of company, chiefly official and parliamentary.
The banquet and the battue did not always settle the business, the
clause, or the schedule, which the guests often came down to Gaydene
ostensibly to accomplish, but they sent men back to town with
increased energy and good humour, and kept the party in heart. Towards
the end of the month the premier came down, and for him the Blue
Ribbon Covert had been reserved, though he really cared little for
sport. It was an eighteenth century tradition that knights of the
garter only had been permitted to shoot this choice preserve, but Mr.
Sidney Wilton, in this advanced age, did not of course revive such an
ultra-exclusive practice, and he was particular in arranging the party
to include Mr. Jorrocks. This was a Radical member to whom
considerable office had been given at the reconstruction of 1835, when
it was necessary that the Whigs should conciliate the Mountain. He was
a pretentious, underbred, half-educated man, fluent with all the
commonplaces of middle-class ambition, which are humorously called
democratic opinions, but at heart a sycophant of the aristocracy. He
represented, however, a large and important constituency, and his
promotion was at first looked upon as a masterpiece of management. The
Mountain, who knew Jorrocks by heart, and felt that they had in their
ranks men in every sense his superior, and that he could be no
representative of their intelligence and opinions, and so by degrees
prepare for their gradual admission to the sacred land, at first
sulked over the promotion of their late companion, and only did not
publicly deride it from the feeling that by so doing they might be
playing the game of the ministry. At the time of which we are writing,
having become extremely discontented and wishing to annoy the
government, they even affected dissatisfaction at the subordinate
position which Jorrocks occupied in the administration, and it was
generally said--had become indeed the slang of the party--that the
test of the sincerity of the ministry to Liberal principles was to put
Jorrocks in the cabinet. The countenance of the premier when this
choice programme was first communicated to him was what might have
been expected had he learnt of the sudden descent upon this isle of an
invading force, and the Secretary of the Treasury whispered in
confidence to one or two leaders of the Mountain, "that if they did
not take care they would upset the government."

"That is exactly what we want to do," was the reply.

So it will be seen that the position of the ministry, previous to the
meeting of parliament in 1839, was somewhat critical. In the meantime,
its various members, who knew their man, lavished every practicable
social attention on Jorrocks. The dinners they gave him were doubled;
they got their women to call on his women; and Sidney Wilton, a member
of an illustrious garter family, capped the climax by appointing him
one of the party to shoot the Blue Ribbon Covert.

Mr. Wilton had invited Endymion to Gaydene, and, as his stay there
could only be brief, had even invited him to repeat the visit. He was,
indeed, unaffectedly kind to one whom he remembered so young, and was
evidently pleased with him.

One evening, a day or two before the break-up of the party, while some
charming Misses Playfellow, with an impudent brother, who all lived in
the neighbourhood, were acting charades, Mr. Wilton said to Lady
Roehampton, by whose side he was sitting in the circle--

"I have had a very busy morning about my office. There is to be a
complete revolution in it. The whole system is to be reconstructed;
half the present people are to be pensioned off, and new blood is to
be introduced. It struck me that this might be an opening for your
brother. He is in the public service--that is something; and as there
are to be so many new men, there will be no jealousy as to his
promotion. If you will speak to him about it, and he likes it, I will
appoint him one of the new clerks; and then, if he also likes it, he
shall be my private secretary. That will give him position, and be no
mean addition to his income, you know, if we last--but that depends, I
suppose, on Mr. Jorrocks."

Lady Roehampton communicated all this to her brother on her return to
London. "It is exactly what I wished," she said. "I wanted you to be
private secretary to a cabinet minister, and if I were to choose any
one, except, of course, my lord, it would be Mr. Wilton. He is a
perfect gentleman, and was dear papa's friend. I understand you will
have three hundred a year to begin with, and the same amount as his
secretary. You ought to be able to live with ease and propriety on six
hundred a year--and this reminds me of what I have been thinking of
before we went to Gaydene. I think now you ought to have a more
becoming residence. The Rodneys are good people, I do not doubt, and I
dare say we shall have an opportunity of proving our sense of their
services; but they are not exactly the people that I care for you to
live with, and, at any rate, you cannot reside any longer in a garret.
I have taken some chambers in the Albany, therefore, for you, and they
shall be my contribution to your housekeeping. They are not badly
furnished, but they belonged to an old general officer, and are not
very new-fashioned; but we will go together and see them to-morrow,
and I dare say I shall soon be able to make them /comme il faut/."



                            CHAPTER XLVIII

This considerable rise in the life of Endymion, after the first
excitement occasioned by its announcement to him had somewhat
subsided, was not contemplated by him with unmixed feelings of
satisfaction. It seemed to terminate many relations of life, the value
of which he had always appreciated, but which now, with their
impending conclusion, he felt, and felt keenly, had absolutely
contributed to his happiness. There was no great pang in quitting his
fellow-clerks, except Trenchard, whom he greatly esteemed. But poor
little Warwick Street had been to him a real home, if unvarying
kindness, and sedulous attention, and the affection of the eyes and
heart, as well as of the mouth, can make a hearth. He hoped he might
preserve the friendship of Waldershare, which their joint intimacy
with the prince would favour; but still he could hardly flatter
himself that the delightful familiarity of their past lives could
subsist. Endymion sighed, and then he sighed again. He felt sad.
Because he was leaving the humble harbour of refuge, the entrance to
which, even in the darkest hour of his fallen fortunes, was thought
somewhat of an indignity, and was about to assume a position which
would not have altogether misbecome the earliest expectations of his
life? That seems unreasonable; but mankind, fortunately, are not
always governed by reason, but by sentiment, and often by very tender
sentiment.

When Endymion, sitting in his little room, analysed his feelings, he
came to the conclusion that his sadness was occasioned by his having
to part from Imogene. It often requires an event in life, and an
unexpected one, to make us clearly aware of the existence of feelings
which have long influenced us. Never having been in a position in
which the possibility of uniting his fate to another could cross his
mind for a moment, he had been content with the good fortune which
permitted a large portion of his life to be passed in the society of a
woman who, unconsciously both to him and to herself, had fascinated
him. The graceful child who, four or five years ago, had first lit him
to his garret, without losing any of her rare and simple
ingenuousness, had developed into a beautiful and accomplished woman.
There was a strong resemblance between Imogene and her sister, but
Imogene was a brunette. Her countenance indicated far more intellect
and character than that of Sylvia. Her brow was delicately pencilled
and finely arched, and her large dark eyes gleamed with a softness and
sweetness of expression, which were irresistibly attractive, and
seemed to indicate sympathy with everything that was good and
beautiful. Her features were not so regular as her sister's; but when
she smiled, her face was captivating.

Endymion had often listened, half with fondness and half with
scepticism, to Waldershare dilating, according to his wont, on the
high character and qualities of Imogene, whom he persisted in
believing he was preparing for a great career. "How it will come about
I cannot say," he would remark; "but it will come. If my legitimate
sovereign were on the throne, and I in the possession of my estates,
which were graciously presented by the usurper to the sausage-makers,
or some other choice middle-class corporation, I would marry her
myself. But that is impossible. That would only be asking her to share
my ruin. I want her to live in palaces, and perhaps, in my decline of
life, make me her librarian, like Casanova. I should be content to
dine in her hall every day beneath the salt, and see her enter with
her state, amid the flourish of trumpets." And now, strange to say,
Endymion was speculating on the fate of Imogene, and, as he thought,
in a more practical spirit. Six hundred a year, he thought, was not a
very large income; but it was an income, and one which a year ago he
never contemplated possessing until getting grey in the public
service. Why not realise perfect happiness at once? He could conceive
no bliss greater than living with Imogene in one of those little
villas, even if semi-detached, which now are numbered by tens of
thousands, and which were then beginning to shoot out their suburban
antennae in every direction of our huge metropolis. He saw her in his
mind's eye in a garden of perpetual sunshine, breathing of mignonette
and bright with roses, and waiting for him as he came down from town
and his daily labours, in the cheap and convenient omnibus. What a
delightful companion to welcome him! How much to tell her, and how
much to listen to! And then their evenings with a delicious book or
some delightful music! What holidays, too, of romantic adventure! The
vine-clad Rhine, perhaps Switzerland; at any rate, the quaint old
cities of Flanders, and the winding valley of the Meuse. They could
live extremely well on six hundred a year, yes, with all the real
refinements of existence. And all their genuine happiness was to be
sacrificed for utterly fantastic and imaginary gratifications, which,
if analysed, would be found only to be efforts to amuse and astonish
others.

It did not yet occur to Endymion that his garden could not always be
sunshiny; that cares crop up in villas, even semi-detached, as well as
joys; that he would have children, and perhaps too many; that they
would be sick, and that doctors' bills would soon put a stop to
romantic excursions; that his wife would become exhausted with nursing
and clothing and teaching them; that she herself would become an
invalid, and moped to death; that his resources would every day bear a
less proportion to his expenditure; and that wanting money, he would
return too often from town a harassed husband to a jaded wife!

Mr. Rodney and Sylvia were at Conington on a visit to Lord Beaumaris,
hunting. It was astonishing how Sylvia had ridden to the hounds,
mounted on the choicest steeds, and in a scarlet habit which had been
presented to her by Mr. Vigo. She had created quite an enthusiasm in
the field, and Lord Beaumaris was proud of his guests. When Endymion
parted with his sister at the Albany, where they had been examining
his rooms, he had repaired to Warwick Street, with some expectation
that the Rodneys would have returned from Conington, and he intended
to break to his host the impending change in his life. The Rodneys,
however, had not arrived, and so he ascended to his room, where he had
been employed in arranging his books and papers, and indulging in the
reverie which we have indicated. When he came downstairs, wishing to
inquire about the probable arrival of his landlord, Endymion knocked
at the door of the parlour where they used to assemble, and on
entering, found Imogene writing.

"How do you do, Mr. Ferrars?" she said, rising. "I am writing to
Sylvia. They are not returning as soon as they intended, and I am to
go down to Conington by an early train to-morrow."

"I want to see Mr. Rodney," said Endymion moodily.

"Can I write anything to him, or tell him anything?" said Imogene.

"No," continued Endymion in a melancholy tone. "I can tell you what I
wanted to say. But you must be occupied now, going away, and
unexpectedly, to-morrow. It seems to me that every one is going away."

"Well, we have lost the prince, certainly," said Imogene, "and I doubt
whether his rooms will be ever let again."

"Indeed!" said Endymion.

"Well, I only know what Mr. Waldershare tells me. He says that Mr.
Rodney and Mr. Vigo have made a great speculation, and gained a great
deal of money; but Mr. Rodney never speaks to me of such matters, nor
indeed does Sylvia. I am myself very sorry that the prince has gone,
for he interested me much."

"Well, I should think Mr. Rodney would not be very sorry to get rid of
me then," said Endymion.

"O Mr. Ferrars! why should you say or think such things! I am sure
that my brother and sister, and indeed every one in this house, always
consider your comfort and welfare before any other object."

"Yes," said Endymion, "you have all been most kind to me, and that
makes me more wretched at the prospect of leaving you."

"But there is no prospect of that?"

"A certainty, Imogene; there is going to be a change in my life," and
then he told her all.

"Well," said Imogene, "it would be selfish not to be happy at what I
hear; but though I hope I am happy, I need not be joyful. I never used
to be nervous, but I am afraid I am getting so. All these great
changes rather shake me. This adventure of the prince--as Mr.
Waldershare says, it is history. Then Miss Myra's great marriage, and
your promotion--although they are exactly what we used to dream about,
and wished a fairy would accomplish, and somehow felt that, somehow or
other, they must happen--yet now they have occurred, one is almost as
astounded as delighted. We certainly have been very happy in Warwick
Street, at least I have been, all living as it were together. But
where shall we be this time next year? All scattered, and perhaps not
even the Rodneys under this roof. I know not how it is, but I dread
leaving the roof where one has been happy."

"Oh! you know you must leave it one day or other, Imogene. You are
sure to marry; that you cannot avoid."

"Well, I am not by any means sure about that," said Imogene. "Mr.
Waldershare, in educating me, as he says, as a princess, has made me
really neither fish, flesh, nor fowl, nor even that coarser but
popular delicacy never forgotten. I could not unite my life with a
being who was not refined in mind and in manners, and the men of my
class in life, who are the only ones after all who might care to marry
me, shock my taste, I am ashamed to say so. I am not sure it is not
wicked to think it even; but so it is."

"Why do you not marry Waldershare?" said Endymion.

"That would be madness! I do not know any alliance that could prove
more unfortunate. Mr. Waldershare must never marry. All people of
imagination, they say, are difficult to live with; but a person who
consists solely of imagination, like Mr. Waldershare, who has indeed
no other attribute--before a year was past, married, he would fly to
the desert or to La Trappe, commit terrible scandals from mere
weariness of feeling, write pasquinades against the wife of his bosom,
and hold us both up to the fierce laughter of the world. No, no; he is
the best, the dearest, and the most romantic of friends; tender as a
father, and sometimes as wise, for genius can be everything. He is
going to rise early to-morrow, which he particularly dislikes, because
he will not let me go to the station alone; though I tell him, as I
often tell him, those are the becoming manners of my class."

"But you might meet a person of the refinement you require," said
Endymion, "with a moderate and yet a sufficient income, who would not
be unworthy of you."

"I doubt it," said Imogene.

"But, do not doubt it, dear Imogene," said Endymion, advancing; "such
charms as yours, both of body and of mind, such a companion in life,
so refined, so accomplished, and yet endowed with such clear sense,
and such a sweet disposition--believe me"----

But at this moment a splendid equipage drove up to the door, with
powdered footmen and long canes behind, and then a terrible rap, like
the tattoo of a field-marshal.

"Good gracious! what is all this?" exclaimed Imogene.

"It is my sister," said Endymion, blushing; "it is Lady Roehampton."

"I must go to her myself," said Imogene; "I cannot have the servant
attend upon your sister."

Endymion remained silent and confused. Imogene was some little time at
the carriage-door, for Lady Roehampton had inquiries to make after
Sylvia and other courteous things to say, and then Imogene returned,
and said to Endymion, "Lady Roehampton wishes you to go with her
directly on some particular business."



                             CHAPTER XLIX

Endymion liked his new official life very much. Whitehall was a great
improvement on Somerset House, and he had sufficient experience of the
civil service to duly appreciate the advantage of being permanently
quartered in one of the chief departments of the state, instead of
obscurely labouring in a subordinate office, with a limited future,
and detached from all the keenly interesting details of public life.
But it was not this permanent and substantial advantage which
occasioned him such lively and such novel pleasure, as the fact of his
being a private secretary, and a private secretary to a cabinet
minister.

The relations between a minister and his secretary are, or at least
should be, among the finest that can subsist between two individuals.
Except the married state, there is none in which so great a degree of
confidence is involved, in which more forbearance ought to be
exercised, or more sympathy ought to exist. There is usually in the
relation an identity of interest, and that of the highest kind; and
the perpetual difficulties, the alternations of triumph and defeat,
develop devotion. A youthful secretary will naturally feel some degree
of enthusiasm for his chief, and a wise minister will never stint his
regard for one in whose intelligence and honour he finds he can place
confidence.

There never was a happier prospect of these relations being
established on the most satisfactory basis than in the instance of
Endymion and his new master. Mr. Sidney Wilton was a man of noble
disposition, fine manners, considerable culture, and was generally
gracious. But he was disposed to be more than gracious to Endymion,
and when he found that our young friend had a capacity for work--that
his perception was quick and clear--that he wrote with facility--never
made difficulties--was calm, sedulous, and patient, the interest which
Mr. Wilton took in him as the son of William Ferrars, and, we must
add, as the brother of Lady Roehampton, became absorbed in the
personal regard which the minister soon entertained for his secretary.
Mr. Wilton found a pleasure in forming the mind of Endymion to the
consideration and comprehension of public affairs; he spoke to him
both of men and things without reserve; revealed to him the characters
of leading personages on both sides, illustrated their antecedents,
and threw light upon their future; taught him the real condition of
parties in parliament, rarely to be found in newspapers; and finally,
when he was sufficiently initiated, obtained for his secretary a key
for his cabinet boxes, which left little of the business of government
unknown to Endymion.

Such great confidence, and that exhibited by one who possessed so many
winning qualities, excited in the breast of Endymion the most lively
feelings of gratitude and respect. He tried to prove them by the
vigilant and unwearying labour with which he served his master, and he
served him every day more effectually, because every day he became
more intimate with the mind and method of Mr. Wilton. Every one to a
certain degree is a mannerist; every one has his ways; and a secretary
will be assisted in the transaction of business if a vigilant
observation has made him acquainted with the idiosyncrasy of his
chief.

The regulations of the office which authorise a clerk, appointed to a
private secretaryship, to deviate from the routine duties of the
department, and devote his time entirely to the special requirements
of his master, of course much assisted Endymion, and proved also a
pleasant relief, for he had had enough at Somerset House of copying
documents and drawing up formal reports. But it was not only at
Whitehall that he saw Mr. Wilton, and experienced his kindness.
Endymion was a frequent guest under Mr. Wilton's roof, and Mr.
Wilton's establishment was one of the most distinguished in London.
They met also much in the evenings, and always at Lady Roehampton's,
where Mr. Wilton was never absent. Whenever and wherever they met,
even if they had been working together the whole morning, Mr. Wilton
always greeted Endymion with the utmost consideration--because he knew
such a recognition would raise Endymion in the eyes of the social
herd, who always observe little things, and generally form from them
their opinions of great affairs.



                              CHAPTER L

Mr. Wilton was at Charing Cross, on his way to his office, when a lady
saluted him from her carriage, which then drew up to the pavement and
stopped.

"We have just arrived," said Lady Montfort, "and I want you to give me
a little dinner to-day. My lord is going to dine with an Old Bailey
lawyer, who amuses him, and I do not like to be left, the first day,
on the /pave/."

"I can give you a rather large dinner, if you care to come," said Mr.
Wilton, "but I fear you will not like it. I have got some House of
Commons men dining with me to-day, and one or two of the other House
to meet them. My sister Georgina has very good-naturedly promised to
come, with her husband, and I have just written a note to the Duchess
Dowager of Keswick, who often helps me--but I fear this sort of thing
would hardly suit you."

"On the contrary, I think it will be very amusing. Only do not put me
between two of your colleagues. Anybody amuses me for once. A new
acquaintance is like a new book. I prefer it, even if bad, to a
classic."

The dinner party to-day at Mr. Wilton's was miscellaneous, and not
heterogeneous enough to produce constraint, only to produce a little
excitement--some commoners high in office, and the Treasury whip,
several manufacturers who stood together in the room, and some
metropolitan members. Georgina's husband, who was a lord-in-waiting,
and a great swell, in a green riband, moved about with adroit
condescension, and was bewitchingly affable. The manufacturing members
whispered to each other that it was a wise thing to bring the two
Houses together, but when Her Grace the Duchess Dowager of Keswick was
announced, they exchanged glances of astounded satisfaction, and felt
that the government, which had been thought to be in a somewhat
rickety condition, would certainly stand.

Berengaria came a little late, not very. She thought it had been
earlier, but it was not. The duchess dowager opened her eyes with
wonderment when she beheld Lady Montfort, but the company in general
were not in the least aware of the vast social event that was
occurring. They were gratified in seeing another fine lady, but did
not, of course, rank her with a duchess.

The dinner went off better than Mr. Wilton could have hoped, as it was
impossible to place a stranger by Lady Montfort. He sate in the middle
of his table with the duchess dowager on his right hand, and
Berengaria, who was taken out by the green riband, on the other. As he
knew the green riband would be soon exhausted, he devoted himself to
Lady Montfort, and left the duchess to her own resources, which were
considerable, and she was soon laying down her opinions on men and
things to her other neighbours with much effect. The manufacturers
talked shop to each other in whispers, that is to say, mixed House of
Commons tattle about bills and committees with news from Manchester
and Liverpool, and the West Riding. The metropolitan members, then a
more cosmopolitan body and highly miscellaneous in their character and
pursuits, were louder, and perhaps more easy, even ventured to talk
across the table when near its end, and enticed the peers into
discussions on foreign politics.

Mr. Sidney Wilton having been delightful, thought it necessary to
observe that he feared Lady Montfort had been bored. "I have been, and
am, extremely amused," she replied; "and now tell me, who is that
young man at the very end of the table?"

"That is my private secretary, Mr. Ferrars."

"Ferrars!"

"A brother of Lady Roehampton."

"Present him to me after dinner."

Endymion knew Lady Montfort by sight, though she did not know him. He
had seen her more than once at the receptions of Mrs. Neuchatel,
where, as indeed in every place, she was the cynosure. He was much
astonished at meeting her at this party to-day,--almost as surprised
as the duchess dowager, for Endymion, who was of an observant nature,
was beginning to comprehend society and all its numerous elements, and
schools, and shades, and classes. When they entered the saloon, Mr.
Wilton led Endymion up to Lady Montfort at once, and she immediately
inquired after his sister. "Do you think," she said, "Lady Roehampton
would see me to-morrow if I called on her?"

"If I were Lady Roehampton, I would," said Endymion.

Lady Montfort looked at him with a glance of curious scrutiny; not
smiling, and yet not displeased. "I will write her a little note in
the morning," said Lady Montfort thoughtfully. "One may leave cards
for ever. Mr. Wilton tells me you are quite his right hand."

"Mr. Wilton is too kind to me," said Endymion. "One could not be
excused for not doing one's best for such a master."

"You like people to be kind to you?" said Lady Montfort.

"Well, I have not met with so much kindness in this world as to become
insensible to it."

"You are too young to be melancholy," said Lady Montfort; "are you
older than Lady Roehampton?"

"We are twins."

"Twins! and wonderfully like too! Is it not thought so?"

"I have sometimes heard it mentioned."

"Oh, it is striking!" said Lady Montfort, and she motioned to him to
sit down by her; and then she began to talk politics, and asked him
what the members thought at dinner of the prospects of the government,
and what he had heard of the malcontent movement that they said was
/in petto/. Endymion replied that Mr. Sharpset, the Secretary of the
Treasury, did not think much of it.

"Well, I wish I did not," said Lady Montfort. "However, I will soon
find out something about it. I have only just come to town; but I
intend to open my house, immediately. Now I must go. What are you
going to do with yourself to-morrow? I wish you would come and dine
with Lord Montfort. It will be quite without form, a few agreeable and
amusing people; Lord Montfort must be amused. It seems a reasonable
fancy, but very difficult to realise; and now you shall ask for my
carriage, and to-morrow I hope to be able to tell Lady Roehampton what
very great pleasure I have had in making the acquaintance of her
brother."



                              CHAPTER LI

The morning after, Endymion was emerging from the court-yard of the
Albany, in order to call on Mr. Rodney, who, as he learnt from a
casual remark in a letter from Waldershare, would be in town. The
ladies were left behind for the last week of hunting, but business
called Mr. Rodney home. Waldershare wrote to Endymion in the highest
spirits, and more than once declared that he was the happiest of men.
Just as Endymion had entered Piccadilly, he was stopped by a once
familiar face; it was St. Barbe, who accosted him with great warmth,
and as usual began to talk about himself. "You are surprised to see
me," he said. "It is two years since we met. Well, I have done
wonders; carried all before me. By Jove, sir, I can walk into a
minister's private room with as much ease as I were entering the old
den. The ambassadors are hand and glove with me. There are very few
things I do not know. I have made the fortune of the 'Chuck-Farthing,'
trebled its circulation, and invented a new style, which has put me at
the head of all 'our own correspondents.' I wish you were at Paris; I
would give you a dinner at the Rocher, which would make up for all our
dinners at that ferocious ruffian, Joe's. I gave a dinner the other
day to forty of them, all 'our own correspondents,' or such like. Do
you know, my dear fellow, when I looked round the room, there was not
a man who had not done his best to crush me; running down my works or
not noticing them, or continually dilating on Gushy as if the English
public would never read anything else. Now, that was Christian-like of
me, was not it? God, sir, if they only had but one neck, and I had
been the Emperor Nero--but, I will not dwell on it; I hate them.
However, it suits me to take the other line at present. I am all for
fraternity and that sort of thing, and give them dinners. There is a
reason why, but there is no time to talk about that now. I shall want
their sweet voices--the hounds! But, my dear fellow, I am truly glad
to see you. Do you know, I always liked you; and how come you to be in
this quarter this fine morning?"

"I live in the Albany," said Endymion.

"You live in the Albany!" repeated St. Barbe, with an amazed and
perturbed expression. "I knew I could not be a knight of the garter,
or a member of White's--the only two things an Englishman cannot
command; but I did think I might some day live in the Albany. It was
my dream. And you live there! Gracious! what an unfortunate fellow I
am! I do not see how you can live in the Albany with your salary; I
suppose they have raised you."

"I have left Somerset House," said Endymion, "and am now at the Board
of Trade, and am private secretary to Mr. Sidney Wilton."

"Oh!" said St. Barbe; "then we have friends at court. You may do
something for me, if I only knew what I wanted. They have no
decorations here. Curse this aristocratic country, they want all the
honours to themselves. I should like to be in the Board of Trade, and
would make some sacrifice for it. The proprietors of the 'Chuck-
Farthing' pay well; they pay like gentlemen; though, why I say so I do
not exactly know, for no gentleman ever paid me anything. But, if I
could be Secretary of the Board of Trade, or get 1500 pounds a year
secure, I would take it; and I dare say I could get employed on some
treaties, as I speak French, and then I might get knighted."

"Well, I think you are very well off," said Endymion; "carrying, as
you say, everything before you. What more can you want?"

"I hate the craft," said St. Barbe, with an expression of genuine
detestation; "I should like to show them all up before I died. I
suppose it was your sister marrying a lord that got you on in this
way. I could have married a countess myself, but then, to be sure, she
was only a Polish one, and hard up. I never had a sister; I never had
any luck in life at all. I wish I had been a woman. Women are the only
people who get on. A man works all his life, and thinks he has done a
wonderful thing if, with one leg in the grave and no hair on his head,
he manages to get a coronet; and a woman dances at a ball with some
young fellow or other, or sits next to some old fellow at dinner and
pretends she thinks him charming, and he makes her a peeress on the
spot. Oh! it is a disgusting world; it must end in revolution. Now you
tell your master, Mr. Sidney Wilton, that if he wants to strengthen
the institutions of this country, the government should establish an
order of merit, and the press ought to be represented in it. I do not
speak only for myself; I speak for my brethren. Yes, sir, I am not
ashamed of my order."

And so they bade each other farewell.

"Unchanged," thought Endymion, as he crossed Piccadilly; "the vainest,
the most envious, and the most amusing of men! I wonder what he will
do in life."

Mr. Rodney was at home, had just finished his breakfast, read his
newspaper, and was about to "go into the City." His costume was
perfect. Mr. Rodney's hat seemed always a new one. Endymion was a
little embarrassed by this interview, for he had naturally a kind
heart, and being young, it was still soft. The Rodneys had been truly
good to him, and he was attached to them. Imogene had prepared Mr.
Rodney for the change in Endymion's life, and Endymion himself had
every reason to believe that in a worldly point of view the matter was
entirely insignificant to his old landlord. Still his visit this
morning ratified a permanent separation from those with whom he had
lived for a long time, and under circumstances of sympathy and family
connection which were touching. He retained Mr. Rodney's hand for a
moment as he expressed, and almost in faltering tones, his sorrow at
their separation and his hope that their friendly connection might be
always cherished.

"That feeling is reciprocal," said Mr. Rodney. "If only because you
were the son of my revered and right honourable friend, you would
always be esteemed here. But you are esteemed, or, I may say beloved,
for your own sake. We shall be proud to be considered with kindness by
you, and I echo your wish that, though no longer living under the same
roof, we may yet, and even often, meet. But do not say another word
about the inconvenience you are occasioning us. The truth is, that
although wherever we went the son of my revered and right honourable
friend would have always commanded hospitality from us, there are many
changes about to take place in our family which have made us for some
time contemplate leaving Warwick Street. Affairs, especially of late,
have gone pretty well with me in the world,--at least not badly; I
have had friends, and I hope have proved not undeserving of them. I
wish Sylvia, too, to live in an airier situation, near the park, so
that she may ride every morning. Besides, I have a piece of news to
communicate to you, which would materially affect our arrangements. We
are going to lose Imogene."

"Ah! she is going to be married," said Endymion, blushing.

"She is going to be married," said Mr. Rodney gravely.

"To Mr. Waldershare?" said Endymion. "He almost said as much to me in
a letter this morning. But I always thought so."

"No; not to Mr. Waldershare," said Mr. Rodney.

"Who is the happy man then?" said Endymion, agitated. "I truly call
him so; for I think myself that Imogene is perfection."

"Imogene is about to be married to the Earl of Beaumaris."



                             CHAPTER LII

Simon, Earl of Montfort, with whom Endymion was so unexpectedly going
to dine, may be said to have been a minor in his cradle. Under
ordinary circumstances, his inheritance would have been one of the
most considerable in England. His castle in the north was one of the
glories of the land, and becomingly crowned his vast domain. Under the
old parliamentary system, he had the greatest number of nomination
boroughs possessed by any Whig noble. The character and conduct of an
individual so qualified were naturally much speculated on and finely
scanned. Nothing very decided transpired about them in his boyhood,
but certainly nothing adverse. He was good-looking and athletic, and
was said to be generous and good-natured, and when he went to Harrow,
he became popular. In his eighteenth year, while he was in
correspondence with his guardians about going to Christ Church, he
suddenly left his country without giving any one notice of his
intentions, and entered into, and fulfilled, a vast scheme of
adventurous travel. He visited countries then rarely reached, and some
of which were almost unknown. His flag had floated in the Indian
Ocean, and he had penetrated the dazzling mysteries of Brazilian
forests. When he was of age, he returned, and communicated with his
guardians, as if nothing remarkable had happened in his life. Lord
Montfort had inherited a celebrated stud, which the family had
maintained for more than a century, and the sporting world remarked
with satisfaction that their present representative appeared to take
much interest in it. He had an establishment at Newmarket, and his
horses were entered for all the great races of the kingdom. He
appeared also at Melton, and conducted the campaign in a style
becoming such a hero. His hunters and his cooks were both first-rate.
Although he affected to take little interest in politics, the events
of the time forced him to consider them and to act. Lord Grey wanted
to carry his Reform Bill, and the sacrifice of Lord Montfort's
numerous boroughs was a necessary ingredient in the spell. He was
appealed to as the head of one of the greatest Whig houses, and he was
offered a dukedom. He relinquished his boroughs without hesitation,
but he preferred to remain with one of the oldest earldoms of England
for his chief title. All honours, however, clustered about him, though
he never sought them, and in the same year he tumbled into the Lord
Lieutenancy of his country, unexpectedly vacant, and became the
youngest Knight of the Garter.

Society was looking forward with the keenest interest to the impending
season, when Lord Montfort would formally enter its spell-bound ranks,
and multiform were the speculations on his destiny. He attended an
early levee, in order that he might be presented--a needful ceremony
which had not yet taken place--and then again quitted his country, and
for years. He was heard of in every capital except his own. Wonderful
exploits at St. Petersburg, and Paris, and Madrid, deeds of mark at
Vienna, and eccentric adventures at Rome; but poor Melton, alas!
expecting him to return every season, at last embalmed him, and his
cooks, and his hunters, and his daring saddle, as a tradition,--
jealous a little of Newmarket, whither, though absent, he was
frequently transmitting foreign blood, and where his horses still ran,
and were often victorious.

At last it would appear that the restless Lord Montfort had found his
place, and that place was Paris. There he dwelt for years in Sybaritic
seclusion. He built himself a palace, which he called a villa, and
which was the most fanciful of structures, and full of every beautiful
object which rare taste and boundless wealth could procure, from
undoubted Raffaelles to jewelled toys. It was said that Lord Montfort
saw no one; he certainly did not court or receive his own countrymen,
and this perhaps gave rise to, or at least caused to be exaggerated,
the tales that were rife of his profusion, and even his profligacy.
But it was not true that he was entirely isolated. He lived much with
the old families of France in their haughty faubourg, and was highly
considered by them. It was truly a circle for which he was adapted.
Lord Montfort was the only living Englishman who gave one an idea of
the nobleman of the eighteenth century. He was totally devoid of the
sense of responsibility, and he looked what he resembled. His manner,
though simple and natural, was finished and refined, and, free from
forbidding reserve, was yet characterised by an air of serious grace.

With the exception of the memorable year when he sacrificed his
nomination boroughs to the cause for which Hampden died on the field
and Sidney on the scaffold--that is to say, the Whig government of
England--Lord Montfort had been absent for his country for ten years,
and one day, in his statued garden at the Belvedere, he asked himself
what he had gained by it. There was no subject, divine or human, in
which he took the slightest interest. He entertained for human nature
generally, and without any exception, the most cynical appreciation.
He had a sincere and profound conviction, that no man or woman ever
acted except from selfish and interested motives. Society was
intolerable to him; that of his own sex and station wearisome beyond
expression; their conversation consisted only of two subjects, horses
and women, and he had long exhausted both. As for female society, if
they were ladies, it was expected that, in some form or other, he
should make love to them, and he had no sentiment. If he took refuge
in the /demi-monde/, he encountered vulgarity, and that, to Lord
Montfort, was insufferable. He had tried them in every capital, and
vulgarity was the badge of all their tribe. He had attempted to read;
a woman had told him to read French novels, but he found them only a
clumsy representation of the life which, for years, he had practically
been leading. An accident made him acquainted with Rabelais and
Montaigne; and he had relished them, for he had a fine sense of
humour. He might have pursued these studies, and perhaps have found in
them a slight and occasional distraction, but a clever man he met at a
guingette at Passy, whither he had gone to try to dissipate his
weariness in disguise, had convinced him, that if there were a worthy
human pursuit, an assumption which was doubtful, it was that of
science, as it impressed upon man his utter insignificance.

No one could say Lord Montfort was a bad-hearted man, for he had no
heart. He was good-natured, provided it brought him no inconvenience;
and as for temper, his was never disturbed, but this not from
sweetness of disposition, rather from a contemptuous fine taste, which
assured him, that a gentleman should never be deprived of tranquillity
in a world where nothing was of the slightest consequence.

The result of these reflections was, that he was utterly wearied with
Belvedere and Paris, and as his mind was now rather upon science, he
fancied he should like to return to a country where it flourished, and
where he indulged in plans of erecting colossal telescopes, and of
promoting inquiry into the origin of things. He thought that with
science and with fishing, the only sport to which he still really
clung, for he liked the lulling influence of running streams, and a
pastime he could pursue in loneliness, existence might perhaps be
endured.

Society was really surprised when they heard of the return of Lord
Montfort to England. He came back in the autumn, so that there should
be no season to encounter, and his flag was soon flying at his castle.
There had been continuous attacks for years on the government for
having made an absentee lord lieutenant of his country, and conferring
the high distinction of the garter on so profligate a character. All
this made his return more interesting and exciting.

A worthy nobleman of high rank and of the same county, who for the
last five years everybody, shaking everybody's head, had been saying
ought to have been lord lieutenant, had a great county function in his
immediate neighbourhood in the late autumn, and had invited a large
party to assist him in its celebration. It seemed right also to invite
the lord lieutenant, but no one expected that he would make his
appearance. On the contrary, the invitation was accepted, and the
sensation was great. What would he be like, and what would he do, and
was he so very wicked as the county newspaper said? He came, this
wicked man, with his graceful presence and his diamond star, and
everybody's heart palpitated with a due mixture of terror and
admiration. The only exception to these feelings was the daughter of
the house, the Lady Berengaria. She was then in her second season, but
still unparagoned, for she was a fastidious, not to say disdainful
lady. The highest had been at her feet, and sued in vain. She was a
stirring spirit, with great ambition and a daring will; never content
except in society, and influencing it--for which she was qualified by
her grace and lively fancy, her ready though capricious sympathy, and
her passion for admiration.

The function was successful, and the county full of enthusiasm for
their lord lieutenant, whose manner quite cleared his character. The
party did not break up, in fact the function was only an excuse for
the party. There was sport of all kinds, and in the evenings a
carnival--for Lady Berengaria required everybody about her to be gay
and diverting--games and dances, and infinite frolic. Lord Montfort,
who, to the surprise of every one, did not depart, spoke to her a
little, and perhaps would not have spoken at all, had they not met in
the hunting-field. Lady Berengaria was a first-rate horsewoman, and
really in the saddle looked irresistible.

The night before the party, which had lasted a week, broke up, Lord
Montfort came and sat by Lady Berengaria. He spoke about the run of
the morning, and she replied in the same vein. "I have got a horse,
Lady Berengaria, which I should like you to ride. Would you do so?"

"Certainly, and what sort of horse is it?"

"You shall see to-morrow. It is not far off. I like to have some
horses always near," and then he walked away.

It was a dark chestnut of matchless beauty. Lady Berengaria, who was
of an emphatic nature, was loud in her admiration of its beauty and
its hunting qualities.

"I agree with you," said Lord Montfort, "that it will spoil you for
any other horse, and therefore I shall ask permission to leave it here
for your use."

The party broke up, but, strange to say, Lord Montfort did not depart.
It was a large family. Lady Berengaria had several sisters; her eldest
brother was master of the hounds, and her younger brothers were
asserting their rights as cadets, and killing their father's
pheasants. There was also a number of cousins, who were about the same
age, and were always laughing, though it was never quite clear what it
was about. An affectation of gaiety may be sometimes detected in
youth.

As Lord Montfort always had the duty of ushering the lady of the house
to dinner, he never had the opportunity of conversing with Lady
Berengaria, even had he wished it; but it was not all clear that he
did wish it, and it seemed that he talked as much to her sisters and
the laughing cousins as to herself, but still he did not go away,
which was most strange, and commenced to be embarrassing.

At last one evening, both her parents slumbering, one over the
newspaper and the other over her work, and the rest of the party in a
distant room playing at some new game amid occasional peals of
laughter, Lord Montfort, who had been sitting for some time by Lady
Berengaria's side, and only asking now and then a question, though
often a searching one, in order to secure her talking to him, rather
abruptly said, "I wonder if anything would ever induce you to marry
me?"

This was the most startling social event of the generation. Society
immediately set a-wondering how it would turn out, and proved very
clearly that it must turn out badly. Men who knew Montfort well at
Paris looked knowing, and said they would give it six months.

But the lady was as remarkable a woman as the bridegroom was in his
sex. Lady Berengaria was determined to be the Queen of Society, and
had confidence in her unlimited influence over man. It is, however,
rather difficult to work on the feelings of a man who has no heart.
This she soon found out, and to her dismay, but she kept it a profound
secret. By endless ingenuity on her part, affairs went on very well
much longer than the world expected, and long enough to fulfil the
object of Lady Berengaria's life. Lord Montfort launched his wife
well, and seemed even content to be occasionally her companion until
she had mounted the social throne. He was proud of her as he would be
of one of his beautiful horses; but when all the world had
acknowledged the influence of Berengaria, he fell into one of his old
moods, and broke to her that he could bear it no longer, and that he
must retire from society. Lady Montfort looked distressed, but,
resolved under no circumstances to be separated from her husband, whom
she greatly admired, and to whom, had he wished it, she could have
become even passionately attached, signified her readiness to share
his solitude. But she then found out that this was not what he wanted.
It was not only retirement from society, but retirement from Lady
Montfort, that was indispensable. In short, at no time of his perverse
career had Lord Montfort been more wilful.

During the last years of his residence in Paris, when he was shut up
in his delicious Belvedere, he had complained much of the state of his
health, and one of his principal pursuits was consulting the faculty
on this interesting subject. The faculty were unanimous in their
opinion that the disorder from which their patient was suffering was
/Ennui/. This persistent opinion irritated him, and was one of the
elements of his decision to leave the country. The unexpected
distraction that followed his return to his native land had made him
neglect or forget his sad indisposition, but it appears that it had
now returned, and in an aggravated form. Unhappily the English
physicians took much the same view of the case as their French
brethren. They could find nothing organically wrong in the
constitution or condition of Lord Montfort, and recommended occupation
and society. At present he shrank with some disgust at the prospect of
returning to France, and he had taken it into his head that the
climate of Montfort did not agree with him. He was convinced that he
must live in the south of England. One of the most beautiful and
considerable estates in that favoured part of our country was
virtually in the market, and Lord Montfort, at the cost of half a
million, became the proprietor of Princedown. And here he announced
that he should dwell and die.

This state of affairs was a bitter trial to the proudest woman in
England, but Lady Montfort was also one of the most able. She resisted
nothing, sympathised with all his projects, and watched her
opportunity when she could extract from his unconscious good-nature
some reasonable modification of them. And she ultimately succeeded in
establishing a /modus vivendi/. He was to live and die at Princedown;
that was settled; but if he ever came to town, to consult his
physicians, for example, he was always to inhabit Montfort House, and
if she occasionally required a whiff of southern air, she was to have
her rooms always ready for her at Princedown. She would not interfere
with him in the least; he need not even see her, if he were too
unwell. Then as to the general principle of his life, it was quite
clear that he was not interested in anything, and never would be
interested in anything; but there was no reason that he should not be
amused. This distinction between interest and amusement rather
pleased, and seemed to satisfy Lord Montfort--but then it was
difficult to amuse him. The only thing that ever amused him, he said,
were his wife's letters, and as he was the most selfish as well as the
most polite of men, he requested her to write to him every day. Great
personages, who are selfish and whimsical, are generally surrounded by
parasites and buffoons, but this would not suit Lord Montfort; he
sincerely detested flattery, and he wearied in eight-and-forty hours
of the most successful mountebank in society. What he seemed inclined
to was the society of men of science, of travellers in rare parts, and
of clever artists; in short, of all persons who had what he called
"idiosyncrasy." Civil engineering was then beginning to attract
general attention, and Lord Montfort liked the society of civil
engineers; but what he liked most were self-formed men, and to learn
the secret of their success, and how they made their fortune. After
the first fit of Princedown was over, Lord Montfort found that it was
impossible, even with all its fascination, to secure a constant, or
sufficient, presence of civil engineers in such distant parts, and so
he got into the habit of coming up to Montfort House, that he might
find companions and be amused. Lady Montfort took great pains that he
should not be disappointed, and catered for him with all the skill of
an accomplished /chef/. Then, when the occasion served, she went down
to Princedown herself with welcome guests--and so it turned out, that
circumstances, which treated by an ordinary mind must have led to a
social scandal, were so adroitly manipulated, that the world little
apprehended the real and somewhat mortifying state of affairs. With
the utmost license of ill-nature, they could not suppose that Lord and
Lady Montfort, living under the same roof, might scarcely see each
other for weeks, and that his communications with her, and indeed
generally, were always made in writing.

Lady Monfort never could agree with her husband in the cardinal
assumption of his philosophy. One of his reasons for never doing
anything was, that there was nothing for him to attain. He had got
everything. Here they at once separated in their conclusions. Lady
Montfort maintained they had got nothing. "What," she would say, "are
rank and wealth to us? We were born to them. We want something that we
were not born to. You reason like a parvenu. Of course, if you had
created your rank and your riches, you might rest on your oars, and
find excitement in the recollection of what you had achieved. A man of
your position ought to govern the country, and it always was so in the
old days. Your family were prime ministers; why not you, with as much
talent, and much more knowledge?"

"You would make a very good prime minister, Berengaria."

"Ah! you always jest, I am serious."

"And so am I. If I ever am to work, I would sooner be a civil engineer
than a prime minister."

Nothing but the indomitable spirit of Lady Montfort could fight
successfully against such obstacles to her schemes of power as were
presented by the peculiar disposition of her lord. Her receptions
every Saturday night during the season were the most important of
social gatherings, but she held them alone. It was by consummate skill
that she had prevailed upon her lord occasionally appearing at the
preceding banquets, and when they were over, he flitted for an instant
and disappeared. At first, he altogether refused, but then Lady
Montfort would introduce Royalty, always kind, to condescend to
express a wish to dine at Montfort House, and that was a gracious
intimation it was impossible not to act upon, and then, as Lady
Montfort would say, "I trust much to the periodical visits of that
dear Queen of Mesopotamia. He must entertain her, for his father was
her lover."

In this wonderful mystification, by which Lord Montfort was made to
appear as living in a society which he scarcely ever entered, his wife
was a little assisted by his visits to Newmarket, which he even
frequently attended. He never made a bet or a new acquaintance, but he
seemed to like meeting men with whom he had been at school. There is
certainly a magic in the memory of school-boy friendships; it softens
the heart, and even affects the nervous system of those who have no
hearts. Lord Montfort at Newmarket would ask half a dozen men who had
been at school with him, and were now members of the Jockey Club, to
be his guests, and the next day all over the heath, and after the
heath, all over Mayfair and Belgravia, you heard only one speech, "I
dined yesterday," or "the other day," as the case might be, "with
Montfort; out and out the best dinner I ever had, and such an
agreeable fellow; the wittiest, the most amusing, certainly the most
charming fellow that ever lived; out and out! It is a pity he does not
show a little more." And society thought the same; they thought it a
pity, and a great one, that this fascinating being of whom they rarely
caught a glimpse, and who to them took the form of a wasted and
unsympathising phantom, should not show a little more and delight
them. But the most curious thing was, that however rapturous were his
guests, the feelings of their host after they had left him, were by no
means reciprocal. On the contrary, he would remark to himself, "Have I
heard a single thing worth remembering? Not one."



                             CHAPTER LIII

Endymion was a little agitated when he arrived at the door of Montfort
House, a huge family mansion, situate in a court-yard and looking into
the Green Park. When the door was opened he found himself in a large
hall with many servants, and he was ushered through several rooms on
the ground floor, into a capacious chamber dimly lighted, where there
were several gentlemen, but not his hostess. His name was announced,
and then a young man came up to him and mentioned that Lord and Lady
Montfort would soon be present, and then talked to him about the
weather. The Count of Ferroll arrived after Endymion, and then another
gentleman whose name he could not catch. Then while he was making some
original observations on the east wind, and, to confess the truth,
feeling anything but at his ease, the folding doors of a further
chamber brilliantly lighted were thrown open, and almost at the same
moment Lady Montfort entered, and, taking the Count of Ferroll's arm,
walked into the dining-room. It was a round table, and Endymion was
told by the same gentleman who had already addressed him, that he was
to sit by Lady Montfort.

"Lord Montfort is a little late to-day," she said, "but he wished me
not to wait for him. And how are you after our parliamentary banquet?"
she said, turning to Endymion; "I will introduce you to the Count of
Ferroll."

The Count of Ferroll was a young man, and yet inclined to be bald. He
was chief of a not inconsiderable mission at our court. Though not to
be described as a handsome man, his countenance was striking; a brow
of much intellectual development, and a massive jaw. He was tall,
broad-shouldered, with a slender waist. He greeted Endymion with a
penetrating glance, and then with a winning smile.

The Count of Ferroll was the representative of a kingdom which, if not
exactly created, had been moulded into a certain form of apparent
strength and importance by the Congress of Vienna. He was a noble of
considerable estate in a country where possessions were not extensive
or fortunes large, though it was ruled by an ancient, and haughty, and
warlike aristocracy. Like his class, the Count of Ferroll had received
a military education; but when that education was completed, he found
but a feeble prospect of his acquirements being called into action. It
was believed that the age of great wars had ceased, and that even
revolutions were for the future to be controlled by diplomacy. As he
was a man of an original, not to say eccentric, turn of mind, the
Count of Ferroll was not contented with the resources and distraction
of his second-rate capital. He was an eminent sportsman, and, for some
time, took refuge and found excitement in the breadth of his dark
forests, and in the formation of a stud, which had already become
celebrated. But all this time, even in the excitement of the chase,
and in the raising of his rare-breed steeds, the Count of Ferroll
might be said to have been brooding over the position of what he could
scarcely call his country, but rather an aggregation of lands baptized
by protocols, and christened and consolidated by treaties which he
looked upon as eminently untrustworthy. One day he surprised his
sovereign, with whom he was a favourite, by requesting to be appointed
to the legation at London, which was vacant. The appointment was at
once made, and the Count of Ferroll had now been two years at the
Court of St. James'.

The Count of Ferroll was a favourite in English society, for he
possessed every quality which there conduces to success. He was of
great family and of distinguished appearance, munificent and
singularly frank; was a dead-shot, and the boldest of riders, with
horses which were the admiration alike of Melton and Newmarket. The
ladies also approved of him, for he was a consummate waltzer, and
mixed with a badinage gaily cynical a tone that could be tender and a
bewitching smile.

But his great friend was Lady Montfort. He told her everything, and
consulted her on everything; and though he rarely praised anybody, it
had reached her ears that the Count of Ferroll had said more than once
that she was a greater woman than Louise of Savoy or the Duchesse de
Longueville.

There was a slight rustling in the room. A gentleman had entered and
glided into his unoccupied chair, which his valet had guarded. "I fear
I am not in time for an oyster," said Lord Montfort to his neighbour.

The gentleman who had first spoken to Endymion was the secretary of
Lord Montfort; then there was a great genius who was projecting a
suspension bridge over the Tyne, and that was in Lord Montfort's
country. A distinguished officer of the British Museum completed the
party with a person who sate opposite Endymion, and whom in the dim
twilight he had not recognised, but whom he now beheld with no little
emotion. It was Nigel Penruddock. They had not met since his mother's
funeral, and the associations of the past agitated Endymion. They
exchanged recognitions; that of Nigel was grave but kind.

The conversation was what is called general, and a great deal on
suspension bridges. Lord Montfort himself led off on this, in order to
bring out his distinguished guest. The Count of Ferroll was also
interested on this subject, as his own government was making inquiries
on the matter. The gentleman from the British Museum made some remarks
on the mode in which the ancient Egyptians moved masses of granite,
and quoted Herodotus to the civil engineer. The civil engineer had
never heard of Herodotus, but he said he was going to Egypt in the
autumn by desire of Mehemet Ali, and he would undertake to move any
mass which was requisite, even if it were a pyramid itself. Lady
Montfort, without disturbing the general conversation, whispered in
turns to the Count of Ferroll and Endymion, and told the latter that
she had paid a visit to Lady Roehampton in the morning--a most
delightful visit. There was no person she admired so much as his
sister; she quite loved her. The only person who was silent was Nigel,
but Lady Montfort, who perceived everything, addressed him across the
table with enthusiasm about some changes he had made in the services
of some church, and the countenance of Nigel became suffused like a
young saint who has a glimpse of Paradise.

After dinner Lady Montfort led Endymion to her lord, and left him
seated by his host. Lord Montfort was affable and natural in his
manner. He said, "I have not yet made the acquaintance of Lady
Roehampton, for I never go out; but I hope to do so, for Lady Montfort
tells me she is quite captivating."

"She is a very good sister," said Endymion.

"Lady Montfort has told me a great deal about yourself, and all of it
I was glad to hear. I like young men who rise by their merits, and Mr.
Sidney Wilton tells Lady Montfort that yours are distinguished."

"Mr. Sidney Wilton is a kind master, sir."

"Well, I was his fag at Harrow, and I thought him so," said Lord
Montfort. "And now about your office; tell me what you do. You were
not there first, Lady Montfort says. Where were you first? Tell me all
about it. I like detail."

It was impossible to resist such polished and amiable curiosity, and
Endymion gratified it with youthful grace. He even gave Lord Montfort
a sketch of St. Barbe, inspired probably by the interview of the
morning. Lord Montfort was quite amused with this, and said he should
so much like to know Mr. St. Barbe. It was clear, when the party broke
up, that Endymion had made a favourable impression, for Lord Montfort
said, "You came here to-day as Lady Montfort's friend, but you must
come in future as mine also. And will you understand, I dine at home
every day when I am in town, and I give you a general invitation. Come
as often as you like; you will be always welcome. Only let the house
know your intention an hour before dinner-time, as I have a particular
aversion to the table being crowded, or seeing an empty chair."

Lady Montfort had passed much of the evening in earnest conversation
with Nigel, and when the guests quitted the room, Nigel and Endymion
walked away together.



                             CHAPTER LIV

The meeting between Nigel and Endymion was not an ordinary one, and
when they were at length alone, neither of them concealed his feelings
of pleasure and surprise at its occurrence. Nigel had been a curate in
the northern town which was defended by Lord Montfort's proud castle,
and his labours and reputation had attracted the attention of Lady
Montfort. Under the influence of his powerful character, the services
of his church were celebrated with a precision and an imposing effect,
which soon occasioned a considerable excitement in the neighbourhood,
in time even in the county. The pulpit was frequently at his command,
for his rector, who had imbibed his Church views, was not equal to the
task of propagating them, and the power and fame of Nigel as a
preacher began to be much rumoured. Although the church at which he
officiated was not the one which Lady Montfort usually attended, she
was soon among his congregation and remained there. He became a
constant guest at the castle, and Lady Montfort presented his church
with a reredos of alabaster. She did more than this. Her enthusiasm
exceeded her selfishness, for though the sacrifice was great which
would deprive her of the ministrations and society of Nigel in the
country, she prevailed upon the prime minister to prefer him to a new
church in London, which had just fallen vacant, and which, being
situated in a wealthy and populous district, would afford him the
opportunity of making known to the world his eloquence and genius.
This was Nigel's simple, yet not uneventful history; and then, in
turn, he listened to Endymion's brief but interesting narrative of his
career, and then they agreed to adjourn to Endymion's chambers and
have a good talk over the past and the present.

"That Lady Montfort is a great woman," said Nigel, standing with his
back to the fire. "She has it in her to be another Empress Helena."

"Indeed!"

"I believe she has only one thought, and that the only thought worthy
the human mind--the Church. I was glad to meet you at her house. You
have cherished, I hope, those views which in your boyhood you so
fervently and seriously embraced."

"I am rather surprised," said Endymion, not caring to answer this
inquiry, "at a Whig lady entertaining such high views in these
matters. The Liberal party rather depends on the Low Church."

"I know nothing about Whigs or Tories or Liberals, or any other new
names which they invent," said Nigel. "Nor do I know, or care to know,
what Low Church means. There is but one Church, and it is catholic and
apostolic; and if we act on its principles, there will be no need, and
there ought to be no need, for any other form of government."

"Well, those are very distinct views," said Endymion, "but are they as
practical as they are clear?"

"Why should they not be practical? Everything is practical which we
believe; and in the long run, which is most likely that we should
believe, what is taught by God, or what is taught by man?"

"I confess," said Endymion, "that in all matters, both civil and
religious, I incline to what is moderate and temperate. I always trace
my dear father's sad end, and all the terrible events in my family, to
his adopting in 1829 the views of the extreme party. If he had only
followed the example and the advice of his best friend, Mr. Sidney
Wilton, what a different state of affairs might have occurred!"

"I know nothing about politics," said Nigel. "By being moderate and
temperate in politics I suppose you mean being adroit, and doing that
which is expedient and which will probably be successful. But the
Church is founded on absolute truth, and teaches absolute truth, and
there can be no compromise on such matters."

"Well, I do not know," said Endymion, "but surely there are many very
religious people, who do not accept without reserve everything that is
taught by the Church. I hope I am a religious person myself, and yet,
for example, I cannot give an unreserved assent to the whole of the
Athanasian Creed."

"The Athanasian Creed is the most splendid ecclesiastical lyric ever
poured forth by the genius of man. I give to every clause of it an
implicit assent. It does not pretend to be divine; it is human, but
the Church has hallowed it, and the Church ever acts under the
influence of the Divine Spirit. St. Athanasius was by far the greatest
man that ever existed. If you cavil at his creed, you will soon cavil
at other symbols. I was prepared for infidelity in London, but I
confess, my dear Ferrars, you alarm me. I was in hopes that your early
education would have saved you from this backsliding."

"But let us be calm, my dear Nigel. Do you mean to say, that I am to
be considered an infidel or an apostate, because, although I fervently
embrace all the vital truths of religion, and try, on the whole, to
regulate my life by them, I may have scruples about believing, for
example, in the personality of the Devil?"

"If the personality of Satan be not a vital principle of your
religion, I do not know what is. There is only one dogma higher. You
think it is safe, and I daresay it is fashionable, to fall into this
lax and really thoughtless discrimination between what is and what is
not to be believed. It is not good taste to believe in the Devil. Give
me a single argument against his personality which is not applicable
to the personality of the Deity. Will you give that up; and if so,
where are you? Now mark me; you and I are young men--you are a very
young man. This is the year of grace 1839. If these loose thoughts,
which you have heedlessly taken up, prevail in this country for a
generation or so--five and twenty or thirty years--we may meet
together again, and I shall have to convince you that there is a God."



                              CHAPTER LV

The balance of parties in the House of Commons, which had been
virtually restored by Sir Robert Peel's dissolution of 1834, might be
said to be formally and positively established by the dissolution of
parliament in the autumn of 1837, occasioned by the demise of the
crown. The ministerial majority became almost nominal, while troubles
from all quarters seemed to press simultaneously upon them: Canadian
revolts, Chartist insurrections, Chinese squabbles, and mysterious
complications in Central Asia, which threatened immediate hostilities
with Persia, and even with one of the most powerful of European
empires. In addition to all this, the revenue continually declined,
and every day the general prejudice became more intense against the
Irish policy of the ministry. The extreme popularity of the Sovereign,
reflecting some lustre on her ministers, had enabled them, though not
without difficulty, to tide through the session of 1838; but when
parliament met in 1839 their prospects were dark, and it was known
that there was a section of the extreme Liberals who would not be
deeply mortified if the government were overthrown. All efforts,
therefore, political and social, and particularly the latter, in which
the Whigs excelled, were to be made to prevent or to retard the
catastrophe.

Lady Montfort and Lady Roehampton opened their houses to the general
world at an unusually early period. Their entertainments rivalled
those of Zenobia, who with unflagging gallantry, her radiant face
prescient of triumph, stopped her bright vis-a-vis and her tall
footmen in the midst of St. James' Street or Pall Mall, while she
rapidly inquired from some friendly passer-by whom she had observed,
"Tell me the names of the Radical members who want to turn out the
government, and I will invite them directly."

Lady Montfort had appropriated the Saturdays, as was her custom and
her right; so Myra, with the advice of Lord Roehampton, had fixed on
Wednesdays for her receptions.

"I should have liked to have taken Wednesdays," said Zenobia, "but I
do not care to seem to be setting up against Lady Roehampton, for her
mother was my dearest friend. Not that I think any quarter ought to be
shown to her after joining those atrocious Whigs, but to be sure she
was corrupted by her husband, whom I remember the most thorough Tory
going. To be sure, I was a Whig myself in those days, so one must not
say too much about it, but the Whigs then were gentlemen. I will tell
you what I will do. I will receive both on Saturdays and Wednesdays.
It is an effort, and I am not as young as I was, but it will only be
for a season or less, for I know these people cannot stand. It will be
all over by May."

Prince Florestan had arrived in town, and was now settled in his
mansion in Carlton Terrace. It was the fashion among the /creme de la
creme/ to keep aloof from him. The Tories did not love revolutionary
dynasties, and the Whigs being in office could not sanction a
pretender, and one who, they significantly intimated with a charitable
shrug of the shoulders, was not a very scrupulous one. The prince
himself, though he was not insensible to the charms of society, and
especially of agreeable women, was not much chagrined by this. The
world thought that he had fitted up his fine house, and bought his
fine horses, merely for the enjoyment of life. His purposes were very
different. Though his acquaintances were limited, they were not
undistinguished, and he lived with them in intimacy. There had arisen
between himself and Mr. Waldershare the closest alliance both of
thought and habits. They were rarely separated. The prince was also a
frequent guest at the Neuchatels', and was a favourite with the head
of the house.

The Duke of St. Angelo controlled the household at Carlton Gardens
with skill. The appointments were finished and the cuisine refined.
There was a dinner twice a week, from which Waldershare was rarely
absent, and to which Endymion, whom the prince always treated with
kindness, had a general invitation. When he occasionally dined there
he met always several foreign guests, and all men apparently of mark--
at any rate, all distinguished by their intelligence. It was an
interesting and useful house for a young man, and especially a young
politician, to frequent. Endymion heard many things and learnt many
things which otherwise would not have met his ear or mind. The prince
encouraged conversation, though himself inclined to taciturnity. When
he did speak, his terse remarks and condensed views were striking, and
were remembered. On the days on which he did not receive, the prince
dined at the Travellers' Club, to which Waldershare had obtained his
introduction, and generally with Waldershare, who took this
opportunity of gradually making his friend acquainted with eminent and
influential men, many of whom in due time became guests at Carlton
Terrace. It was clear, indeed, that these club-dinners were part of a
system.

The prince, soon after his arrival in town, while riding, had passed
Lady Roehampton's carriage in the park, and he had saluted her with a
grave grace which distinguished him. She was surprised at feeling a
little agitated by this rencontre. It recalled Hainault, her not
mortifying but still humble position beneath that roof, the prince's
courtesy to her under those circumstances, and, indeed, his marked
preference for her society. She felt it something like ingratitude to
treat him with neglect now, when her position was so changed and had
become so elevated. She mentioned to Lord Roehampton, while they were
dining alone, that she should like to invite the prince to her
receptions, and asked his opinion on the point. Lord Roehampton
shrugged his shoulders and did not encourage her. "You know, my
darling, our people do not much like him. They look upon him as a
pretender, as having forfeited his parole, and as a refugee from
justice. I have no prejudices against him myself, and perhaps in the
same situation might have acted in the same manner; but if he is to be
admitted into society, it should hardly be at a ministerial reception,
and of all houses, that of one who holds my particular post."

"I know nothing about his forfeiting his parole," said Lady
Roehampton; "the charge is involved in mystery, and Mr. Waldershare
told me it was an entire fabrication. As for his being a pretender, he
seems to me as legitimate a prince as most we meet; he was born in the
purple, and his father was recognised by every government in Europe
except our own. As for being a refugee from justice, a prince in
captivity has certainly a right to escape if he can, and his escape
was romantic. However, I will not contest any decision of yours, for I
think you are always right. Only I am disappointed, for, to say
nothing of the unkindness, I cannot help feeling our not noticing him
is rather shabby."

There was silence, a longer silence than usually occurred in /tete-a-
tete/ dinners between Lord and Lady Roehampton. To break the silence
he began to converse on another subject, and Lady Roehampton replied
to him cheerfully, but curtly. He saw she was vexed, and this great
man, who was at that time meditating one of the most daring acts of
modern diplomacy, who had the reputation, in the conduct of public
affairs, of not only being courageous, but of being stern, inflexible,
unfeeling, and unscrupulous beyond ordinary statesmen, who had passed
his mornings in writing a menacing despatch to a great power and
intimating combinations to the ambassadors of other first-rate states
which they almost trembled to receive, was quite upset by seeing his
wife chagrined. At last, after another embarrassing pause, he said
gaily, "Do you know, my dear Myra, I do not see why you should not ask
Prince Florestan. It is you that ask him, not I. That is one of the
pleasant results of our system of political entertainments. The guests
come to pay their respects to the lady of the house, so no one is
committed. The prince may visit you on Wednesday just as well as the
leaders of the opposition who want our places, or the malcontent
Radicals who they say are going to turn us out."

So Prince Florestan was invited to Lady Roehampton's receptions, and
he came; and he never missed one. His visits were brief. He appeared,
made his bow, had the pleasure of some slight conversation with her,
and then soon retired. Received by Lady Roehampton, in time, though
sluggishly, invitations arrived from other houses, but he rarely
availed himself of them. He maintained in this respect great reserve,
and was accustomed to say that the only fine lady in London who had
ever been kind to him was Lady Roehampton.

All this time Endymion, who was now thoroughly planted in society, saw
a great deal of the Neuchatels, who had returned to Portland Place at
the beginning of February. He met Adriana almost every evening, and
was frequently invited to the house--to the grand dinners now, as well
as the domestic circle. In short, our Endymion was fast becoming a
young man of fashion and a personage. The brother of Lady Roehampton
had now become the private secretary of Mr. Sydney Wilton and the
great friend of Lady Montfort. He was indeed only one of the numerous
admirers of that lady, but he seemed not the least smiled on. There
was never anything delightful at Montfort House at which he was not
present, or indeed in any other place, for under her influence,
invitations from the most distinguished houses crowded his mantelpiece
and were stuck all round his looking-glass. Endymion in this whirl of
life did not forget his old friends. He took care that Seymour Hicks
should have a frequent invitation to Lady Roehampton's assemblies.
Seymour Hicks only wanted a lever to raise the globe, and this
introduction supplied him with one. It was astonishing how he made his
way in society, and though, of course, he never touched the empyrean
regions in which Endymion now breathed, he gradually, and at last
rapidly, planted himself in a world which to the uninitiated figures
as the very realm of nobility and fashion, and where doubtless is
found a great fund of splendour, refinement, and amusement. Seymour
Hicks was not ill-favoured, and was always well dressed, and he was
very civil, but what he really owed his social advancement to was his
indomitable will. That quality governs all things, and though the will
of Seymour Hicks was directed to what many may deem a petty or a
contracted purpose, life is always interesting when you have a purpose
and live in its fulfilment. It appeared from what he told Endymion
that matters at the office had altered a good deal since he left it.
The retirement of St. Barbe was the first brick out of the wall; now,
which Endymion had not yet heard, the brother of Trenchard had most
unexpectedly died, and that gentleman come into a good estate. "Jawett
remains, and is also the editor of the 'Precursor,' but his new
labours so absorb his spare time that he is always at the office of
the paper. So it is pretty well all over with the table at Joe's. I
confess I could not stand it any longer, particularly after you left.
I have got into the junior Pan-Ionian; and I am down for the senior; I
cannot get in for ten years, but when I do it will be a /coup/; the
society there is tiptop, a cabinet minister sometimes, and very often
a bishop."



                             CHAPTER LVI

Endymion was glad to meet Baron Sergius one day when he dined with
Prince Florestan. There were several distinguished foreigners among
the guests, who had just arrived. They talked much, and with much
emphasis. One of them, the Marquis of Vallombrosa, expatiated on the
Latin race, their great qualities, their vivacity, invention,
vividness of perception, chivalrous valour, and sympathy with
tradition. The northern races detested them, and the height of
statesmanship was to combine the Latin races into an organised and
active alliance against the barbarism which menaced them. There had
been for a short time a vacant place next to Endymion, when Baron
Sergius, according to his quiet manner, stole into the room and
slipped into the unoccupied seat. "It is some time since we met," he
said, "but I have heard of you. You are now a public man, and not a
public character. That is a not unsatisfactory position."

The prince listened apparently with much interest to the Marquis of
Vallombrosa, occasionally asked him a question, and promoted
discussion without himself giving any opinion. Baron Sergius never
spoke except to Endymion, and then chiefly social inquiries about Lord
and Lady Roehampton, their good friends the Neuchatels, and frequently
about Mr. Sidney Wilton, whom, it appeared, he had known years ago,
and intimately. After dinner the guests, on the return to the saloon,
ranged themselves in a circle, but not too formally, and the prince
moving round addressed each of them in turn. When this royal ceremony
was concluded, the prince motioned to the Marquis of Vallombrosa to
accompany him, and then they repaired to an adjacent salon, the door
of which was open, but where they could converse without observation.
The Duke of St. Angelo amused the remaining guests with all the
resources of a man practised in making people feel at their ease, and
in this he was soon greatly assisted by Mr. Waldershare, who was
unable to dine with the prince to-day, but who seemed to take much
interest in this arrival of the representatives of the Latin race.

Baron Sergius and Endymion were sitting together rather apart from the
rest. The baron said, "You have heard to-day a great deal about the
Latin race, their wondrous qualities, their peculiar destiny, their
possible danger. It is a new idea, or rather a new phrase, that I
observe is now getting into the political world, and is probably
destined to produce consequences. No man will treat with indifference
the principle of race. It is the key of history, and why history is
often so confused is that it has been written by men who were ignorant
of this principle and all the knowledge it involves. As one who may
become a statesman and assist in governing mankind, it is necessary
that you should not be insensible to it; whether you encounter its
influence in communities or in individuals, its qualities must ever be
taken into account. But there is no subject which more requires
discriminating knowledge, or where your illustrating principle, if you
are not deeply founded, may not chance to turn out a will-o'-the-wisp.
Now this great question of the Latin race, by which M. de Vallombrosa
may succeed in disturbing the world--it might be well to inquire where
the Latin race is to be found. In the North of Italy, peopled by
Germans and named after Germans, or in the South of Italy, swarming
with the descendants of Normans and Arabs? Shall we find the Latin
race in Spain, stocked by Goths, and Moors, and Jews? Or in France,
where there is a great Celtic nation, occasionally mingled with
Franks? Now I do not want to go into the origin of man and nations--I
am essentially practical, and only endeavour to comprehend that with
which I have personally to deal, and that is sufficiently difficult.
In Europe I find three great races with distinct qualities--the
Teutons, the Sclaves, and the Celts; and their conduct will be
influenced by those distinctive qualities. There is another great race
which influences the world, the Semites. Certainly, when I was at the
Congress of Vienna, I did not believe that the Arabs were more likely
to become a conquering race again than the Tartars, and yet it is a
question at this moment whether Mehemet Ali, at their head, may not
found a new empire in the Mediterranean. The Semites are
unquestionably a great race, for among the few things in this world
which appear to be certain, nothing is more sure than that they
invented our alphabet. But the Semites now exercise a vast influence
over affairs by their smallest though most peculiar family, the Jews.
There is no race gifted with so much tenacity, and such skill in
organisation. These qualities have given them an unprecedented hold
over property and illimitable credit. As you advance in life, and get
experience in affairs, the Jews will cross you everywhere. They have
long been stealing into our secret diplomacy, which they have almost
appropriated; in another quarter of a century they will claim their
share of open government. Well, these are races; men and bodies of men
influenced in their conduct by their particular organisation, and
which must enter into all the calculations of a statesman. But what do
they mean by the Latin race? Language and religion do not make a race
--there is only one thing which makes a race, and that is blood."

"But the prince," said Endymion inquiringly; "he seemed much
interested in what M. de Vallombrosa was saying; I should like to know
what his opinions are about the Latin race."

"The prince rarely gives an opinion," said the baron. "Indeed, as you
well know, he rarely speaks; he thinks and he acts."

"But if he acts on wrong information," continued Endymion, "there will
probably be only one consequence."

"The prince is very wise," said the baron; "and, trust me, knows as
much about mankind, and the varieties of mankind, as any one. He may
not believe in the Latin race, but he may choose to use those who do
believe in it. The weakness of the prince, if he have one, is not want
of knowledge, or want of judgment, but an over-confidence in his star,
which sometimes seduces him into enterprises which he himself feels at
the time are not perfectly sound."



                             CHAPTER LVII

The interest of the town was now divided between the danger of the
government and the new preacher who electrified the world at St.
Rosicrucius. The Rev. Nigel Penruddock was not at all a popular
preacher according to the vulgar acceptation of the term. He disdained
all cant and clap-trap. He preached Church principles with commanding
eloquence, and he practised them with unceasing devotion. His church
was always open, yet his schools were never neglected; there was a
perfect choir, a staff of disciplined curates, young and ascetic,
while sacred sisters, some of patrician blood, fearless and prepared
for martyrdom, were gliding about all the back slums of his ferocious
neighbourhood. How came the Whigs to give such a church to such a
person? There must have been some mistake. But how came it that all
the Whig ladies were among the most devoted of his congregation? The
government whips did not like it; at such a critical period too, when
it was necessary to keep the Dissenters up to the mark! And there was
Lady Montfort and Lady Roehampton never absent on a Sunday, and their
carriages, it was whispered, were often suspiciously near to St.
Rosicrucius on week-days. Mr. Sidney Wilton too was frequently in Lady
Roehampton's pew, and one day, absolutely my lord himself, who
unfortunately was rarely seen at church--but then, as is well known,
critical despatches always arrive on a Sunday morning--was
successfully landed in her pew by Lady Roehampton, and was very much
struck indeed by what he heard. "The fact is," as he afterwards
observed, "I wish we had such a fellow on our bench in the House of
Commons."

About this time also there was another event, which, although not of
so general an interest, much touched the feelings of Endymion, and
this was the marriage of the Earl of Beaumaris with Imogene. It was
solemnised in as private and quiet a manner as possible. Waldershare
was the best man, and there were no bridesmaids. The only other
persons invited by Mr. Rodney, who gave away the bride, were Endymion
and Mr. Vigo.

One morning, a few days before the wedding, Sylvia, who had written to
ask Lady Roehampton for an interview, called by appointment in St.
James' Square. Sylvia was received by Lady Roehampton in her boudoir,
and the interview was long. Sylvia, who by nature was composed, and
still more so by art, was pale and nervous when she arrived, so much
so that her demeanour was noticed by the groom of the chambers; but
when she departed, her countenance was flushed and radiant, though it
was obvious that she had been shedding tears. On the morning of the
wedding, Lady Roehampton in her lord's brougham called for Endymion at
the Albany, and then they went together to the vestry of St. James'
Church. Lord Beaumaris and Mr. Waldershare had arrived. The bridegroom
was a little embarrassed when he was presented to Lady Roehampton. He
had made up his mind to be married, but not to be introduced to a
stranger, and particularly a lady; but Mr. Waldershare fluttered over
them and put all right. It was only the perplexity of a moment, for
the rest of the wedding party now appeared. Imogene, who was in a
travelling dress, was pale and serious, but transcendently beautiful.
She attempted to touch Lady Roehampton's hand with her lips when Myra
welcomed her, but Lady Roehampton would not permit this, and kissed
her. Everybody was calm during the ceremony except Endymion, who had
been silent the whole morning. He stood by the altar with that
convulsion of the throat and that sickness of the heart which
accompany the sense of catastrophe. He was relieved by some tears
which he easily concealed. Nobody noticed him, for all were thinking
of themselves. After the ceremony, they all returned to the vestry,
and Lady Roehampton with the others signed the registry. Lord and Lady
Beaumaris instantly departed for the continent.

"A strange event!" exclaimed Lady Roehampton, as she threw herself
back in the brougham and took her brother's hand. "But not stranger
than what has happened to ourselves. Fortune seems to attend on our
ruined home. I thought the bride looked beautiful."

Endymion was silent.

"You are not gay this morning, my dear," said Lady Roehampton; "they
say that weddings are depressing. Now I am in rather high spirits. I
am very glad that Imogene has become Lady Beaumaris. She is beautiful,
and dangerously beautiful. Do you know, my Endymion, I have had some
uneasy moments about this young lady. Women are prescient in these
matters, and I have observed with anxiety that you admired her too
much yourself."

"I am sure you had no reason, Myra," said Endymion, blushing deeply.

"Certainly not from what you said, my dear. It was from what you did
not say that I became alarmed. You seldom mentioned her name, and when
I referred to her, you always turned the conversation. However, that
is all over now. She is Countess of Beaumaris," added Myra, dwelling
slowly and with some unction on the title, "and may be a powerful
friend to you; and I am Countess of Roehampton, and am your friend,
also not quite devoid of power. And there are other countesses, I
suspect, on whose good wishes you may rely. If we cannot shape your
destiny, there is no such thing as witchcraft. No, Endymion, marriage
is a mighty instrument in your hands. It must not be lightly used.
Come in and lunch; my lord is at home, and I know he wants to see
you."



                            CHAPTER LVIII

What was most remarkable, and most interesting, in the character of
Berengaria was her energy. She had the power of exciting others to
action in a degree rarely possessed. She had always some considerable
object in contemplation, occasionally more than one, and never foresaw
difficulties. Her character was, however, singularly feminine; she
never affected to be a superior woman. She never reasoned, did not
read much, though her literary taste was fine and fastidious. Though
she required constant admiration and consequently encouraged it, she
was not a heartless coquette. Her sensibility was too quick, and as
the reign of her favourites was sometimes brief, she was looked upon
as capricious. The truth is, what seemed whimsical in her affections
was occasioned by the subtlety of her taste, which was not always
satisfied by the increased experience of intimacy. Whenever she made a
friend not unworthy of her, she was constant and entirely devoted.

At present, Berengaria had two great objects; one was to sustain the
Whig government in its troubles, and the other was to accomplish an
unprecedented feat in modern manners, and that was no less than to
hold a tournament, a real tournament, in the autumn, at the famous
castle of her lord in the North of England.

The lord-lieutenant had not been in his county for two years; he had
even omitted to celebrate Christmas at his castle, which had shocked
everybody, for its revelry was looked upon almost as the tenure by
which the Montforts held their estates. His plea of ill health,
industriously circulated by all his agents, obtained neither sympathy
nor credence. His county was rather a weak point with Lord Montfort,
for though he could not bear his home, he was fond of power, and power
depended on his territorial influence. The representation of his
county by his family, and authority in the local parliamentary
boroughs, were the compensations held out to him for the abolition of
his normal seats. His wife dexterously availed herself of this state
of affairs to obtain his assent to her great project, which, it would
appear, might not only amuse him, but, in its unprecedented
magnificence and novelty, must sweep away all discontents, and gratify
every class.

Lord Montfort had placed unlimited resources at the disposal of
Berengaria for the fulfilment of her purpose, and at times even showed
some not inconsiderable though fitful interest in her progress. He
turned over the drawings of the various costumes and armour with a
gracious smile, and, having picked up on such subjects a great deal of
knowledge, occasionally made suggestions which were useful and
sometimes embarrassing. The heralds were all called into council, and
Garter himself deigned to regulate the order of proceedings. Some of
the finest gentlemen in London, of both parties in the state, passed
the greater part of their spring mornings in jousting, and in
practising all the manoeuvres of the lists. Lady Montfort herself was
to be the Queen of the Tournament, and she had prevailed on Lady
Roehampton to accept the supreme office of Queen of Beauty.

It was the early part of May, and Zenobia held one of her great
assemblies. Being in high good humour, sanguine and prophetic of
power, she had asked all the great Whig ladies, and, the times being
critical, they had come. Berengaria seemed absorbed by the details of
her tournament. She met many of her knights, and she conferred with
them all; the Knight of the Bleeding Heart, the Knight of Roses, the
Knight of the Crystal Shield.

Endymion, who was not to be a knight, but a gentleman-at-arms in
attendance on the Queen of the Tournament, mentioned that Prince
Florestan much wished to be a jouster; he had heard this from the Duke
of St. Angelo, and Lady Montfort, though she did not immediately
sanction, did not absolutely refuse, the request.

Past midnight, there was a sudden stir in the saloons. The House of
Commons had broken up and many members were entering. There had been a
division on the Jamaica question, and the ministers had only a
majority of five. The leader of the House of Commons had intimated,
not to say announced, their consequent resignation.

"Have you heard what they say?" said Endymion anxiously to Lady
Montfort.

"Yes, I heard; but do not look so grave."

"Do I look grave?"

"As if it were the last day."

"I fear it is."

"I am not so sure. I doubt whether Sir Robert thinks it ripe enough;
and after all, we are not in a minority. I do not see why we should
have resigned. I wish I could see Lord Roehampton."

Affairs did not proceed so rapidly as the triumphant Zenobia expected.
They were out, no question about that; but it was not so certain who
was in. A day passed and another day, and even Zenobia, who knew
everything before anybody, remained in the dark. The suspense became
protracted and even more mysterious. Almost a week had elapsed; noble
lords and right honourable gentlemen were calling on Sir Robert every
morning, according to the newspapers, but no one could hear from any
authority of any appointments being really made. At last, there was a
whisper very late one night at Crockford's, which was always better
informed on these matters than the political clubs, and people looked
amazed, and stared incredulously in each other's face. But it was
true; there was a hitch, and in four-and-twenty hours the cause of the
hitch was known. It seemed that the ministry really had resigned, but
Berengaria, Countess of Montfort, had not followed their example.

What a dangerous woman! even wicked! Zenobia was for sending her to
the Tower at once. "It was clearly impossible," she declared, "for Sir
Robert to carry on affairs with such a Duchesse de Longueville always
at the ear of our young Queen, under the pretence forsooth of being
the friend of Her Majesty's youth."

This was the famous Bed-Chamber Plot, in which the Conservative
leaders, as is now generally admitted, were decidedly in error, and
which terminated in the return of the Whigs to office.

"But we must reconstruct," said Lady Montfort to the prime minister.
"Sidney Wilton must be Secretary of State. And you," she said to
Endymion, when she communicated to him the successful result of her
interference, "you will go with him. It is a great thing at your age
to be private secretary to a Secretary of State."



                             CHAPTER LIX

Montfort Castle was the stronghold of England against the Scotch
invader. It stood on a high and vast table-land, with the town of
Montfort on one side at its feet, and on the other a wide-spreading
and sylvan domain, herded with deer of various races, and terminating
in pine forests; beyond them moors and mountains. The donjon keep,
tall and grey, that had arrested the Douglas, still remained intact,
and many an ancient battlement; but the long list of the Lords of
Montfort had successively added to the great structure according to
the genius of the times, so that still with the external appearance
generally of a feudal castle, it combined in its various courts and
quadrangle all the splendour and convenience of a modern palace.

But though it had witnessed many scenes and sights, and as strange
ones as any old walls in this ancient land, it may be doubted whether
the keep of Montfort ever looked down on anything more rare than the
life that was gathering and disporting itself in its towers and halls,
and courts and parks, and forest chase, in the memorable autumn of
this year.

Berengaria had repaired to her castle full of triumph; her lord, in
high good humour, admiring his wife for her energy, yet with a playful
malice apparently enjoying the opportunity of showing that the
chronology of her arrangements was confused, and her costume
incorrect. They had good-naturedly taken Endymion down with them; for
travelling to the Border in those times was a serious affair for a
clerk in a public office. Day after day the other guests arrived; the
rivals in the tourney were among the earliest, for they had to make
themselves acquainted with the land which was to be the scene of their
exploits. There came the Knights of the Griffin, and the Dragon, and
the Black Lion and the Golden Lion, and the Dolphin and the Stag's
Head, and they were all always scrupulously addressed by their
chivalric names, instead of by the Tommys and the Jemmys that
circulated in the affectionate circle of White's, or the Gusseys and
the Regys of Belgravian tea-parties. After a time duly appeared the
Knight of the White Rose, whose armour shielded the princely form of
Florestan; and this portion of the company was complete when the Black
Knight at length reached the castle, who had been detained by his
attendance on a conference at St. James', in the character of the
Count of Ferroll.

If anything could add to the delight and excitement of Berengaria, it
would seem to be the arrival of the Count of Ferroll.

Other guests gradually appeared, who were to sustain other characters
in the great pageant. There was the Judge of Peace, and the Knight
Marshal of the Lists, and the Jester, who was to ride on a caparisoned
mule trapped with bells, and himself bearing a sceptre. Mr. Sidney
Wilton came down, who had promised to be King of the Tournament; and,
though rather late, for my lord had been detained by the same cause as
the Count of Ferroll, at length arrived the Queen of Beauty herself.

If the performance, to which all contiguous Britain intended to repair
--for irrespective of the railroads, which now began sensibly to
affect the communications in the North of England, steamers were
chartering from every port for passengers to the Montfort tournament
within one hundred miles' distance--were equal to the preparation, the
affair must be a great success. The grounds round the castle seemed to
be filled every day with groups of busy persons in fanciful costume,
all practising their duties and rehearsing their parts; swordsmen and
bowmen, and seneschals and esquires, and grooms and pages, and heralds
in tabards, and pursuivants, and banner-bearers. The splendid
pavilions of the knights were now completed, and the gorgeous throne
of the Queen of Beauty, surrounded by crimson galleries, tier above
tier, for thousands of favoured guests, were receiving only their last
stroke of magnificence. The mornings passed in a feverish whirl of
curiosity, and preparation, and excitement, and some anxiety. Then
succeeded the banquet, where nearly one hundred guests were every day
present; but the company were so absorbed in the impending event that
none expected or required, in the evenings, any of the usual schemes
or sources of amusement that abound in country houses. Comments on the
morning, and plans for the morrow, engrossed all thought and
conversation, and my lord's band was just a due accompaniment that
filled the pauses when perplexities arrested talk, or deftly blended
with some whispered phrase almost as sweet or thrilling as the notes
of the cornet-a-piston.

"I owe my knighthood to you," said Prince Florestan to Lady
Roehampton, "as I do everything in this country that is agreeable."

"You cannot be my knight," replied Lady Roehampton, "because I am told
I am the sovereign of all the chivalry, but you have my best wishes."

"All that I want in life," said the prince, "are your good wishes."

"I fear they are barren."

"No, they are inspiring," said the prince with unusual feeling. "You
brought me good fortune. From the moment I saw you, light fell upon my
life."

"Is not that an exaggerated phrase?" said Lady Roehampton with a
smile, "because I happened to get you a ticket for a masquerade."

"I was thinking of something else," said the prince pensively; "but
life is a masquerade; at least mine has been."

"I think yours, sir, is a most interesting life," said Lady
Roehampton, "and, were I you, I would not quarrel with my destiny."

"My destiny is not fulfilled," said the prince. "I have never
quarrelled with it, and am least disposed to do so at this moment."

"Mr. Sidney Wilton was speaking to me very much the other day about
your royal mother, sir, Queen Agrippina. She must have been
fascinating."

"I like fascinating women," said the prince, "but they are rare."

"Perhaps it is better it should be so," said Lady Roehampton, "for
they are apt--are they not?--to disturb the world."

"I confess I like to be bewitched," said the prince, "and I do not
care how much the world is disturbed."

"But is not the world very well as it is?" said Lady Roehampton. "Why
should we not be happy and enjoy it?"

"I do enjoy it," replied Prince Florestan, "especially at Montfort
Castle; I suppose there is something in the air that agrees with one.
But enjoyment of the present is consistent with objects for the
future."

"Ah! now you are thinking of your great affairs--of your kingdom. My
woman's brain is not equal to that."

"I think your brain is quite equal to kingdoms," said the prince, with
a serious expression, and speaking in even a lower voice, "but I was
not thinking of my kingdom. I leave that to fate; I believe it is
destined to be mine, and therefore occasions me thought but not
anxiety. I was thinking of something else than kingdoms, and of which
unhappily I am not so certain--of which I am most uncertain--of which
I fear I have no chance--and yet which is dearer to me than even my
crown."

"What can that be?" said Lady Roehampton, with unaffected wonderment.

"'Tis a secret of chivalry," said Prince Florestan, "and I must never
disclose it."

"It is a wonderful scene," said Adriana Neuchatel to Endymion, who had
been for some time conversing with her. "I had no idea that I should
be so much amused by anything in society. But then, it is so unlike
anything one has ever seen."

Mrs. Neuchatel had not accompanied her husband and her daughter to the
Montfort Tournament. Mr. Neuchatel required a long holiday, and after
the tournament he was to take Adriana to Scotland. Mrs. Neuchatel shut
herself up at Hainault, which it seemed she had never enjoyed before.
She could hardly believe it was the same place, freed from its daily
invasions by the House of Commons and the Stock Exchange. She had
never lived so long without seeing an ambassador or a cabinet
minister, and it as quite a relief. She wandered in the gardens, and
drove her pony-chair in forest glades. She missed Adriana very much,
and for a few days always expected her to enter the room when the door
opened; and then she sighed, and then she flew to her easel, or buried
herself in some sublime cantata of her favourite master, Beethoven.
Then came the most wonderful performance of the whole day, and that
was the letter, never missed, to Adriana. Considering that she lived
in solitude, and in a spot with which her daughter was quite familiar,
it was really marvellous that the mother should every day be able to
fill so many interesting and impassioned pages. But Mrs. Neuchatel was
a fine penwoman; her feelings were her facts, and her ingenious
observations of art and nature were her news. After the first fever of
separation, reading was always a resource to her, for she was a great
student. She was surrounded by all the literary journals and choice
publications of Europe, and there scarcely was a branch of science and
learning with which she was not sufficiently familiar to be able to
comprehend the stir and progress of the European mind. Mrs. Neuchatel
had contrived to get rid of the chief cook by sending him on a visit
to Paris, so she could, without cavil, dine off a cutlet and seltzer-
water in her boudoir. Sometimes, not merely for distraction, but more
from a sense of duty, she gave festivals to her schools; and when she
had lived like a princely prisoner of state alone for a month, or
rather like one on a desert isle who sighs to see a sail, she would
ask a great geologist and his wife to pay her a visit, or some
professor, who, though himself not worth a shilling, had some new
plans, which really sounded quite practical, for the more equal
distribution of wealth.

"And who is your knight?" said Endymion.

Adriana looked distressed.

"I mean, whom do you wish to win?"

"Oh, I should like them all to win!"

"That is good-natured, but then there would be no distinction. I know
who is going to wear your colours--the Knight of the Dolphin."

"I hope nothing of that kind will happen," said Adriana, agitated. "I
know that some of the knights are going to wear ladies' colours, but I
trust no one will think of wearing mine. I know the Black Knight wears
Lady Montfort's."

"He cannot," said Endymion hastily. "She is first lady to the Queen of
Beauty; no knight can wear the colours of the Queen. I asked Sir Morte
d'Arthur himself, and he told me there was no doubt about it, and that
he had consulted Garter before he came down."

"Well, all I know is that the Count of Ferroll told me so," said
Adriana; "I sate next to him at dinner."

"He shall not wear her colours," said Endymion quite angrily. "I will
speak to the King of the Tournament about it directly."

"Why, what does it signify?" said Adriana.

"You thought it signified when I told you Regy Sutton was going to
wear your colours."

"Ah! that is quite a different business," said Adriana, with a sigh.

Reginald Sutton was a professed admirer of Adriana, rode with her
whenever he could, and danced with her immensely. She gave him cold
encouragement, though he was the best-looking and best-dressed youth
in England; but he was a determined young hero, not gifted with too
sensitive nerves, and was a votary of the great theory that all in
life was an affair of will, and that endowed with sufficient energy
he might marry whom he liked. He accounted for his slow advance in
London by the inimical presence of Mrs. Neuchatel, who he felt, or
fancied, did not sympathise with him; while, on the contrary, he got
on very well with the father, and so he was determined to seize the
present opportunity. The mother was absent, and he himself in a
commanding position, being one of the knights to whose exploits the
eyes of all England were attracted.

Lord Roehampton was seated between an ambassadress and Berengaria,
indulging in gentle and sweet-voiced raillery; the Count of Ferroll
was standing beside Lady Montfort, and Mr. Wilton was opposite to the
group. The Count of Ferroll rarely spoke, but listened to Lady
Montfort with what she called one of his dark smiles.

"All I know is, she will never pardon you for not asking her," said
Lord Roehampton. "I saw Bicester the day I left town, and he was very
grumpy. He said that Lady Bicester was the only person who understood
tournaments. She had studied the subject."

"I suppose she wanted to be the Queen of Beauty," said Berengaria.

"You are too severe, my dear lady. I think she would have been
contented with a knight wearing her colours."

"Well, I cannot help it," said Berengaria, but somewhat doubtingly.
And then, after a moment's pause, "She is too ugly."

"Why, she came to my fancy ball, and it is not five years ago, as Mary
Queen of Scots!"

"That must have been after the Queen's decapitation," said Berengaria.

"I wonder you did not ask Zenobia," said Mr. Wilton.

"Of course I asked her, but I knew she would not come. She is in one
of her hatreds now. She said she would have come, only she had half-
promised to give a ball to the tenants at Merrington about that time,
and she did not like to disappoint them. Quite touching, was it not?"

"A touch beyond the reach of art," said Mr. Wilton; "almost worthy of
yourself, Lady Montfort."

"And what do you think of all this?" asked Lord Montfort of Nigel
Penruddock, who, in a cassock that swept the ground, had been stalking
about the glittering salons like a prophet who had been ordained in
Mayfair, but who had now seated himself by his host.

"I am thinking of what is beneath all this," replied Nigel. "A great
revivication. Chivalry is the child of the Church; it is the
distinctive feature of Christian Europe. Had it not been for the
revival of Church principles, this glorious pageant would never have
occurred. But it is a pageant only to the uninitiated. There is not a
ceremony, a form, a phrase, a costume, which is not symbolic of a
great truth or a high purpose."

"I do not think Lady Montfort is aware of all this," said her lord.

"Oh yes!" said Nigel. "Lady Montfort is a great woman--a woman who
could inspire crusades and create churches. She might, and she will, I
trust, rank with the Helenas and the Matildas."

Lord Montfort gave a little sound, but so gentle that it was heard
probably but by himself, which in common language would be styled a
whistle--an articulate modulation of the breath which in this instance
expressed a sly sentiment of humorous amazement.

"Well, Mr. Ferrars," said Mr. Neuchatel, with a laughing eye, to that
young gentleman, as he encountered Endymion passing by, "and how are
you getting on? Are we to see you to-morrow in a Milanese suit?"

"I am only a page," said Endymion.

"Well, well, the old Italian saying is, 'A page beats a knight,' at
least with the ladies."

"Do you not think it very absurd," said Endymion, "that the Count of
Ferroll says he shall wear Lady Montfort's colours? Lady Montfort is
only the first lady of the Queen of Beauty, and she can wear no
colours except the Queen's. Do not you think somebody ought to
interfere?"

"Hem! The Count of Ferroll is a man who seldom makes a mistake," said
Mr. Neuchatel.

"So everybody says," said Endymion rather testily; "but I do not see
that."

"Now, you are a very young man," said Mr. Neuchatel, "and I hope you
will some day be a statesman. I do not see why you should not, if you
are industrious and stick to your master, for Mr. Sidney Wilton is a
man who will always rise; but, if I were you, I would keep my eyes
very much on the Count of Ferroll, for, depend on it, he is one of
those men who sooner or later will make a noise in the world."

Adriana came up at this moment, leaning on the arm of the Knight of
the Dolphin, better known as Regy Sutton. They came from the tea-room.
Endymion moved away with a cloud on his brow, murmuring to himself, "I
am quite sick of the name of the Count of Ferroll."

The jousting-ground was about a mile from the castle, and though it
was nearly encircled by vast and lofty galleries, it was impossible
that accommodation could be afforded on this spot to the thousands who
had repaired from many parts of the kingdom to the Montfort
Tournament. But even a hundred thousand people could witness the
procession from the castle to the scene of action. That was superb.
The sun shone, and not one of the breathless multitude was
disappointed.

There came a long line of men-at-arms and musicians and trumpeters and
banner-bearers of the Lord of the Tournament, and heralds in tabards,
and pursuivants, and then the Herald of the Tournament by himself,
whom the people at first mistook for the Lord Mayor.

Then came the Knight Marshal on a caparisoned steed, himself in a suit
of gilt armour, and in a richly embroidered surcoat. A band of
halberdiers preceded the King of the Tournament, also on a steed
richly caparisoned, and himself clad in robes of velvet and ermine,
and wearing a golden crown.

Then on a barded Arab, herself dressed in cloth of gold, parti-
coloured with violet and crimson, came, amidst tremendous cheering,
the Queen of Beauty herself. Twelve attendants bore aloft a silken
canopy, which did not conceal from the enraptured multitude the lustre
of her matchless loveliness. Lady Montfort, Adriana, and four other
attendant ladies, followed her majesty, two by two, each in gorgeous
attire, and on a charger that vied in splendour with its mistress. Six
pages followed next, in violet and silver.

The bells of a barded mule announced the Jester, who waved his sceptre
with unceasing authority, and pelted the people with admirably
prepared impromptus. Some in the crowd tried to enter into a
competition of banter, but they were always vanquished.

Soon a large army of men-at-arms and the sounds of most triumphant
music stopped the general laughter, and all became again hushed in
curious suspense. The tallest and the stoutest of the Border men bore
the gonfalon of the Lord of the Tournament. That should have been Lord
Montfort himself; but he had deputed the office to his cousin and
presumptive heir. Lord Montfort was well represented, and the people
cheered his cousin Odo heartily, as in his suit of golden armour
richly chased, and bending on his steed, caparisoned in blue and gold,
he acknowledged their fealty with a proud reverence.

The other knights followed in order, all attended by their esquires
and their grooms. Each knight was greatly applauded, and it was really
a grand sight to see them on their barded chargers and in their
panoply; some in suits of engraved Milanese armour, some in German
suits of fluted polished steel; some in steel armour engraved and
inlaid with gold. The Black Knight was much cheered, but no one
commanded more admiration than Prince Florestan, in a suit of blue
damascened armour, and inlaid with silver roses.



Every procession must end. It is a pity, for there is nothing so
popular with mankind. The splendid part of the pageant had passed, but
still the people gazed and looked as if they would have gazed for
ever. The visitors at the castle, all in ancient costume, attracted
much notice. Companies of swordsmen and bowmen followed, till at last
the seneschal of the castle, with his chamberlains and servitors,
closed the spell-bound scene.



                              CHAPTER LX

The jousting was very successful; though some were necessarily
discomfited, almost every one contrived to obtain some distinction.
But the two knights who excelled and vanquished every one except
themselves were the Black Knight and the Knight of the White Rose.
Their exploits were equal at the close of the first day, and on the
second they were to contend for the principal prize of the tournament,
for which none else were entitled to be competitors. This was a golden
helm, to be placed upon the victor's brow by the Queen of Beauty.

There was both a banquet and a ball on this day, and the excitement
between the adventures of the morning and the prospects of the morrow
was great. The knights, freed from their armour, appeared in fanciful
dresses of many-coloured velvets. All who had taken part in the
pageant retained their costumes, and the ordinary guests, if they
yielded to mediaeval splendour, successfully asserted the taste of
Paris and its sparkling grace, in their exquisite robes, and wreaths
and garlands of fantastic loveliness.

Berengaria, full of the inspiration of success, received the smiling
congratulations of everybody, and repaid them with happy suggestions,
which she poured forth with inexhaustible yet graceful energy. The
only person who had a gloomy air was Endymion. She rallied him. "I
shall call you the Knight of the Woeful Countenance if you approach me
with such a visage. What can be the matter with you?"

"Nothing," repeated Endymion, looking rather away.

The Knight of the Dolphin came up and said, "This is a critical affair
to-morrow, my dear Lady Montfort. If the Count Ferroll is discomfited
by the prince, it may be a /casus belli/. You ought to get Lord
Roehampton to interfere and prevent the encounter."

"The Count of Ferroll will not be discomfited," said Lady Montfort.
"He is one of those men who never fail."

"Well, I do not know," said the Knight of the Dolphin musingly. "The
prince has a stout lance, and I have felt it."

"He had the best of it this morning," said Endymion rather bitterly.
"Every one thought so, and that it was very fortunate for the Count of
Ferroll that the heralds closed the lists."

"It might have been fortunate for others," rejoined Lady Montfort.
"What is the general opinion?" she added, addressing the Knight of the
Dolphin. "Do not go away, Mr. Ferrars. I want to give you some
directions about to-morrow."

"I do not think I shall be at the place to-morrow," muttered Endymion.

"What!" exclaimed Berengaria; but at this moment Mr. Sidney Wilton
came up and said, "I have been looking at the golden helm. It is
entrusted to my care as King of the Tournament. It is really so
beautiful, that I think I shall usurp it."

"You will have to settle that with the Count of Ferroll," said
Berengaria.

"The betting is about equal," said the Knight of the Dolphin.

"Well, we must have some gloves upon it," said Berengaria.

Endymion walked away.

He walked away, and the first persons that met his eye were the prince
and the Count of Ferroll in conversation. It was sickening. They
seemed quite gay, and occasionally examined together a paper which the
prince held in his hand, and which was an official report by the
heralds of the day's jousting. This friendly conversation might
apparently have gone on for ever had not the music ceased and the
count been obliged to seek his partner for the coming dance.

"I wonder you can speak to him," said Endymion, going up to the
prince. "If the heralds had not--many think, too hastily--closed the
lists this morning, you would have been the victor of the day."

"My dear child! what can you mean?" said the prince. "I believe
everything was closed quite properly, and as for myself, I am entirely
satisfied with my share of the day's success."

"If you had thrown him," said Endymion, "he could not with decency
have contended for the golden helm."

"Oh! that is what you deplore," said the prince. "The Count of Ferroll
and I shall have to contend for many things more precious than golden
helms before we die."

"I believe he is a very overrated man," said Endymion.

"Why?" said the prince.

"I detest him," said Endymion.

"That is certainly a reason why /you/ should not overrate him," said
the prince.

"There seems a general conspiracy to run him up," said Endymion with
pique.

"The Count of Ferroll is the man of the future," said the prince
calmly.

"That is what Mr. Neuchatel said to me yesterday. I suppose he caught
it from you."

"It is an advantage, a great advantage, for me to observe the Count of
Ferroll in this intimate society," said the prince, speaking slowly,
"perhaps even to fathom him. But I am not come to that yet. He is a
man neither to love nor to detest. He has himself an intelligence
superior to all passion, I might say all feeling; and if, in dealing
with such a being, we ourselves have either, we give him an
advantage."

"Well, all the same, I hope you will win the golden helm to-morrow,"
said Endymion, looking a little perplexed.

"The golden casque that I am ordained to win," said the prince, "is
not at Montfort Castle. This, after all, is but Mambrino's helmet."

A knot of young dandies were discussing the chances of the morrow as
Endymion was passing by, and as he knew most of them he joined the
group.

"I hope to heaven," said one, "that the Count of Ferroll will beat
that foreign chap to-morrow; I hate foreigners."

"So do I," said a second, and there was a general murmur of assent.

"The Count of Ferroll is as much a foreigner as the prince," said
Endymion rather sharply.

"Oh! I don't call him a foreigner at all," said the first speaker. "He
is a great favourite at White's; no one rides cross country like him,
and he is a deuced fine shot in the bargain."

"I will back Prince Florestan against him either in field or cover,"
said Endymion.

"Well, I don't know your friend," said the young gentleman
contemptuously, "so I cannot bet."

"I am sure your friend, Lady Montfort, my dear Dymy, will back the
Count of Ferroll," lisped a third young gentleman.

This completed the programme of mortification, and Endymion, hot and
then cold, and then both at the same time, bereft of repartee, and
wishing the earth would open and Montfort Castle disappear in its
convulsed bosom, stole silently away as soon as practicable, and
wandered as far as possible from the music and the bursts of revelry.

These conversations had taken place in the chief saloon, which was
contiguous to the ball-room, and which was nearly as full of guests.
Endymion, moving in the opposite direction, entered another drawing-
room, where the population was sparse. It consisted of couples
apparently deeply interested in each other. Some faces were radiant,
and some pensive and a little agitated, but they all agreed in one
expression, that they took no interest whatever in the solitary
Endymion. Even their whispered words were hushed as he passed by, and
they seemed, with their stony, unsympathising glance, to look upon him
as upon some inferior being who had intruded into their paradise. In
short, Endymion felt all that embarrassment, mingled with a certain
portion of self contempt, which attends the conviction that we are
what is delicately called /de trop/.

He advanced and took refuge in another room, where there was only a
single, and still more engrossed pair; but this was even more
intolerable to him. Shrinking from a return to the hostile chamber he
had just left, he made a frantic rush forward with affected ease and
alacrity, and found himself alone in the favourite morning room of
Lady Montfort.

He threw himself on a sofa, and hid his face in his hand, and gave a
sigh, which was almost a groan. He was sick at heart; his extremities
were cold, his brain was feeble. All hope, and truly all thought of
the future, deserted him. He remembered only the sorrowful, or the
humiliating, chapters in his life. He wished he had never left
Hurstley. He wished he had been apprenticed to Farmer Thornberry, that
he had never quitted his desk at Somerset House, and never known more
of life than Joe's and the Divan. All was vanity and vexation of
spirit. He contemplated finishing his days in the neighbouring stream,
in which, but a few days ago, he was bathing in health and joy.

Time flew on; he was unconscious of its course; no one entered the
room, and he wished never to see a human face again, when a voice
sounded, and he heard his name.

"Endymion!"

He looked up; it was Lady Montfort. He did not speak, but gave her,
perhaps unconsciously, a glance of reproach and despair.

"What is the matter with you?" she said.

"Nothing."

"That is nonsense. Something must have happened. I have missed you so
long, but was determined to find you. Have you a headache?"

"No."

"Come back; come back with me. It is so odd. My lord has asked for you
twice."

"I want to see no one."

"Oh! but this is absurd--and on a day like this, when every thing has
been so successful, and every one is so happy."

"I am not happy, and I am not successful."

"You perfectly astonish me," said Lady Montfort; "I shall begin to
believe that you have not so sweet a temper as I always supposed."

"It matters not what my temper is."

"I think it matters a great deal. I like, above all things, to live
with good-tempered people."

"I hope you may not be disappointed. My temper is my own affair, and I
am content always to be alone."

"Why! you are talking nonsense, Endymion."

"Probably; I do not pretend to be gifted. I am not one of those
gentlemen who cannot fail. I am not the man of the future."

"Well! I never was so surprised in my life," exclaimed Lady Montfort.
"I never will pretend to form an opinion of human character again.
Now, my dear Endymion, rouse yourself, and come back with me. Give me
your arm. I cannot stay another moment; I dare say I have already been
wanted a thousand times."

"I cannot go back," said Endymion; "I never wish to see anybody again.
If you want an arm, there is the Count of Ferroll, and I hope you may
find he has a sweeter temper than I have."

Lady Montfort looked at him with a strange and startled glance. It was
a mixture of surprise, a little disdain, some affection blended with
mockery. And then exclaiming "Silly boy!" she swept out of the room.



                             CHAPTER LXI

"I do not like the prospect of affairs," said Mr. Sidney Wilton to
Endymion as they were posting up to London from Montfort Castle; a
long journey, but softened in those days by many luxuries, and they
had much to talk about.

"The decline of the revenue is not fitful; it is regular. Our people
are too apt to look at the state of the revenue merely in a financial
point of view. If a surplus, take off taxes; if a deficiency, put them
on. But the state of the revenue should also be considered as the
index of the condition of the population. According to my impression,
the condition of the people is declining; and why? because they are
less employed. If this spreads, they will become discontented and
disaffected, and I cannot help remembering that, if they become
troublesome, it is our office that will have to deal with them."

"This bad harvest is a great misfortune," said Endymion.

"Yes, but a bad harvest, though unquestionably a great, perhaps the
greatest, misfortune for this country, is not the entire solution of
our difficulties--I would say, our coming difficulties. A bad harvest
touches the whole of our commercial system: it brings us face to face
with the corn laws. I wish our chief would give his mind to that
subject. I believe a moderate fixed duty of about twelve shillings a
quarter would satisfy every one, and nothing then could shake this
country."

Endymion listened with interest to other views of his master, who
descanted on them at much length. Private secretaries know everything
about their chiefs, and Endymion was not ignorant that among many of
the great houses of the Whig party, and indeed among the bulk of what
was called "the Liberal" party generally, Mr. Sidney Wilton was looked
upon, so far as economical questions were concerned, as very
crotchety, indeed a dangerous character. Lord Montfort was the only
magnate who was entirely opposed to the corn laws, but then, as
Berengaria would remark, "Simon is against all laws; he is not a
practical man."

Mr. Sidney Wilton reverted to these views more than once in the course
of their journey. "I was not alarmed about the Chartists last year.
Political trouble in this country never frightens me. Insurrections
and riots strengthen an English government; they gave a new lease even
to Lord Liverpool when his ministry was most feeble and unpopular; but
economical discontent is quite another thing. The moment sedition
arises from taxation, or want of employment, it is more dangerous and
more difficult to deal with in this country than any other."

"Lord Roehampton seemed to take rather a sanguine view of the
situation after the Bed-Chamber business in the spring," observed
Endymion, rather in an inquiring than a dogmatic spirit.

"Lord Roehampton has other things to think of," said Mr. Wilton. "He
is absorbed, and naturally absorbed, in his department, the most
important in the state, and of which he is master. But I am obliged to
look at affairs nearer home. Now, this Anti-Corn-Law League, which
they established last year at Manchester, and which begins to be very
busy, though nobody at present talks of it, is, in my mind, a movement
which ought to be watched. I tell you what; it occurred to me more
than once during that wondrous pageant, that we have just now been
taking part in, the government wants better information than they have
as to the state of the country, the real feelings and condition of the
bulk of the population. We used to sneer at the Tories for their
ignorance of these matters, but after all, we, like them, are mainly
dependent on quarter sessions; on the judgment of a lord-lieutenant
and the statistics of a bench of magistrates. It is true we have
introduced into our subordinate administration at Whitehall some
persons who have obtained the reputation of distinguished economists,
and we allow them to guide us. But though ingenious men, no doubt,
they are chiefly bankrupt tradesmen, who, not having been able to
manage their own affairs, have taken upon themselves to advise on the
conduct of the country--pedants and prigs at the best, and sometimes
impostors. No; this won't do. It is useless to speak to the chief; I
did about the Anti-Corn-Law League; he shrugged his shoulders and said
it was a madness that would pass. I have made up my mind to send
somebody, quite privately, to the great scenes of national labour. He
must be somebody whom nobody knows, and nobody suspects of being
connected with the administration, or we shall never get the truth--
and the person I have fixed upon is yourself."

"But am I equal to such a task?" said Endymion modestly, but
sincerely.

"I think so," said Mr. Wilton, "or, of course, I would not have fixed
upon you. I want a fresh and virgin intelligence to observe and
consider the country. It must be a mind free from prejudice, yet
fairly informed on the great questions involved in the wealth of
nations. I know you have read Adam Smith, and not lightly. Well, he is
the best guide, though of course we must adapt his principles to the
circumstances with which we have to deal. You have good judgment,
great industry, a fairly quick perception, little passion--perhaps
hardly enough; but that is probably the consequence of the sorrows and
troubles of early life. But, after all, there is no education like
adversity."

"If it will only cease at the right time," said Endymion.

"Well, in that respect, I do not think you have anything to complain
of," said Mr. Wilton. "The world is all before you, and I mistake if
you do not rise. Perseverance and tact are the two qualities most
valuable for all men who would mount, but especially for those who
have to step out of the crowd. I am sure no one can say you are not
assiduous, but I am glad always to observe that you have tact. Without
tact you can learn nothing. Tact teaches you when to be silent.
Inquirers who are always inquiring never learn anything."



                             CHAPTER LXII

Lancashire was not so wonderful a place forty years ago as it is at
present, but, compared then with the rest of England, it was
infinitely more striking. For a youth like Endymion, born and bred in
our southern counties, the Berkshire downs varied by the bustle of
Pall-Mall and the Strand--Lancashire, with its teeming and toiling
cities, its colossal manufactories and its gigantic chimneys, its
roaring engines and its flaming furnaces, its tramroads and its
railroads, its coal and its cotton, offered a far greater contrast to
the scenes in which he had hitherto lived, than could be furnished by
almost any country of the European continent.

Endymion felt it was rather a crisis in his life, and that his future
might much depend on the fulfilment of the confidential office which
had been entrusted to him by his chief. He summoned all his energies,
concentrated his intelligence on the one subject, and devoted to its
study and comprehension every moment of his thought and time. After a
while, he had made Manchester his head-quarters. It was even then the
centre of a network of railways, and gave him an easy command of the
contiguous districts.

Endymion had more than once inquired after the Anti-Corn-Law League,
but had not as yet been so fortunate as to attend any of their
meetings. They were rarer than they afterwards soon became, and the
great manufacturers did not encourage them. "I do not like extreme
views," said one of the most eminent one day to Endymion. "In my
opinion, we should always avoid extremes;" and he paused and looked
around, as if he had enunciated a heaven-born truth, and for the first
time. "I am a Liberal; so we all are here. I supported Lord Grey, and
I support Lord Melbourne, and I am, in everything, for a liberal
policy. I don't like extremes. A wise minister should take off the
duty on cotton wool. That is what the country really wants, and then
everybody would be satisfied. No; I know nothing about this League you
ask about, and I do not know any one--that is to say, any one
respectable--who does. They came to me to lend my name. 'No,' I said,
'gentlemen; I feel much honoured, but I do not like extremes;' and
they went away. They are making a little more noise now, because they
have got a man who has the gift of the gab, and the people like to go
and hear him speak. But as I said to a friend of mine, who seemed half
inclined to join them, 'Well; if I did anything of that sort, I would
be led by a Lancashire lad. They have got a foreigner to lead them, a
fellow out of Berkshire; an agitator--and only a print-work after all.
No; that will never do.'"

Notwithstanding these views, which Endymion found very generally
entertained by the new world in which he mixed, he resolved to take
the earliest opportunity of attending the meeting of the League, and
it soon arrived.

It was an evening meeting, so that workmen--or the operatives, as they
were styled in this part of the kingdom--should be able to attend. The
assembly took place in a large but temporary building; very well
adapted to the human voice, and able to contain even thousands. It was
fairly full to-night; and the platform, on which those who took a part
in the proceedings, or who, by their comparatively influential
presence, it was supposed, might assist the cause, was almost crowded.

"He is going to speak to-night," said an operative to Endymion. "That
is why there is such an attendance."

Remembering Mr. Wilton's hint about not asking unnecessary questions
which often arrest information, Endymion did not inquire who "he" was;
and to promote communication merely observed, "A fine speaker, then, I
conclude?"

"Well, he is in a way," said the operative. "He has not got
Hollaballoo's voice, but he knows what he is talking about. I doubt
their getting what they are after; they have not the working classes
with them. If they went against truck, it would be something."

The chairman opened the proceedings; but was coldly received, though
he spoke sensibly and at some length. He then introduced a gentleman,
who was absolutely an alderman, to move a resolution condemnatory of
the corn laws. The august position of the speaker atoned for his
halting rhetoric, and a city which had only just for the first time
been invested with municipal privileges was hushed before a man who
might in time even become a mayor.

Then the seconder advanced, and there was a general burst of applause.

"There he is," said the operative to Endymion; "you see they like him.
Oh, Job knows how to do it!"

Endymion listened with interest, soon with delight, soon with a
feeling of exciting and not unpleasing perplexity, to the orator; for
he was an orator, though then unrecognised, and known only in his
district. He was a pale and slender man, with a fine brow and an eye
that occasionally flashed with the fire of a creative mind. His voice
certainly was not like Hollaballoo's. It was rather thin, but
singularly clear. There was nothing clearer except his meaning.
Endymion never heard a case stated with such pellucid art; facts
marshalled with such vivid simplicity, and inferences so natural and
spontaneous and irresistible, that they seemed, as it were, borrowed
from his audience, though none of that audience had arrived at them
before. The meeting was hushed, was rapt in intellectual delight, for
they did not give the speaker the enthusiasm of their sympathy. That
was not shared, perhaps, by the moiety of those who listened to him.
When his case was fairly before them, the speaker dealt with his
opponents--some in the press, some in parliament--with much power of
sarcasm, but this power was evidently rather repressed than allowed to
run riot. What impressed Endymion as the chief quality of this
remarkable speaker was his persuasiveness, and he had the air of being
too prudent to offend even an opponent unnecessarily. His language,
though natural and easy, was choice and refined. He was evidently a
man who had read, and not a little; and there was no taint of
vulgarity, scarcely a provincialism, in his pronunciation.

He spoke for rather more than an hour; and frequently during this
time, Endymion, notwithstanding his keen interest in what was taking
place, was troubled, it might be disturbed, by pictures and memories
of the past that he endeavoured in vain to drive away. When the orator
concluded, amid cheering much louder than that which had first greeted
him, Endymion, in a rather agitated voice, whispered to his neighbour,
"Tell me--is his name Thornberry?"

"That is your time of day," said the operative. "Job Thornberry is his
name, and I am on his works."

"And yet you do not agree with him?"

"Well; I go as far as he goes, but he does not go so far as I go;
that's it."

"I do not see how a man can go much farther," said Endymion. "Where
are his works? I knew your master when he was in the south of England,
and I should like to call on him."

"My employer," said the operative. "They call themselves masters, but
we do not. I will tell you. His works are a mile out of town; but it
seems only a step, for there are houses all the way. Job Thornberry &
Co.'s Print-works, Pendleton Road--any one can guide you--and when you
get there, you can ask for me, if you like. I am his overlooker, and
my name is ENOCH CRAGGS."



                            CHAPTER LXIII

"You are not much altered," said Thornberry, as he retained Endymion's
hand, and he looked at him earnestly; "and yet you have become a man.
I suppose I am ten years your senior. I have never been back to the
old place, and yet I sometimes think I should like to be buried there.
The old man has been here, and more than once, and liked it well
enough; at least, I hope so. He told me a good deal about you all;
some sorrows, and, I hope, some joys. I heard of Miss Myra's marriage;
she was a sweet young lady; the gravest person I ever knew; I never
knew her smile. I remember they thought her proud, but I always had a
fancy for her. Well; she has married a topsawyer--I believe the ablest
of them all, and probably the most unprincipled; though I ought not to
say that to you. However, public men are spoken freely of. I wish to
Heaven you would get him to leave off tinkering those commercial
treaties that he is always making such a fuss about. More pernicious
nonsense was never devised by man than treaties of commerce. However,
their precious most favoured nation clause will break down the whole
concern yet. But you wish to see the works; I will show them to you
myself. There is not much going on now, and the stagnation increases
daily. And then, if you are willing, we will go home and have a bit of
lunch--I live hard by. My best works are my wife and children: I have
made that joke before, as you can well fancy."

This was the greeting, sincere but not unkind, of Job Thornberry to
Endymion on the day after the meeting of the Anti-Corn-Law League. To
Endymion it was an interesting, and, as he believed it would prove, a
useful encounter.

The print-works were among the most considerable of their kind at
Manchester, but they were working now with reduced numbers and at
half-time. It was the energy and the taste and invention of Thornberry
that had given them their reputation, and secured them extensive
markets. He had worked with borrowed capital, but had paid off his
debt, and his establishment was now his own; but, stimulated by his
success, he had made a consignment of large amount to the United
States, where it arrived only to be welcomed by what was called the
American crash.

Turning from the high road, a walk of half a mile brought them to a
little world of villas; varying in style and size, but all pretty, and
each in its garden. "And this is my home," said Thornberry, opening
the wicket, "and here is my mistress and the young folks"--pointing to
a pretty woman, but with an expression of no inconsiderable self-
confidence, and with several children clinging to her dress and hiding
their faces at the unexpected sight of a stranger. "My eldest is a
boy, but he is at school," said Thornberry. "I have named him, after
one of the greatest men that ever lived, John Hampden."

"He was a landed proprietor," observed Endymion rather drily; "and a
considerable one."

"I have brought an old friend to take cheer with us," continued
Thornberry; "one whom I knew before any here present; so show your
faces, little people;" and he caught up one of the children, a fair
child like its mother, long-haired and blushing like a Worcestershire
orchard before harvest time. "Tell the gentleman what you are."

"A free-trader," murmured the infant.

Within the house were several shelves of books well selected, and the
walls were adorned with capital prints of famous works of art. "They
are chiefly what are called books of reference," said Thornberry, as
Endymion was noticing his volumes; "but I have not much room, and, to
tell you the truth, they are not merely books of reference to me--I
like reading encyclopaedia. The 'Dictionary of Dates' is a favourite
book of mine. The mind sometimes wants tone, and then I read Milton.
He is the only poet I read--he is complete, and is enough. I have got
his prose works too. Milton was the greatest of Englishmen."

The repast was simple, but plenteous, and nothing could be neater than
the manner in which it was served.

"We are teetotallers," said Thornberry; "but we can give you a good
cup of coffee."

"I am a teetotaller too at this time of the day," said Endymion; "but
a good cup of coffee is, they say, the most delicious and the rarest
beverage in the world."

"Well," continued Thornberry; "it is a long time since we met, Mr.
Ferrars--ten years. I used to think that in ten years one might do
anything; and a year ago, I really thought I had done it; but the
accursed laws of this blessed country, as it calls itself, have nearly
broken me, as they have broken many a better man before me."

"I am sorry to hear this," said Endymion; "I trust it is but a passing
cloud."

"It is not a cloud," said Thornberry; "it is a storm, a tempest, a
wreck--but not only for me. Your great relative, my Lord Roehampton,
must look to it, I can tell you that. What is happening in this
country, and is about to happen, will not be cured or averted by
commercial treaties--mark my words."

"But what would cure it?" said Endymion.

"There is only one thing that can cure this country, and it will soon
be too late for that. We must have free exchange."

"Free exchange!" murmured Endymion thoughtfully.

"Why, look at this," said Thornberry. "I had been driving a capital
trade with the States for nearly five years. I began with nothing, as
you know. I had paid off all my borrowed capital; my works were my
own, and this house is a freehold. A year ago I sent to my
correspondent at New York the largest consignment of goods I had ever
made and the best, and I cannot get the slightest return for them. My
correspondent writes to me that there is no end of corn and bread-
stuffs which he could send, if we could only receive them; but he
knows very well he might as well try and send them to the moon. The
people here are starving and want these bread-stuffs, and they are
ready to pay for them by the products of their labour--and your
blessed laws prevent them!"

"But these laws did not prevent your carrying on a thriving trade with
America for five years, according to your own account," said Endymion.
"I do not question what you say; I am asking only for information."

"What you say is fairly said, and it has been said before," replied
Thornberry; "but there is nothing in it. We had a trade, and a
thriving trade, with the States; though, to be sure, it was always
fitful and ought to have been ten times as much, even during those
five years. But the fact is, the state of affairs in America was then
exceptional. They were embarked in great public works in which every
one was investing his capital; shares and stocks abounded, and they
paid us for our goods with them."

"Then it would rather seem that they have no capital now to spare to
purchase our goods?"

"Not so," said Thornberry sharply, "as I have shown; but were it so,
it does not affect my principle. If there were free exchange, we
should find employment and compensation in other countries, even if
the States were logged, which I don't believe thirty millions of
people with boundless territory ever can be."

"But after all," said Endymion, "America is as little in favour of
free exchange as we are. She may send us her bread-stuffs; but her
laws will not admit our goods, except on the payment of enormous
duties."

"Pish!" said Thornberry; "I do not care this for their enormous
duties. Let me have free imports, and I will soon settle their
duties."

"To fight hostile tariffs with free imports," said Endymion; "is not
that fighting against odds?"

"Not a bit. This country has nothing to do but to consider its
imports. Foreigners will not give us their products for nothing; but
as for their tariffs, if we were wise men, and looked to our real
interests, their hostile tariffs, as you call them, would soon be
falling down like an old wall."

"Well, I confess," said Endymion, "I have for some time thought the
principle of free exchange was a sound one; but its application in a
country like this would be very difficult, and require, I should
think, great prudence and moderation."

"By prudence and moderation you mean ignorance and timidity," said
Thornberry scornfully.

"Not exactly that, I hope," said Endymion; "but you cannot deny that
the home market is a most important element in the consideration of
our public wealth, and it mainly rests upon the agriculture of the
country."

"Then it rests upon a very poor foundation," said Thornberry.

"But if any persons should be more tempted than others by free
exchange, it should be the great body of the consumers of this land,
who pay unjust and excessive prices for every article they require.
No, my dear Mr. Ferrars; the question is a very simple one, and we may
talk for ever, and we shall never alter it. The laws of this country
are made by the proprietors of land, and they make them for their own
benefit. A man with a large estate is said to have a great stake in
the country because some hundreds of people or so are more or less
dependent on him. How has he a greater interest in the country than a
manufacturer who has sunk 100,000 pounds in machinery, and has a
thousand people, as I had, receiving from him weekly wages? No home
market, indeed! Pah! it is an affair of rent, and nothing more or
less. And England is to be ruined to keep up rents. Are you going?
Well, I am glad we have met. Perhaps we shall have another talk
together some day. I shall not return to the works. There is little
doing there, and I must think now of other things. The subscriptions
to the League begin to come in apace. Say what they like in the House
of Commons and the vile London press, the thing is stirring."

Wishing to turn the conversation a little, Endymion asked Mrs.
Thornberry whether she occasionally went to London.

"Never was there," she said, in a sharp, clear voice; "but I hope to
go soon."

"You will have a great deal to see."

"All I want to see, and hear, is the Rev. Servetus Frost," replied the
lady. "My idea of perfect happiness is to hear him every Sunday. He
comes here sometimes, for his sister is settled here; a very big mill.
He preached here a month ago. Should not I have liked the bishop to
have heard him, that's all! But he would not dare to go; he could not
answer a point."

"My wife is of the Unitarian persuasion," said Thornberry. "I am not.
I was born in our Church, and I keep to it; but I often go to chapel
with my wife. As for religion generally, if a man believes in his
Maker and does his duty to his neighbours, in my mind that is
sufficient."

Endymion bade them good-bye, and strolled musingly towards his hotel.

Just as he reached the works again, he encountered Enoch Craggs, who
was walking into Manchester.

"I am going to our institute," said Enoch. "I do not know why, but
they have put me on the committee."

"And, I doubt not, they did very wisely," said Endymion.

"Master Thornberry was glad to see you?" said Enoch.

"And I was glad to see him."

"He has got the gift of speech," said Enoch.

"And that is a great gift."

"If wisely exercised, and I will not say he is not exercising it
wisely. Certainly for his own purpose, but whether that purpose is for
the general good--query?"

"He is against monopoly," observed Endymion inquiringly.

"Query again?" said Enoch.

"Well; he is opposed to the corn laws."

"The corn laws are very bad laws," said Enoch, "and the sooner we get
rid of them the better. But there are worse things than the corn
laws."

"Hem!" said Endymion.

"There are the money laws," said Enoch.

"I did not know you cared so much about them at Manchester," said
Endymion. "I thought it was Birmingham that was chiefly interested
about currency."

"I do not care one jot about currency," said Enoch; "and, so far as I
can judge, the Birmingham chaps talk a deal of nonsense about the
matter. Leastwise, they will never convince me that a slip of
irredeemable paper is as good as the young queen's head on a twenty-
shilling piece. I mean the laws that secure the accumulation of
capital, by which means the real producers become mere hirelings, and
really are little better than slaves."

"But surely without capital we should all of us be little better than
slaves?"

"I am not against capital," replied Enoch. "What I am against is
capitalists."

"But if we get rid of capitalists we shall soon get rid of capital."

"No, no," said Enoch, with his broad accent, shaking his head, and
with a laughing eye. "Master Thornberry has been telling you that. He
is the most inveterate capitalist of the whole lot; and I always say,
though they keep aloof from him at present, they will be all sticking
to his skirts before long. Master Thornberry is against the
capitalists in land; but there are other capitalists nearer home, and
I know more about them. I was reading a book the other day about King
Charles--Charles the First, whose head they cut off--I am very liking
to that time, and read a good deal about it; and there was Lord
Falkland, a great gentleman in those days, and he said, when
Archbishop Laud was trying on some of his priestly tricks, that, 'if
he were to have a pope, he would rather the pope were at Rome than at
Lambeth.' So I sometimes think, if we are to be ruled by capitalists,
I would sooner, perhaps, be ruled by gentlemen of estate, who have
been long among us, than by persons who build big mills, who come from
God knows where, and, when they have worked their millions out of our
flesh and bone, go God knows where. But perhaps we shall get rid of
them all some day--landlords and mill-lords."

"And whom will you substitute for them?"

"The producers," said Enoch, with a glance half savage, half
triumphant.

"What can workmen do without capital?"

"Why, they make the capital," said Enoch; "and if they make the
capital, is it not strange that they should not be able to contrive
some means to keep the capital? Why, Job was saying the other day that
there was nothing like a principle to work upon. It would carry all
before it. So say I. And I have a principle too, though it is not
Master Thornberry's. But it will carry all before it, though it may
not be in my time. But I am not so sure of that."

"And what is it?" asked Endymion.

"CO-OPERATION."



                             CHAPTER LXIV

This strangely-revived acquaintance with Job Thornberry was not an
unfruitful incident in the life of Endymion. Thornberry was a man of
original mind and singular energy; and, although of extreme views on
commercial subjects, all his conclusions were founded on extensive and
various information, combined with no inconsiderable practice. The
mind of Thornberry was essentially a missionary one. He was always
ready to convert people; and he acted with ardour and interest on a
youth who, both by his ability and his social position, was qualified
to influence opinion. But this youth was gifted with a calm, wise
judgment, of the extent and depth of which he was scarcely conscious
himself; and Thornberry, like all propagandists, was more remarkable
for his zeal and his convictions, than for that observation and
perception of character which are the finest elements in the
management of men and affairs.

"What you should do," said Thornberry, one day, to Endymion, "is to go
to Scotland; go to the Glasgow district; that city itself, and
Paisley, and Kilmarnock--keep your eye on Paisley. I am much mistaken
if there will not soon be a state of things there which alone will
break up the whole concern. It will burst it, sir; it will burst it."

So Endymion, without saying anything, quietly went to Glasgow and its
district, and noted enough to make him resolve soon to visit there
again; but the cabinet reassembled in the early part of November, and
he had to return to his duties.

In his leisure hours, Endymion devoted himself to the preparation of a
report, for Mr. Sidney Wilton, on the condition and prospects of the
manufacturing districts of the North of England, with some
illustrative reference to that of the country beyond the Tweed. He
concluded it before Christmas, and Mr. Wilton took it down with him to
Gaydene, to study it at his leisure. Endymion passed his holidays with
Lord and Lady Montfort, at their southern seat, Princedown.

Endymion spoke to Lady Montfort a little about his labours, for he had
no secrets from her; but she did not much sympathise with him, though
she liked him to be sedulous and to distinguish himself. "Only," she
observed, "take care not to be /doctrinaire/, Endymion. I am always
afraid of that with you. It is Sidney's fault; he always was
/doctrinaire/. It was a great thing for you becoming his private
secretary; to be the private secretary of a cabinet minister is a real
step in life, and I shall always be most grateful to Sidney, whom I
love for appointing you; but still, if I could have had my wish, you
should have been Lord Roehampton's private secretary. That is real
politics, and he is a real statesman. You must not let Mr. Wilton
mislead you about the state of affairs in the cabinet. The cabinet
consists of the prime minister and Lord Roehampton, and, if they are
united, all the rest is vapour. And they will not consent to any
nonsense about touching the corn laws; you may be sure of that.
Besides, I will tell you a secret, which is not yet Pulchinello's
secret, though I daresay it will be known when we all return to town--
we shall have a great event when parliament meets; a royal marriage.
What think you of that? The young queen is going to be married, and to
a young prince, like a prince in a fairy tale. As Lord Roehampton
wrote to me this morning, 'Our royal marriage will be much more
popular than the Anti-Corn-Law League.'"

The royal marriage was very popular; but, unfortunately, it reflected
no splendour on the ministry. The world blessed the queen and cheered
the prince, but shook its head at the government. Sir Robert Peel also
--whether from his own motive or the irresistible impulse of his party
need not now be inquired into--sanctioned a direct attack on the
government, in the shape of a vote of want of confidence in them,
immediately the court festivities were over, and the attack was
defeated by a narrow majority.

"Nothing could be more unprincipled," said Berengaria, "after he had
refused to take office last year. As for our majority, it is, under
such circumstances, twenty times more than we want. As Lord Roehampton
says, one is enough."

Trade and revenue continued to decline. There was again the prospect
of a deficiency. The ministry, too, was kept in by the Irish vote, and
the Irish then were very unpopular. The cabinet itself generally was
downcast, and among themselves occasionally murmured a regret that
they had not retired when the opportunity offered in the preceding
year. Berengaria, however, would not bate an inch of confidence and
courage. "You think too much," she said to Endymion, "of trade and
finance. Trade always comes back, and finance never ruined a country,
or an individual either if he had pluck. Mr. Sidney Wilton is a
croaker. The things he fears will never happen; or, if they do, will
turn out to be unimportant. Look to Lord Roehampton; he is the man. He
does not care a rush whether the revenue increases or declines. He is
thinking of real politics: foreign affairs; maintaining our power in
Europe. Something will happen, before the session is over, in the
Mediterranean;" and she pressed her finger to her lip, and then she
added, "The country will support Lord Roehampton as they supported
Pitt, and give him any amount of taxes that he likes."

In the meantime, the social world had its incidents as well as the
political, and not less interesting. Not one of the most
insignificant, perhaps, was the introduction into society of the
Countess of Beaumaris. Her husband, sacrificing even his hunting, had
come up to town at the meeting of parliament, and received his friends
in a noble mansion on Piccadilly Terrace. All its equipments were
sumptuous and refined, and everything had been arranged under the
personal supervision of Mr. Waldershare. They commenced very quietly;
dinners little but constant, and graceful and finished as a banquet of
Watteau. No formal invitations; men were brought in to dinner from the
House of Lords "just up," or picked up, as it were carelessly, in the
House of Commons by Mr. Waldershare, or were asked by Imogene, at a
dozen hours' notice, in billets of irresistible simplicity. Soon it
was whispered about, that the thing to do was to dine with Beaumaris,
and that Lady Beaumaris was "something too delightful." Prince
Florestan frequently dined there; Waldershare always there, in a state
of coruscation; and every man of fashion in the opposite ranks,
especially if they had brains.

Then, in a little time, it was gently hoped that Imogene should call
on their wives and mothers, or their wives and mothers call on her;
and then she received, without any formal invitation, twice a week;
and as there was nothing going on in London, or nothing half so
charming, everybody who was anybody came to Piccadilly Terrace; and
so as, after long observation, a new planet is occasionally discovered
by a philosopher, thus society suddenly and indubitably discovered
that there was at last a Tory house.

Lady Roehampton, duly apprised of affairs by her brother, had called
on Lord and Lady Beaumaris, and had invited them to her house. It was
the first appearance of Imogene in general society, and it was
successful. Her large brown eyes, and long black lashes, her pretty
mouth and dimple, her wondrous hair--which, it was whispered,
unfolded, touched the ground--struck every one, and the dignified
simplicity of her carriage was attractive. Her husband never left her
side; while Mr. Waldershare was in every part of the saloons, watching
her from distant points, to see how she got on, or catching the
remarks of others on her appearance. Myra was kind to her as well as
courteous, and, when the stream of arriving guests had somewhat
ceased, sought her out and spoke to her; and then put her arm in hers,
walked with her for a moment, and introduced her to one or two great
personages, who had previously intimated their wish or their consent
to that effect. Lady Montfort was not one of these. When parties are
equal, and the struggle for power is intense, society loses much of
its sympathy and softness. Lady Montfort could endure the presence of
Tories, provided they were her kinsfolk, and would join, even at their
houses, in traditionary festivities; but she shrank from passing the
line, and at once had a prejudice against Imogene, who she
instinctively felt might become a power for the enemy.

"I will not have you talk so much to that Lady Beaumaris," she said to
Endymion.

"She is an old friend of mine," he replied.

"How could you have known her? She was a shop-girl, was not she, or
something of that sort?"

"She and her family were very kind to me when I was not much better
than a shop-boy myself," replied Endymion, with a mantling cheek.
"They are most respectable people, and I have a great regard for her."

"Indeed! Well; I will not keep you from your Tory woman," said
Berengaria rudely; and she walked away.

Altogether, this season of '40 was not a very satisfactory one in any
respect, as regarded society or the country in general. Party passion
was at its highest. The ministry retained office almost by a casting
vote; were frequently defeated on important questions; and whenever a
vacancy occurred, it was filled by their opponents. Their unpopularity
increased daily, and it was stimulated by the general distress. All
that Job Thornberry had predicted as to the state of manufacturing
Scotland duly occurred. Besides manufacturing distress, they had to
encounter a series of bad harvests. Never was a body of statesmen
placed in a more embarrassing and less enviable position. There was a
prevalent, though unfounded, conviction that they were maintained in
power by a combination of court favour with Irish sedition.

Lady Montfort and Lord Roehampton were the only persons who never lost
heart. She was defiant; and he ever smiled, at least in public. "What
nonsense!" she would say. "Mr. Sidney Wilton talks about the revenue
falling off! As if the revenue could ever really fall off! And then
our bad harvests. Why, that is the very reason we shall have an
excellent harvest this year. You cannot go on always having bad
harvests. Besides, good harvests never make a ministry popular. Nobody
thanks a ministry for a good harvest. What makes a ministry popular is
some great /coup/ in foreign affairs."

Amid all these exciting disquietudes, Endymion pursued a life of
enjoyment, but also of observation and much labour. He lived more and
more with the Montforts, but the friendship of Berengaria was not
frivolous. Though she liked him to be seen where he ought to figure,
and required a great deal of attention herself, she ever impressed on
him that his present life was only a training for a future career, and
that his mind should ever be fixed on the attainment of a high
position. Particularly she impressed on him the importance of being a
linguist. "There will be a reaction some day from all this political
economy," she would say, "and then there will be no one ready to take
the helm." Endymion was not unworthy of the inspiring interest which
Lady Montfort took in him. The terrible vicissitudes of his early
years had gravely impressed his character. Though ambitious, he was
prudent; and, though born to please and be pleased, he was sedulous
and self-restrained. Though naturally deeply interested in the
fortunes of his political friends, and especially of Lord Roehampton
and Mr. Wilton, a careful scrutiny of existing circumstances had
prepared him for an inevitable change; and, remembering what was their
position but a few years back, he felt that his sister and himself
should be reconciled to their altered lot, and be content. She would
still be a peeress, and the happy wife of an illustrious man; and he
himself, though he would have to relapse into the drudgery of a public
office, would meet duties the discharge of which was once the object
of his ambition, coupled now with an adequate income and with many
friends.

And among those friends, there were none with whom he maintained his
relations more intimately than with the Neuchatels. He was often their
guest both in town and at Hainault, and he met them frequently in
society, always at the receptions of Lady Montfort and his sister.
Zenobia used sometimes to send him a card; but these condescending
recognitions of late had ceased, particularly as the great dame heard
he was "always at that Lady Beaumaris's." One of the social incidents
of his circle, not the least interesting to him, was the close
attendance of Adriana and her mother on the ministrations of Nigel
Penruddock. They had become among the most devoted of his flock; and
this, too, when the rapid and startling development of his sacred
offices had so alarmed the easy, though sagacious, Lord Roehampton,
that he had absolutely expressed his wish to Myra that she should
rarely attend them, and, indeed, gradually altogether drop a habit
which might ultimately compromise her. Berengaria had long ago quitted
him. This was attributed to her reputed caprice, yet it was not so. "I
like a man to be practical," she said. "When I asked for a deanery for
him the other day, the prime minister said he could hardly make a man
a dean who believed in the Real Presence." Nigel's church, however,
was more crowded than ever, and a large body of the clergy began to
look upon him as the coming man.

Towards the end of the year the "great /coup/ in foreign affairs,"
which Lady Montfort had long brooded over, and indeed foreseen,
occurred, and took the world, who were all thinking of something else,
entirely by surprise. A tripartite alliance of great powers had
suddenly started into life; the Egyptian host was swept from the
conquered plains of Asia Minor and Syria by English blue-jackets; St.
Jean d'Acre, which had baffled the great Napoleon, was bombarded and
taken by a British fleet; and the whole fortunes of the world in a
moment seemed changed, and permanently changed.

"I am glad it did not occur in the season," said Zenobia. "I really
could not stand Lady Montfort if it were May."

The ministry was elate, and their Christmas was right merrie. There
seemed good cause for this. It was a triumph of diplomatic skill,
national valour, and administrative energy. Myra was prouder of her
husband than ever, and, amid all the excitement, he smiled on her with
sunny fondness. Everybody congratulated her. She gave a little
reception before the holidays, to which everybody came who was in town
or passing through. Even Zenobia appeared; but she stayed a very short
time, talking very rapidly. Prince Florestan paid his grave devoirs,
with a gaze which seemed always to search into Lady Roehampton's
inmost heart, yet never lingering about her; and Waldershare, full of
wondrous compliments and conceits, and really enthusiastic, for he
ever sympathised with action; and Imogene, gorgeous with the Beaumaris
sapphires; and Sidney Wilton, who kissed his hostess's hand, and
Adriana, who kissed her cheek.

"I tell you what, Mr. Endymion," said Mr. Neuchatel, "you should make
Lord Roehampton your Chancellor of the Exchequer, and then your
government might perhaps go on a little."



                             CHAPTER LXV

But, as Mr. Tadpole observed, with much originality, at the Carlton,
they were dancing on a volcano. It was December, and the harvest was
not yet all got in, the spring corn had never grown, and the wheat was
rusty; there was, he well knew, another deficiency in the revenue, to
be counted by millions; wise men shook their heads and said the trade
was leaving the country, and it was rumoured that the whole population
of Paisley lived on the rates.

"Lord Roehampton thinks that something must be done about the corn
laws," murmured Berengaria one day to Endymion, rather crestfallen;
"but they will try sugar and timber first. I think it all nonsense,
but nonsense is sometimes necessary."

This was the first warning of that famous budget of 1841 which led to
such vast consequences, and which, directly or indirectly, gave such a
new form and colour to English politics. Sidney Wilton and his friends
were at length all-powerful in the cabinet, because, in reality, there
was nobody to oppose them. The vessel was waterlogged. The premier
shrugged his shoulders; and Lord Roehampton said, "We may as well try
it, because the alternative is, we shall have to resign."

Affairs went on badly for the ministry during the early part of the
session. They were more than once in a minority, and on Irish
questions, which then deeply interested the country; but they had
resolved that their fate should be decided by their financial
measures, and Mr. Sidney Wilton and his friends were still sanguine as
to the result. On the last day of April the Chancellor of the
Exchequer introduced the budget, and proposed to provide for the
deficiency by reducing the protective duties on sugar and timber. A
few days after, the leader of the House of Commons himself announced a
change in the corn laws, and the intended introduction of grain at
various-priced duties per quarter.

Then commenced the struggle of a month. Ultimately, Sir Robert Peel
himself gave notice of a resolution of want of confidence in the
ministry; and after a week's debate, it was carried, in an almost
complete house, by a majority of one!

It was generally supposed that the ministry would immediately resign.
Their new measures had not revived their popularity, and the
parliament in which they had been condemned had been elected under
their own advice and influence. Mr. Sidney Wilton had even told
Endymion to get their papers in order; and all around the somewhat
dejected private secretary there were unmistakable signs of that fatal
flitting which is peculiarly sickening to the youthful politician.

He was breakfasting in his rooms at the Albany with not a good
appetite. Although he had for some time contemplated the possibility
of such changes--and contemplated them, as he thought, with philosophy
--when it came to reality and practice, he found his spirit was by no
means so calm, or his courage so firm, as he had counted on. The
charms of office arrayed themselves before him. The social influence,
the secret information, the danger, the dexterity, the ceaseless
excitement, the delights of patronage which everybody affects to
disregard, the power of benefiting others, and often the worthy and
unknown which is a real joy--in eight-and-forty hours or so, all
these, to which he had now been used for some time, and which with his
plastic disposition had become a second nature, were to vanish, and
probably never return. Why should they? He took the gloomiest view of
the future, and his inward soul acknowledged that the man the country
wanted was Peel. Why might he not govern as long as Pitt? He probably
would. Peel! his father's friend! And this led to a train of painful
but absorbing memories, and he sat musing and abstracted, fiddling
with an idle egg-spoon.

His servant came in with a note, which he eagerly opened. It ran thus:
"I must see you instantly. I am here in the brougham, Cork Street end.
Come directly. B. M."

Endymion had to walk up half the Albany, and marked the brougham the
whole way. There was in it an eager and radiant face.

"You had better get in," said Lady Montfort, "for in these stirring
times some of the enemy may be passing. And now," she continued, when
the door was fairly shut, "nobody knows it, not five people. They are
going to dissolve."

"To dissolve!" exclaimed Endymion. "Will that help us?"

"Very likely," said Berengaria. "We have had our share of bad luck,
and now we may throw in. Cheap bread is a fine cry. Indeed it is too
shocking that there should be laws which add to the price of what
everybody agrees is the staff of life. But you do nothing but stare,
Endymion; I thought you would be in a state of the greatest
excitement!"

"I am rather stunned than excited."

"Well, but you must not be stunned, you must act. This is a crisis for
our party, but it is something more for you. It is your climacteric.
They may lose; but you must win, if you will only bestir yourself. See
the whips directly, and get the most certain seat you can. Nothing
must prevent your being in the new parliament."

"I see everything to prevent it," said Endymion. "I have no means of
getting into parliament--no means of any kind."

"Means must be found," said Lady Montfort. "We cannot stop now to talk
about means. That would be a mere waste of time. The thing must be
done. I am now going to your sister, to consult with her. All you have
got to do is to make up your mind that you will be in the next
parliament, and you will succeed; for everything in this world depends
upon will."

"I think everything in this world depends upon woman," said Endymion.

"It is the same thing," said Berengaria.

Adriana was with Lady Roehampton when Lady Montfort was announced.

Adriana came to console; but she herself was not without solace, for,
if there were a change of government, she would see more of her
friend.

"Well; I was prepared for it," said Lady Roehampton. "I have always
been expecting something ever since what they called the Bed-Chamber
Plot."

"Well; it gave us two years," said Lady Montfort; "and we are not out
yet."

Here were three women, young, beautiful, and powerful, and all friends
of Endymion--real friends. Property does not consist merely of parks
and palaces, broad acres, funds in many forms, services of plate, and
collections of pictures. The affections of the heart are property, and
the sympathy of the right person is often worth a good estate.

These three charming women were cordial, and embraced each other when
they met; but the conversation flagged, and the penetrating eye of
Myra read in the countenance of Lady Montfort the urgent need of
confidence.

"So, dearest Adriana," said Lady Roehampton, "we will drive out
together at three o'clock. I will call on you." And Adriana
disappeared.

"You know it?" said Lady Montfort when they were alone. "Of course you
know it. Besides, I know you know it. What I have come about is this;
your brother must be in the new parliament."

"I have not seen him; I have not mentioned it to him," said Myra,
somewhat hesitatingly.

"I have seen him; I have mentioned it to him," said Lady Montfort
decidedly. "He makes difficulties; there must be none. He will consult
you. I came on at once that you might be prepared. No difficulty must
be admitted. His future depends on it."

"I live for his future," said Lady Roehampton.

"He will talk to you about money. These things always cost money. As a
general rule, nobody has money who ought to have it. I know dear Lord
Roehampton is very kind to you; but, all his life, he never had too
much money at his command; though why, I never could make out. And my
lord has always had too much money; but I do not much care to talk to
him about these affairs. The thing must be done. What is the use of a
diamond necklace if you cannot help a friend into parliament? But all
I want to know now is that you will throw no difficulties in his way.
Help him, too, if you can."

"I wish Endymion had married," replied Myra.

"Well; I do not see how that would help affairs," said Lady Montfort.
"Besides, I dislike married men. They are very uninteresting."

"I mean, I wish," said Lady Roehampton musingly, "that he had made a
great match."

"That is not very easy," said Lady Montfort, "and great matches are
generally failures. All the married heiresses I have known have
shipwrecked."

"And yet it is possible to marry an heiress and love her," said Myra.

"It is possible, but very improbable."

"I think one might easily love the person who has just left the room."

"Miss Neuchatel?"

"Adriana. Do not you agree with me?"

"Miss Neuchatel will never marry," said Lady Montfort, "unless she
loses her fortune."

"Well; do you know, I have sometimes thought that she liked Endymion?
I never could encourage such a feeling; and Endymion, I am sure, would
not. I wish, I almost wish," added Lady Roehampton, trying to speak
with playfulness, "that you would use your magic influence, dear Lady
Montfort, and bring it about. He would soon get into parliament then."

"I have tried to marry Miss Neuchatel once," said Lady Montfort, with
a mantling cheek, "and I am glad to say I did not succeed. My match-
making is over."

There was a dead silence; one of those still moments which almost seem
inconsistent with life, certainly with the presence of more than one
human being. Lady Roehampton seemed buried in deep thought. She was
quite abstracted, her eyes fixed, and fixed upon the ground. All the
history of her life passed through her brain--all the history of their
lives; from the nursery to this proud moment, proud even with all its
searching anxiety. And yet the period of silence could be counted
almost by seconds. Suddenly she looked up with a flushed cheek and a
dazed look, and said, "It must be done."

Lady Montfort sprang forward with a glance radiant with hope and
energy, and kissed her on both cheeks. "Dearest Lady Roehampton," she
exclaimed, "dearest Myra! I knew you would agree with me. Yes! it must
be done."

"You will see him perhaps before I do?" inquired Myra rather
hesitatingly.

"I see him every day at the same time," replied Lady Montfort. "He
generally walks down to the House of Commons with Mr. Wilton, and when
they have answered questions, and he has got all the news of the
lobby, he comes to me. I always manage to get home from my drive to
give him half an hour before dinner."



                             CHAPTER LXVI

Lady Montfort drove off to the private residence of the Secretary of
the Treasury, who was of course in the great secret. She looked over
his lists, examined his books, and seemed to have as much acquaintance
with electioneering details as that wily and experienced gentleman
himself. "Is there anything I can do?" she repeatedly inquired;
"command me without compunction. Is it any use giving any parties? Can
I write any letters? Can I see anybody?"

"If you could stir up my lord a little?" said the secretary
inquiringly.

"Well, that is difficult," said Lady Montfort, "perhaps impossible.
But you have all his influence, and when there is a point that presses
you must let me know."

"If he would only speak to his agents?" said the secretary, "but they
say he will not, and he has a terrible fellow in ----shire, who I hear
is one of the stewards for a dinner to Sir Robert."

"I have stopped all that," said Lady Montfort. "That was Odo's doing,
who is himself not very sound; full of prejudices about O'Connell, and
all that stuff. But he must go with his party. You need not fear about
him."

"Well! it is a leap in the dark," said the secretary.

"Oh! no," said Lady Montfort, "all will go right. A starving people
must be in favour of a government who will give them bread for
nothing. By the by, there is one thing, my dear Mr. Secretary, you
must remember. I must have one seat, a certain seat, reserved for my
nomination."

"A certain seat in these days is a rare gem," said the secretary.

"Yes, but I must have it nevertheless," said Lady Montfort. "I don't
care about the cost or the trouble--but it must be certain."

Then she went home and wrote a line to Endymion, to tell him that it
was all settled, that she had seen his sister, who agreed with her
that it must be done, and that she had called on the Secretary of the
Treasury, and had secured a certain seat. "I wish you could come to
luncheon," she added, "but I suppose that is impossible; you are
always so busy. Why were you not in the Foreign Office? I am now going
to call on the Tory women to see how they look, but I shall be at home
a good while before seven, and of course count on seeing you."

In the meantime, Endymion by no means shared the pleasurable
excitement of his fair friend. His was an agitated walk from the
Albany to Whitehall, where he resumed his duties moody and disquieted.
There was a large correspondence this morning, which was a distraction
and a relief, until the bell of Mr. Sidney Wilton sounded, and he was
in attendance on his chief.

"It is a great secret," said Mr. Wilton, "but I think I ought to tell
you; instead of resigning, the government have decided to dissolve. I
think it a mistake, but I stand by my friends. They believe the Irish
vote will be very large, and with cheap bread will carry us through. I
think the stronger we shall be in Ireland the weaker we shall be in
England, and I doubt whether our cheap bread will be cheap enough.
These Manchester associations have altered the aspect of affairs. I
have been thinking a good deal about your position. I should like,
before we broke up, to have seen you provided for by some permanent
office of importance in which you might have been useful to the state,
but it is difficult to manage these things suddenly. However, now we
have time at any rate to look about us. Still, if I could have seen
you permanently attached to this office in a responsible position, I
should have been glad. I impressed upon the chief yesterday that you
are most fit for it."

"Oh! do not think of me, dear sir; you have been always too kind to
me. I shall be content with my lot. All I shall regret is ceasing to
serve you."

Lady Montfort's carriage drove up to Montfort House just as Endymion
reached the door. She took his arm with eagerness; she seemed
breathless with excitement. "I fear I am very late, but if you had
gone away I should never have pardoned you. I have been kept by
listening to all the new appointments from Lady Bellasyse. They quite
think we are out; you may be sure I did not deny it. I have so much to
tell you. Come into my lord's room; he is away fishing. Think of
fishing at such a crisis! I cannot tell you how pleased I was with my
visit to Lady Roehampton. She quite agreed with me in everything. 'It
must be done,' she said. How every right! and I have almost done it. I
will have a certain seat; no chances. Let us have something to fall
back upon. If not in office we shall be in opposition. All men must
sometime or other be in opposition. There you will form yourself. It
is a great thing to have had some official experience. It will save
you from mares' nests, and I will give parties without end, and never
rest till I see you prime minister."

So she threw herself into her husband's easy chair, tossed her parasol
on the table, and then she said, "But what is the matter with you,
Endymion? you look quite sad. You do not mean you really take our
defeat--which is not certain yet--so much to heart. Believe me,
opposition has its charms; indeed, I sometimes think the principal
reason why I have enjoyed our ministerial life so much is, that it has
been from the first a perpetual struggle for existence."

"I do not pretend to be quite indifferent to the probably impending
change," said Endymion, "but I cannot say there is anything about it
which would affect my feelings very deeply."

"What is it, then?"

"It is this business about which you and Myra are so kindly
interesting yourselves," said Endymion with some emotion; "I do not
think I could go into parliament."

"Not go into parliament!" exclaimed Lady Montfort. "Why, what are men
made for except to go into parliament? I am indeed astounded."

"I do not disparage parliament," said Endymion; "much the reverse. It
is a life that I think would suit me, and I have often thought the day
might come"----

"The day has come," said Lady Montfort, "and not a bit too soon. Mr.
Fox went in before he was of age, and all young men of spirit should
do the same. Why! you are two-and-twenty!"

"It is not my age," said Endymion hesitatingly; "I am not afraid about
that, for from the life which I have led of late years, I know a good
deal about the House of Commons."

"Then what is it, dear Endymion?" said Lady Montfort impatiently.

"It will make a great change in my life," said Endymion calmly, but
with earnestness, "and one which I do not feel justified in
accepting."

"I repeat to you, that you need give yourself no anxiety about the
seat," said Lady Montfort. "It will not cost you a shilling. I and
your sister have arranged all that. As she very wisely said, 'It must
be done,' and it is done. All you have to do is to write an address,
and make plenty of speeches, and you are M.P. for life, or as long as
you like."

"Possibly; a parliamentary adventurer, I might swim or I might sink;
the chances are it would be the latter, for storms would arise, when
those disappear who have no root in the country, and no fortune to
secure them breathing time and a future."

"Well, I did not expect, when you handed me out of my carriage to-day,
that I was going to listen to a homily on prudence."

"It is not very romantic, I own," said Endymion, "but my prudence is
at any rate not a commonplace caught up from copy-books. I am only
two-and-twenty, but I have had some experience, and it has been very
bitter. I have spoken to you, dearest lady, sometimes of my earlier
life, for I wished you to be acquainted with it, but I observed also
you always seemed to shrink from such confidence, and I ceased from
touching on what I saw did not interest you."

"Quite a mistake. It greatly interested me. I know all about you and
everything. I know you were not always a clerk in a public office, but
the spoiled child of splendour. I know your father was a dear good
man, but he made a mistake, and followed the Duke of Wellington
instead of Mr. Canning. Had he not, he would probably be alive now,
and certainly Secretary of State, like Mr. Sidney Wilton. But /you/
must not make a mistake, Endymion. My business in life, and your
sister's too, is to prevent your making mistakes. And you are on the
eve of making a very great one if you lose this golden opportunity. Do
not think of the past; you dwell on it too much. Be like me, live in
the present, and when you dream, dream of the future."

"Ah! the present would be adequate, it would be fascination, if I
always had such a companion as Lady Montfort," said Endymion, shaking
his head. "What surprises me most, what indeed astounds me, is that
Myra should join in this counsel--Myra, who knows all, and who has
felt it perhaps deeper even than I did. But I will not obtrude these
thoughts on you, best and dearest of friends. I ought not to have made
to you the allusions to my private position which I have done, but it
seemed to me the only way to explain my conduct, otherwise
inexplicable."

"And to whom ought you to say these things if not to me," said Lady
Montfort, "whom you called just now your best and dearest friend? I
wish to be such to you. Perhaps I have been too eager, but, at any
rate, it was eagerness for your welfare. Let us then be calm. Speak to
me as you would to Myra. I cannot be your twin, but I can be your
sister in feeling."

He took her hand and gently pressed it to his lips; his eyes would
have been bedewed, had not the dreadful sorrows and trials of his life
much checked his native susceptibility. Then speaking in a serious
tone, he said, "I am not without ambition, dearest Lady Montfort; I
have had visions which would satisfy even you; but partly from my
temperament, still more perhaps from the vicissitudes of my life, I
have considerable waiting powers. I think if one is patient and
watches, all will come of which one is capable; but no one can be
patient who is not independent. My wants are moderate, but their
fulfilment must be certain. The break-up of the government, which
deprives me of my salary as a private secretary, deprives me of
luxuries which I can do without--a horse, a brougham, a stall at the
play, a flower in my button-hole--but my clerkship is my freehold. As
long as I possess it, I can study, I can work, I can watch and
comprehend all the machinery of government. I can move in society,
without which a public man, whatever his talents or acquirements, is
in life playing at blind-man's buff. I must sacrifice this citadel of
my life if I go into parliament. Do not be offended, therefore, if I
say to you, as I shall say to Myra, I have made up my mind not to
surrender it. It is true I have the misfortune to be a year older than
Charles Fox when he entered the senate, but even with this great
disadvantage I am sometimes conceited enough to believe that I shall
succeed, and to back myself against the field."



                            CHAPTER LXVII

Mr. Waldershare was delighted when the great secret was out, and he
found that the ministry intended to dissolve, and not resign. It was
on a Monday that Lord John Russell made this announcement, and
Waldershare met Endymion in the lobby of the House of Commons. "I
congratulate you, my dear boy; your fellows, at least, have pluck. If
they lose, which I think they will, they will have gained at least
three months of power, and irresponsible power. Why! they may do
anything in the interval, and no doubt will. You will see; they will
make their chargers consuls. It beats the Bed-Chamber Plot, and I
always admired that. One hundred days! Why, the Second Empire lasted
only one hundred days. But what days! what excitement! They were worth
a hundred years at Elba."

"Your friends do not seem quite so pleased as you are," said Endymion.

"My friends, as you call them, are old fogies, and want to divide the
spoil among the ancient hands. It will be a great thing for Peel to
get rid of some of these old friends. A dissolution permits the
powerful to show their power. There is Beaumaris, for example; now he
will have an opportunity of letting them know who Lord Beaumaris is. I
have a dream; he must be Master of the Horse. I shall never rest till
I see Imogene riding in that golden coach, and breaking the line with
all the honours of royalty."

"Mr. Ferrars," said the editor of a newspaper, seizing his watched-for
opportunity as Waldershare and Endymion separated, "do you think you
could favour me this evening with Mr. Sidney Wilton's address? We have
always supported Mr. Wilton's views on the corn laws, and if put
clearly and powerfully before the country at this junction, the effect
might be great, perhaps even, if sustained, decisive."

Eight-and-forty hours and more had elapsed since the conversation
between Endymion and Lady Montfort; they had not been happy days. For
the first time during their acquaintance there had been constraint and
embarrassment between them. Lady Montfort no longer opposed his views,
but she did not approve them. She avoided the subject; she looked
uninterested in all that was going on around her; talked of joining
her lord and going a-fishing; felt he was right in his views of life.
"Dear Simon was always right," and then she sighed, and then she
shrugged her pretty shoulders. Endymion, though he called on her as
usual, found there was nothing to converse about; politics seemed
tacitly forbidden, and when he attempted small talk Lady Montfort
seemed absent--and once absolutely yawned.

What amazed Endymion still more was, that, under these rather
distressing circumstances, he did not find adequate support and
sympathy in his sister. Lady Roehampton did not question the propriety
of his decision, but she seemed quite as unhappy and as dissatisfied
as Lady Montfort.

"What you say, dearest Endymion, is quite unanswerable, and I alone
perhaps can really know that; but what I feel is, I have failed in
life. My dream was to secure you greatness, and now, when the first
occasion arrives, it seems I am more than powerless."

"Dearest sister! you have done so much for me."

"Nothing," said Lady Roehampton; "what I have done for you would have
been done by every sister in this metropolis. I dreamed of other
things; I fancied, with my affection and my will, I could command
events, and place you on a pinnacle. I see my folly now; others have
controlled your life, not I--as was most natural; natural, but still
bitter."

"Dearest Myra!"

"It is so, Endymion. Let us deceive ourselves no longer. I ought not
to have rested until you were in a position which would have made you
a master of your destiny."

"But if there should be such a thing as destiny, it will not submit to
the mastery of man."

"Do not split words with me; you know what I mean; you feel what I
mean; I mean much more than I say, and you understand much more than I
say. My lord told me to ask you to dine with us, if you called, but I
will not ask you. There is no joy in meeting at present. I feel as I
felt in our last year at Hurstley."

"Oh! don't say that, dear Myra!" and Endymion sprang forward and
kissed her very much. "Trust me; all will come right; a little
patience, and all will come right."

"I have had patience enough in life," said Lady Roehampton; "years of
patience, the most doleful, the most dreary, the most dark and
tragical. And I bore it all, and I bore it well, because I thought of
you, and had confidence in you, and confidence in your star; and
because, like an idiot, I had schooled myself to believe that, if I
devoted my will to you, that star would triumph."

So, the reader will see, that our hero was not in a very serene and
genial mood when he was buttonholed by the editor in the lobby, and,
it is feared, he was unusually curt with that gentleman, which editors
do not like, and sometimes reward with a leading article in
consequence, on the character and career of our political chief,
perhaps with some passing reference to jacks-in-office, and the
superficial impertinence of private secretaries. These wise and
amiable speculators on public affairs should, however, sometimes
charitably remember that even ministers have their chagrins, and that
the trained temper and imperturbable presence of mind of their aides-
de-camp are not absolutely proof to all the infirmities of human
nature.

Endymion had returned home from the lobby, depressed and dispirited.
The last incident of our life shapes and colours our feelings. Ever
since he had settled in London, his life might be said to have been
happy, gradually and greatly prosperous. The devotion of his sister
and the eminent position she had achieved, the friendship of Lady
Montfort, and the kindness of society, who had received him with open
arms, his easy circumstances after painful narrowness of means, his
honourable and interesting position--these had been the chief among
many other causes which had justly rendered Endymion Ferrars a
satisfied and contented man. And it was more than to be hoped that not
one of these sources would be wanting in his future. And yet he felt
dejected, even to unhappiness. Myra figured to his painful
consciousness only as deeply wounded in her feelings, and he somehow
the cause; Lady Montfort, from whom he had never received anything but
smiles and inspiring kindness, and witty raillery, and affectionate
solicitude for his welfare, offended and estranged. And as for
society, perhaps it would make a great difference in his position if
he were no longer a private secretary to a cabinet minister and only a
simple clerk; he could not, even at this melancholy moment, dwell on
his impending loss of income, though that increase at the time had
occasioned him, and those who loved him, so much satisfaction. And yet
was he in fault? Had his decision been a narrow-minded and craven one?
He could not bring himself to believe so--his conscience assured him
that he had acted rightly. After all that he had experienced, he was
prepared to welcome an obscure, but could not endure a humiliating
position.

It was a long summer evening. The House had not sat after the
announcement of the ministers. The twilight lingered with a charm
almost as irresistible as among woods and waters. Endymion had been
engaged to dine out, but had excused himself. Had it not been for the
Montfort misunderstanding, he would have gone; but that haunted him.
He had not called on her that day; he really had not courage to meet
her. He was beginning to think that he might never see her again;
never, certainly, on the same terms. She had the reputation of being
capricious, though she had been constant in her kindness to him. Never
see her again, or only see her changed! He was not aware of the
fulness of his misery before; he was not aware, until this moment,
that unless he saw her every day life would be intolerable.

He sat down at his table, covered with notes in every female
handwriting except the right one, and with cards of invitation to
banquets and balls and concerts, and "very earlies," and carpet dances
--for our friend was a very fashionable young man--but what is the use
of even being fashionable, if the person you love cares for you no
more? And so out of very wantonness, instead of opening notes sealed
or stamped with every form of coronet, he took up a business-like
epistle, closed only with a wafer, and saying in drollery, "I should
think a dun," he took out a script receipt for 20,000 pounds consols,
purchased that morning in the name of Endymion Ferrars, Esq. It was
enclosed in half a sheet of note-paper, on which were written these
words, in a handwriting which gave no clue of acquaintanceship, or
even sex: "Mind--you are to send me your first frank."



                            CHAPTER LXVIII

It was useless to ask who could it be? It could only be one person;
and yet how could it have been managed? So completely and so promptly!
Her lord, too, away; the only being, it would seem, who could have
effected for her such a purpose, and he the last individual to whom,
perhaps, she would have applied. Was it a dream? The long twilight was
dying away, and it dies away in the Albany a little sooner than it
does in Park Lane; and so he lit the candles on his mantel-piece, and
then again unfolded the document carefully, and read it and re-read
it. It was not a dream. He held in his hand firmly, and read with his
eyes clearly, the evidence that he was the uncontrolled master of no
slight amount of capital, and which, if treated with prudence, secured
to him for life an absolute and becoming independence. His heart beat
and his cheek glowed.

What a woman! And how true were Myra's last words at Hurstley, that
women would be his best friends in life! He ceased to think; and,
dropping into his chair, fell into a reverie, in which the past and
the future seemed to blend, with some mingling of a vague and almost
ecstatic present. It was a dream of fair women, and even fairer
thoughts, domestic tenderness and romantic love, mixed up with strange
vicissitudes of lofty and fiery action, and passionate passages of
eloquence and power. The clock struck and roused him from his musing.
He fell from the clouds. Could he accept this boon? Was his doing so
consistent with that principle of independence on which he had
resolved to build up his life? The boon thus conferred might be
recalled and returned; not legally indeed, but by a stronger influence
than any law--the consciousness on his part that the feeling of
interest in his life which had prompted it might change--would, must
change. It was the romantic impulse of a young and fascinating woman,
who had been to him invariably kind, but who had a reputation for
caprice, which was not unknown to him. It was a wild and beautiful
adventure; but only that.

He walked up and down his rooms for a long time, sometimes thinking,
sometimes merely musing; sometimes in a pleased but gently agitated
state of almost unconsciousness. At last he sate down at his writing-
table, and wrote for some time; and then directing the letter to the
Countess of Montfort, he resolved to change the current of his
thoughts, and went to a club.

Morning is not romantic. Romance is the twilight spell; but morn is
bright and joyous, prompt with action, and full of sanguine hope. Life
has few difficulties in the morning, at least, none which we cannot
conquer; and a private secretary to a minister, young and prosperous,
at his first meal, surrounded by dry toast, all the newspapers, and
piles of correspondence, asking and promising everything, feels with
pride and delight the sense of powerful and responsible existence.
Endymion had glanced at all the leading articles, had sorted in the
correspondence the grain from the chaff, and had settled in his mind
those who must be answered and those who must be seen. The strange
incident of last night was of course not forgotten, but removed, as it
were, from his consciousness in the bustle and pressure of active
life, when his servant brought him a letter in a handwriting he knew
right well. He would not open it till he was alone, and then it was
with a beating heart and a burning cheek.


                        LADY MONTFORT'S LETTER

 "What is it all about? and what does it all mean? I should have
  thought some great calamity had occurred if, however distressing,
  it did not appear in some sense to be gratifying. What is
  gratifying? You deal in conundrums, which I never could find out.
  Of course I shall be at home to you at any time, if you wish to
  see me. Pray come on at once, as I detest mysteries. I went to the
  play last night with your sister. We both of us rather expected to
  see you, but it seems neither of us had mentioned to you we were
  going. I did not, for I was too low-spirited about your affairs.
  You lost nothing. The piece was stupid beyond expression. We
  laughed heartily, at least I did, to show we were not afraid. My
  lord came home last night suddenly. Odo is going to stand for the
  county, and his borough is vacant. What an opportunity it would
  have been for you! a certain seat. But I care for no boroughs now.
  My lord will want you to dine with him to-day; I hope you can
  come. Perhaps he will not be able to see you this morning, as his
  agent will be with him about these elections. Adieu!"


If Lady Montfort did not like conundrums, she had succeeded, however,
in sending one sufficiently perplexing to Endymion. Could it be
possible that the writer of this letter was the unknown benefactress
of the preceding eve? Lady Montfort was not a mystifier. Her nature
was singularly frank and fearless, and when Endymion told her
everything that had occurred, and gave her the document which
originally he had meant to bring with him in order to return it, her
amazement and her joy were equal.

"I wish I had sent it," said Lady Montfort, "but that was impossible.
I do not care who did send it; I have no female curiosity except about
matters which, by knowledge, I may influence. This is finished. You
are free. You cannot hesitate as to your course. I never could speak
to you again if you did hesitate. Stop here, and I will go to my lord.
This is a great day. If we can settle only to-day that you shall be
the candidate for our borough, I really shall not much care for the
change of ministry."

Lady Montfort was a long time away. Endymion would have liked to have
gone forth on his affairs, but she had impressed upon him so earnestly
to wait for her return that he felt he could not retire. The room was
one to which he was not unaccustomed, otherwise, its contents would
not have been uninteresting; her portrait by more than one great
master, a miniature of her husband in a Venetian dress upon her
writing-table--a table which wonderfully indicated alike the lady of
fashion and the lady of business, for there seemed to be no form in
which paper could be folded and emblazoned which was there wanting;
quires of letter paper, and note paper, and notelet paper, from
despatches of state to billet-doux, all were ready; great covers with
arms and supporters, more moderate ones with "Berengaria" in letters
of glittering fancy, and the destined shells of diminutive effusions
marked only with a golden bee. There was another table covered with
trinkets and precious toys; snuff-boxes and patch-boxes beautifully
painted, exquisite miniatures, rare fans, cups of agate, birds
glittering with gems almost as radiant as the tropic plumage they
imitated, wild animals cut out of ivory, or formed of fantastic pearls
--all the spoils of queens and royal mistresses.

Upon the walls were drawings of her various homes; that of her
childhood, as well as of the hearths she ruled and loved. There were a
few portraits on the walls also of those whom she ranked as her
particular friends. Lord Roehampton was one, another was the Count of
Ferroll.

Time went on; on a little table, by the side of evidently her
favourite chair, was a book she had been reading. It was a German tale
of fame, and Endymion, dropping into her seat, became interested in a
volume which hitherto he had never seen, but of which he had heard
much.

Perhaps he had been reading for some time; there was a sound, he
started and looked up, and then, springing from his chair, he said,
"Something has happened!"

Lady Montfort was quite pale, and the expression of her countenance
distressed, but when he said these words she tried to smile, and said,
"No, no, nothing, nothing,--at least nothing to distress you. My lord
hopes you will be able to dine with him to-day, and tell him all the
news." And then she threw herself into a chair and sighed. "I should
like to have a good cry, as the servants say--but I never could cry. I
will tell you all about it in a moment. You were very good not to go."

It seems that Lady Montfort saw her lord before the agent, who was
waiting, had had his interview, and the opportunity being in every way
favourable, she felt the way about obtaining his cousin's seat for
Endymion. Lord Montfort quite embraced this proposal. It had never
occurred to him. He had no idea that Ferrars contemplated parliament.
It was a capital idea. He could not bear reading the parliament
reports, and yet he liked to know a little of what was going on. Now,
when anything happened of interest, he should have it all from the
fountain-head. "And you must tell him, Berengaria," he continued,
"that he can come and dine here whenever he likes, in boots. It is a
settled thing that M.P.'s may dine in boots. I think it a most capital
plan. Besides, I know it will please you. You will have your own
member."

Then he rang the bell, and begged Lady Montfort to remain and see the
agent. Nothing like the present time for business. They would make all
the arrangements at once, and he would ask the agent to dine with them
to-day, and so meet Mr. Ferrars.

So the agent entered, and it was all explained to him, calmly and
clearly, briefly by my lord, but with fervent amplification by his
charming wife. The agent several times attempted to make a remark, but
for some time he was unsuccessful; Lady Montfort was so anxious that
he should know all about Mr. Ferrars, the most rising young man of the
day, the son of the Right Honourable William Pitt Ferrars, who, had he
not died, would probably have been prime minister, and so on.

"Mr. Ferrars seems to be everything we could wish," said the agent,
"and as you say, my lady, though he is young, so was Mr. Pitt, and I
have little doubt, after what you say, my lady, that it is very likely
he will in time become as eminent. But what I came up to town
particularly to impress upon my lord is, that if Mr. Odo will not
stand again, we are in a very great difficulty."

"Difficulty about what?" said Lady Montfort impatiently.

"Well, my lady, if Mr. Odo stands, there is great respect for him. The
other side would not disturb him. He has been member for some years,
and my lord has been very liberal. But the truth is, if Mr. Odo does
not stand, we cannot command the seat."

"Not command the seat! Then our interest must have been terribly
neglected."

"I hope not, my lady," said the agent. "The fact is, the property is
against us."

"I thought it was all my lord's."

"No, my lady; the strong interest in the borough is my Lord Beaumaris.
It used to be about equal, but all the new buildings are in Lord
Beaumaris' part of the borough. It would not have signified if things
had remained as in the old days. The grandfather of the present lord
was a Whig, and always supported the Montforts, but that's all
changed. The present earl has gone over to the other side, and, I
hear, is very strong in his views."

Lady Montfort had to communicate all this to Endymion. "You will meet
the agent at dinner, but he did not give me a ray of hope. Go now;
indeed, I have kept you too long. I am so stricken that I can scarcely
command my senses. Only think of our borough being stolen from us by
Lord Beaumaris! I have brought you no luck, Endymion; I have done you
nothing but mischief; I am miserable. If you had attached yourself to
Lady Beaumaris, you might have been a member of parliament."



                             CHAPTER LXIX

In the meantime, the great news being no longer a secret, the utmost
excitement prevailed in the world of politics. The Tories had quite
made up their minds that the ministry would have resigned, and were
sanguine, under such circumstances, of the result. The parliament,
which the ministry was going to dissolve, was one which had been
elected by their counsel and under their auspices. It was unusual,
almost unconstitutional, thus to terminate the body they had created.
Nevertheless, the Whigs, never too delicate in such matters, thought
they had a chance, and determined not to lose it. One thing they
immediately succeeded in, and that was, frightening their opponents. A
dissolution with the Tories in opposition was not pleasant to that
party; but a dissolution with a cry of "Cheap bread!" amid a partially
starving population, was not exactly the conjuncture of providential
circumstances which had long been watched and wished for, and
cherished and coddled and proclaimed and promised, by the energetic
army of Conservative wire-pullers.

Mr. Tadpole was very restless at the crowded Carlton, speaking to
every one, unhesitatingly answering every question, alike cajoling and
dictatorial, and yet, all the time, watching the door of the morning
room with unquiet anxiety.

"They will never be able to get up the steam, Sir Thomas; the
Chartists are against them. The Chartists will never submit to
anything that is cheap. In spite of their wild fancies, they are real
John Bulls. I beg your pardon, but I see a gentleman I must speak to,"
and he rushed towards the door as Waldershare entered.

"Well, what is your news?" asked Mr. Tadpole, affecting unconcern.

"I come here for news," said Waldershare. "This is my Academus, and
you, Tadpole, are my Plato."

"Well, if you want the words of a wise man, listen to me. If I had a
great friend, which Mr. Waldershare probably has, who wants a great
place, these are times in which such a man should show his power."

"I have a great friend whom I wish to have a great place," said
Waldershare, "and I think he is quite ready to show his power, if he
knew exactly how to exercise it."

"What I am saying to you is not known to a single person in this room,
and to only one out of it, but you may depend upon what I say. Lord
Montfort's cousin retires from Northborough to sit for the county.
They think they can nominate his successor as a matter of course. A
delusion; your friend Lord Beaumaris can command the seat."

"Well, I think you can depend on Beaumaris," said Waldershare, much
interested.

"I depend upon you," said Mr. Tadpole, with a glance of affectionate
credulity. "The party already owes you much. This will be a crowning
service."

"Beaumaris is rather a queer man to deal with," said Waldershare; "he
requires gentle handling."

"All the world says he consults you on everything."

"All the world, as usual, is wrong," said Waldershare. "Lord Beaumaris
consults no one except Lady Beaumaris."

"Well then we shall do," rejoined Mr. Tadpole triumphantly. "Our man
that I want him to return is a connection of Lady Beaumaris, a Mr.
Rodney, very anxious to get into parliament, and rich. I do not know
who he is exactly, but it is a good name; say a cousin of Lord Rodney
until the election is over, and then they may settle it as they like."

"A Mr. Rodney," said Waldershare musingly; "well, if I hear anything I
will let you know. I suppose you are in pretty good spirits?"

"I should like a little sunshine. A cold spring, and now a wet summer,
and the certainty of a shocking harvest combined with manufacturing
distress spreading daily, is not pleasant, but the English are a
discriminating people. They will hardly persuade them that Sir Robert
has occasioned the bad harvests."

"The present men are clearly responsible for all that," said
Waldershare.

There was a reception at Lady Roehampton's this evening. Very few
Tories attended it, but Lady Beaumaris was there. She never lost an
opportunity of showing by her presence how grateful she was to Myra
for the kindness which had greeted Imogene when she first entered
society. Endymion, as was his custom when the opportunity offered,
rather hung about Lady Beaumaris. She always welcomed him with
unaffected cordiality and evident pleasure. He talked to her, and then
gave way to others, and then came and talked to her again, and then he
proposed to take her to have a cup of tea, and she assented to the
proposal with a brightening eye and a bewitching smile.

"I suppose your friends are very triumphant, Lady Beaumaris?" said
Endymion.

"Yes; they naturally are very excited. I confess I am not myself."

"But you ought to be," said Endymion. "You will have an immense
position. I should think Lord Beaumaris would have any office he
chose, and yours will be the chief house of the party."

"I do not know that Lord Beaumaris would care to have office, and I
hardly think any office would suit him. As for myself, I am obliged to
be ambitious, but I have no ambition, or rather I would say, I think I
was happier when we all seemed to be on the same side."

"Well, those were happy days," said Endymion, "and these are happy
days. And few things make me happier than to see Lady Beaumaris
admired and appreciated by every one."

"I wish you would not call me Lady Beaumaris. That may be, and indeed
perhaps is, necessary in society, but when we are alone, I prefer
being called by a name which once you always and kindly used."

"I shall always love the name," said Endymion, "and," he added with
some hesitation, "shall always love her who bears it."

She involuntarily pressed his arm, though very slightly; and then in
rather a hushed and hurried tone she said, "They were talking about
you at dinner to-day. I fear this change of government, if there is to
be one, will be injurious to you--losing your private secretaryship to
Mr. Wilton, and perhaps other things?"

"Fortune of war," said Endymion; "we must bear these haps. But the
truth is, I think it is not unlikely that there may be a change in my
life which may be incompatible with retaining my secretaryship under
any circumstances."

"You are not going to be married?" she said quickly.

"Not the slightest idea of such an event."

"You are too young to marry."

"Well, I am older than you."

"Yes; but men and women are different in that matter. Besides, you
have too many fair friends to marry, at least at present. What would
Lady Roehampton say?"

"Well, I have sometimes thought my sister wished me to marry."

"But then there are others who are not sisters, but who are equally
interested in your welfare," said Lady Beaumaris, looking up into his
face with her wondrous eyes; but the lashes were so long, that it was
impossible to decide whether the glance was an anxious one or one half
of mockery.

"Well, I do not think I shall ever marry," said Endymion. "The change
in my life I was alluding to is one by no means of a romantic
character. I have some thoughts of trying my luck on the hustings, and
getting into parliament."

"That would be delightful," said Lady Beaumaris. "Do you know that it
has been one of my dreams that you should be in parliament?"

"Ah! dearest Imogene, for you said I might call you Imogene, you must
take care what you say. Remember we are unhappily in different camps.
You must not wish me success in my enterprise; quite the reverse; it
is more than probable that you will have to exert all your influence
against me; yes, canvass against me, and wear hostile ribbons, and use
all your irresistible charms to array electors against me, or to
detach them from my ranks."

"Even in jest, you ought not to say such things," said Lady Beaumaris.

"But I am not in jest, I am in dreadful earnest. Only this morning I
was offered a seat, which they told me was secure; but when I inquired
into all the circumstances, I found the interest of Lord Beaumaris so
great, that it would be folly for me to attempt it."

"What seat?" inquired Lady Beaumaris in a low voice.

"Northborough," said Endymion, "now held by Lord Montfort's cousin,
who is to come in for his county. The seat was offered to me, and I
was told I was to be returned without opposition."

"Lady Montfort offered it to you?" asked Imogene.

"She interested herself for me, and Lord Montfort approved the
suggestion. It was described to me as a family seat, but when I looked
into the matter, I found that Lord Beaumaris was more powerful than
Lord Montfort."

"I thought that Lady Montfort was irresistible," said Imogene; "she
carries all before her in society."

"Society and politics have much to do with each other, but they are
not identical. In the present case, Lady Montfort is powerless."

"And have you formally abandoned the seat?" inquired Lady Beaumaris.

"Not formally abandoned it; that was not necessary, but I have
dismissed it from my mind, and for some time have been trying to find
another seat, but hitherto without success. In short, in these days it
is no longer possible to step into parliament as if you were stepping
into a club."

"If I could do anything, however little?" said Imogene. "Perhaps Lady
Montfort would not like me to interfere?"

"Why not?"

"Oh! I do not know," and then after some hesitation she added, "Is she
jealous?"

"Jealous! why should she be jealous?"

"Perhaps she has had no cause."

"You know Lady Montfort. She is a woman of quick and brilliant
feeling, the best of friends and a dauntless foe. Her kindness to me
from the first moment I made her acquaintance has been inexpressible,
and I sincerely believe she is most anxious to serve me. But our party
is not very popular at present; there is no doubt the country is
against us. It is tired of us. I feel myself the general election will
be disastrous. Liberal seats are not abundant just now, quite the
reverse, and though Lady Montfort has done more than any one could
under the circumstances, I feel persuaded, though you think her
irresistible, she will not succeed."

"I hardly know her," said Imogene. "The world considers her
irresistible, and I think you do. Nevertheless, I wish she could have
had her way in this matter, and I think it quite a pity that
Northborough has turned out not to be a family seat."



                             CHAPTER LXX

There was a dinner-party at Mr. Neuchatel's, to which none were asked
but the high government clique. It was the last dinner before the
dissolution: "The dinner of consolation, or hope," said Lord
Roehampton. Lady Montfort was to be one of the guests. She was
dressed, and her carriage in the courtyard, and she had just gone in
to see her lord before she departed.

Lord Montfort was extremely fond of jewels, and held that you could
not see them to advantage, or fairly judge of their water or colour,
except on a beautiful woman. When his wife was in grand toilette, and
he was under the same roof, he liked her to call on him in her way to
her carriage, that he might see her flashing rivieres and tiaras, the
lustre of her huge pearls, and the splendour of her emeralds and
sapphires and rubies.

"Well, Berengaria," he said in a playful tone, "you look divine. Never
dine out again in a high dress. It distresses me. Bertolini was the
only man who ever caught the tournure of your shoulders, and yet I am
not altogether satisfied with his work. So, you are going to dine with
that good Neuchatel. Remember me kindly to him. There are few men I
like better. He is so sensible, knows so much, and so much of what is
going on. I should have liked very much to have dined with him, but he
is aware of my unfortunate state. Besides, my dear, if I were better I
should not have enough strength for his dinners. They are really
banquets; I cannot stand those ortolans stuffed with truffles and
those truffles stuffed with ortolans. Perhaps he will come and dine
with us some day off a joint."

"The Queen of Mesopotamia will be here next week, Simon, and we must
really give her what you call a joint, and then we can ask the
Neuchatels and a few other people."

"I was in hopes the dissolution would have carried everybody away,"
said Lord Montfort rather woefully. "I wish the Queen of Mesopotamia
were a candidate for some borough; I think she would rather like it."

"Well, we could not return her, Simon; do not touch on the subject.
But what have you got to amuse to-day?"

"Oh! I shall do very well. I have got the head of the French detective
police to dine with me, and another man or two. Besides, I have got
here a most amusing book, 'Topsy Turvy;' it comes out in numbers. I
like books that come out in numbers, as there is a little suspense,
and you cannot deprive yourself of all interest by glancing at the
last page of the last volume. I think you must read 'Topsy Turvy,'
Berengaria. I am mistaken if you do not hear of it. It is very
cynical, which authors, who know a little of the world, are apt to be,
and everything is exaggerated, which is another of their faults when
they are only a trifle acquainted with manners. A little knowledge of
the world is a very dangerous thing, especially in literature. But it
is clever, and the man writes a capital style; and style is
everything, especially in fiction."

"And what is the name of the writer, Simon?"

"You never heard of it; I never did; but my secretary, who lives much
in Bohemia, and is a member of the Cosmopolitan and knows everything,
tells me he has written some things before, but they did not succeed.
His name is St. Barbe. I should like to ask him to dinner if I knew
how to get at him."

"Well, adieu! Simon," and, with an agitated heart, though apparent
calmness, she touched his forehead with her lips. "I expect an
unsatisfactory dinner."

"Adieu! and if you meet poor Ferrars, which I dare say you will, tell
him to keep up his spirits. The world is a wheel, and it will all come
round right."

The dinner ought not to have been unsatisfactory, for though there was
no novelty among the guests, they were all clever and distinguished
persons and united by entire sympathy. Several of the ministers were
there, and the Roehamptons, and Mr. Sidney Wilton, and Endymion was
also a guest. But the general tone was a little affected and
unnatural; forced gaiety, and a levity which displeased Lady Montfort,
who fancied she was unhappy because the country was going to be
ruined, but whose real cause of dissatisfaction at the bottom of her
heart was the affair of "the family seat." Her hero, Lord Roehampton,
particularly did not please her to-day. She thought him flippant and
in bad taste, merely because he would not look dismal and talk
gloomily.

"I think we shall do very well," he said. "What cry can be better than
that of 'Cheap bread?' It gives one an appetite at once."

"But the Corn-Law League says your bread will not be cheap," said
Melchior Neuchatel.

"I wonder whether the League has really any power in the
constituencies," said Lord Roehampton. "I doubt it. They may have in
time, but then in the interval trade will revive. I have just been
reading Mr. Thornberry's speech. We shall hear more of that man. You
will not be troubled about any of your seats?" he said, in a lower
tone of sympathy, addressing Mrs. Neuchatel, who was his immediate
neighbour.

"Our seats?" said Mrs. Neuchatel, as if waking from a dream. "Oh, I
know nothing about them, nor do I understand why there is a
dissolution. I trust that parliament will not be dissolved without
voting the money for the observation of the transit of Venus."

"I think the Roman Catholic vote will carry us through," said a
minister.

"Talking of Roman Catholics," said Mr. Wilton, "is it true that
Penruddock has gone over to Rome?"

"No truth in it," replied a colleague. "He has gone to Rome--there is
no doubt of that, and he has been there some time, but only for
distraction. He had overworked himself."

"He might have been a Dean if he had been a practical man," whispered
Lady Montfort to Mr. Neuchatel, "and on the high road to a bishopric."

"That is what we want, Lady Montfort," said Mr. Neuchatel; "we want a
few practical men. If we had a practical man as Chancellor of the
Exchequer, we should not be in the scrape in which we now are."

"It is not likely that Penruddock will leave the Church with a change
of government possibly impending. We could do nothing for him with his
views, but he will wait for Peel."

"Oh! Peel will never stand those high-fliers. He put the Church into a
Lay Commission during his last government."

"Penruddock will never give up Anglicanism while there is a chance of
becoming a Laud. When that chance vanishes, trust my word, Penruddock
will make his bow to the Vatican."

"Well, I must say," said Lord Roehampton, "if I were a clergyman I
should be a Roman Catholic."

"Then you could not marry. What a compliment to Lady Roehampton!"

"Nay; it is because I could not marry that I am not a clergyman."

Endymion had taken Adriana down to dinner. She looked very well, and
was more talkative than usual.

"I fear it will be a very great confusion--this general election," she
said. Papa was telling us that you think of being a candidate."

"I am a candidate, but without a seat to captivate at present," said
Endymion; "but I am not without hopes of making some arrangement."

"Well, you must tell me what your colours are."

"And will you wear them?"

"Most certainly; and I will work you a banner if you be victorious."

"I think I must win with such a prospect."

"I hope you will win in everything."

When the ladies retired, Berengaria came and sate by the side of Lady
Roehampton.

"What a dreary dinner!" she said.

"Do you think so?"

"Well, perhaps it was my own fault. Perhaps I am not in good cue, but
everything seems to me to go wrong."

"Things sometimes do go wrong, but then they get right."

"Well, I do not think anything will ever get right with me."

"Dear Lady Montfort, how can you say such things? You who have, and
have always had, the world at your feet--and always will have."

"I do not know what you mean by having the world at my feet. It seems
to me that I have no power whatever--I can do nothing. I am vexed
about this business of your brother. Our people are so stupid. They
have no resource. When I go to them and ask for a seat, I expect a
seat, as I would a shawl at Howell and James' if I asked for one.
Instead of that they only make difficulties. What our party wants is a
Mr. Tadpole; he out-manoeuvres them in every corner."

"Well, I shall be deeply disappointed--deeply pained," said Lady
Roehampton, "if Endymion is not in this parliament, but if we fail I
will not utterly despair. I will continue to do what I have done all
my life, exert my utmost will and power to advance him."

"I thought I had will and power," said Lady Montfort, "but the conceit
is taken out of me. Your brother was to me a source of great interest,
from the first moment that I knew him. His future was an object in
life, and I thought I could mould it. What a mistake! Instead of
making his fortune I have only dissipated his life."

"You have been to him the kindest and the most valuable of friends,
and he feels it."

"It is no use being kind, and I am valuable to no one. I often think
if I disappeared to-morrow no one would miss me."

"You are in a morbid mood, dear lady. To-morrow perhaps everything
will be right, and then you will feel that you are surrounded by
devoted friends, and by a husband who adores you."

Lady Montfort gave a scrutinising glance at Lady Roehampton as she
said this, then shook her head. "Ah! there it is, dear Myra. You judge
from your own happiness; you do not know Lord Montfort. You know how I
love him, but I am perfectly convinced he prefers my letters to my
society."

"You see what it is to be a Madame de Sevigne," said Lady Roehampton,
trying to give a playful tone to the conversation.

"You jest," said Lady Montfort; "I am quite serious. No one can
deceive me; would that they could! I have the fatal gift of reading
persons, and penetrating motives, however deep or complicated their
character, and what I tell you about Lord Montfort is unhappily too
true."

In the meantime, while this interesting conversation was taking place,
the gentleman who had been the object of Lady Montfort's eulogium, the
gentleman who always out-manoeuvred her friends at every corner, was,
though it was approaching midnight, walking up and down Carlton
Terrace with an agitated and indignant countenance, and not alone.

"I tell you, Mr. Waldershare, I know it; I have it almost from Lord
Beaumaris himself; he has declined to support our man, and no doubt
will give his influence to the enemy."

"I do not believe that Lord Beaumaris has made any engagement
whatever."

"A pretty state of affairs!" exclaimed Mr. Tadpole. "I do not know
what the world has come to. Here are gentlemen expecting high places
in the Household, and under-secretaryships of state, and actually
giving away our seats to our opponents."

"There is some family engagement about this seat between the Houses of
Beaumaris and Montfort, and Lord Beaumaris, who is a young man, and
who does not know as much about these things as you and I do,
naturally wants not to make a mistake. But he has promised nothing and
nobody. I know, I might almost say I saw the letter, that he wrote to
Lord Montfort this day, asking for an interview to-morrow morning on
the matter, and Lord Montfort has given him an appointment for
to-morrow. This I know."

"Well, I must leave it to you," said Mr. Tadpole. "You must remember
what we are fighting for. The constitution is at stake."

"And the Church," said Waldershare.

"And the landed interest, you may rely upon it," said Mr. Tadpole.

"And your Lordship of the Treasury /in posse/, Tadpole. Truly it is a
great stake."



                             CHAPTER LXXI

The interview between the heads of the two great houses of Montfort
and Beaumaris, on which the fate of a ministry might depend, for it
should always be recollected that it was only by a majority of one
that Sir Robert Peel had necessitated the dissolution of parliament,
was not carried on exactly in the spirit and with the means which
would have occurred to and been practised by the race of Tadpoles and
Tapers.

Lord Beaumaris was a very young man, handsome, extremely shy, and one
who had only very recently mixed with the circle in which he was born.
It was under the influence of Imogene that, in soliciting an interview
with Lord Montfort, he had taken for him an unusual, not to say
unprecedented step. He had conjured up to himself in Lord Montfort the
apparition of a haughty Whig peer, proud of his order, prouder of his
party, and not over-prejudiced in favour of one who had quitted those
sacred ranks, freezing with arrogant reserve and condescending
politeness. In short, Lord Beaumaris was extremely nervous when,
ushered by many servants through many chambers, there came forward to
receive him the most sweetly mannered gentleman alive, who not only
gave him his hand, but retained his guest's, saying, "We are a sort of
cousins, I believe, and ought to have been acquainted before, but you
know perhaps my wretched state," though what that was nobody exactly
did know, particularly as Lord Montfort was sometimes seen wading in
streams breast-high while throwing his skilful line over the rushing
waters. "I remember your grandfather," he said, "and with good cause.
He pouched me at Harrow, and it was the largest pouch I ever had. One
does not forget the first time one had a five-pound note."

And then when Lord Beaumaris, blushing and with much hesitation, had
stated the occasion of his asking for the interview that they might
settle together about the representation of Northborough in harmony
with the old understanding between the families which he trusted would
always be maintained, Lord Montfort assured him that he was personally
obliged to him by his always supporting Odo, regretted that Odo would
retire, and then said if Lord Beaumaris had any brother, cousin, or
friend to bring forward, he need hardly say Lord Beaumaris might count
upon him. "I am a Whig," he continued, "and so was your father, but I
am not particularly pleased with the sayings and doings of my people.
Between ourselves, I think they have been in a little too long, and if
they do anything very strong, if, for instance, they give office to
O'Connell, I should not be at all surprised if I were myself to sit on
the cross benches."

It seems there was no member of the Beaumaris family who wished at
this juncture to come forward, and being assured of this, Lord
Montfort remarked there was a young man of promise who much wished to
enter the House of Commons, not unknown, he believed, to Lord
Beaumaris, and that was Mr. Ferrars. He was the son of a distinguished
man, now departed, who in his day had been a minister of state. Lord
Montfort was quite ready to support Mr. Ferrars, if Lord Beaumaris
approved of the selection, but he placed himself entirely in his
hands.

Lord Beaumaris, blushing, said he quite approved of the selection;
knew Mr. Ferrars very well, and liked him very much; and if Lord
Montfort sanctioned it, would speak to Mr. Ferrars himself. He
believed Mr. Ferrars was a Liberal, but he agreed with Lord Montfort,
that in these days gentlemen must be all of the same opinion if not on
the same side, and so on. And then they talked of fishing
appropriately to a book of very curious flies that was on the table,
and they agreed if possible to fish together in some famous waters
that Lord Beaumaris had in Hampshire, and then, as he was saying
farewell, Lord Montfort added, "Although I never pay visits, because
really in my wretched state I cannot, there is no reason why our wives
should not know each other. Will you permit Lady Montfort to have the
honour of paying her respects to Lady Beaumaris?"

Talleyrand or Metternich could not have conducted an interview more
skilfully. But these were just the things that Lord Montfort did not
dislike doing. His great good nature was not disturbed by a single
inconvenient circumstance, and he enjoyed the sense of his adroitness.

The same day the cards of Lord and Lady Montfort were sent to
Piccadilly Terrace, and on the next day the cards of Lord and Lady
Beaumaris were returned to Montfort House. And on the following day,
Lady Montfort, accompanied by Lady Roehampton, would find Lady
Beaumaris at home, and after a charming visit, in which Lady Montfort,
though natural to the last degree, displayed every quality which could
fascinate even a woman, when she put her hand in that of Imogene to
say farewell, added, "I am delighted to find that we are cousins."

A few days after this interview, parliament was dissolved. It was the
middle of a wet June, and the season received its /coup de grace/.
Although Endymion had no rival, and apparently no prospect of a
contest, his labours as a candidate were not slight. The constituency
was numerous, and every member of it expected to be called upon. To
each Mr. Ferrars had to expound his political views, and to receive
from each a cordial assurance of a churlish criticism. All this he did
and endured, accompanied by about fifty of the principal inhabitants,
members of his committee, who insisted on never leaving his side, and
prompting him at every new door which he entered with contradictory
reports of the political opinions of the indweller, or confidential
informations how they were to be managed and addressed.

The principal and most laborious incidents of the day were festivals
which they styled luncheons, when the candidate and the ambulatory
committee were quartered on some principal citizen with an elaborate
banquet of several courses, and in which Mr. Ferrars' health was
always pledged in sparkling bumpers. After the luncheon came two or
three more hours of what was called canvassing; then, in a state of
horrible repletion, the fortunate candidate, who had no contest, had
to dine with another principal citizen, with real turtle soup, and
gigantic turbots, /entrees/ in the shape of volcanic curries, and
rigid venison, sent as a compliment by a neighbouring peer. This last
ceremony was necessarily hurried, as Endymion had every night to
address in some ward a body of the electors.

When this had been going on for a few days, the borough was suddenly
placarded with posting bills in colossal characters of true blue,
warning the Conservative electors not to promise their votes, as a
distinguished candidate of the right sort would certainly come
forward. At the same time there was a paragraph in a local journal
that a member of a noble family, illustrious in the naval annals of
the country, would, if sufficiently supported, solicit the suffrages
of the independent electors.

"We think, by the allusion to the navy, that it must be Mr. Hood of
Acreley," said Lord Beaumaris' agent to Mr. Ferrars, "but he has not
the ghost of a chance. I will ride over and see him in the course of
the day."

This placard was of course Mr. Tadpole's last effort, but that worthy
gentleman soon forgot his mortification about Northborough in the
general triumph of his party. The Whigs were nowhere, though Mr.
Ferrars was returned without opposition, and in the month of August,
still wondering at the rapid, strange, and even mysterious incidents,
that had so suddenly and so swiftly changed his position and prospects
in life, took his seat in that House in whose galleries he had so long
humbly attended as the private secretary of a cabinet minister.

His friends were still in office, though the country had sent up a
majority of ninety against them, and Endymion took his seat behind the
Treasury bench, and exactly behind Lord Roehampton. The debate on the
address was protracted for three nights, and then they divided at
three o'clock in the morning, and then all was over. Lord Roehampton,
who had vindicated the ministry with admirable vigour and felicity,
turned round to Endymion, and smiling said in the sweetest tone, "I
did not enlarge on our greatest feat, namely, that we had governed the
country for two years without a majority. Peel would never have had
the pluck to do that."

Notwithstanding the backsliding of Lord Beaumaris and the unprincipled
conduct of Mr. Waldershare, they were both rewarded as the latter
gentleman projected--Lord Beaumaris accepted a high post in the
Household, and Mr. Waldershare was appointed Under-Secretary of State
for Foreign Affairs. Tadpole was a little glum about it, but it was
inevitable. "The fact is," as the world agreed, "Lady Beaumaris is the
only Tory woman. They have nobody who can receive except her."

The changes in the House of Commons were still greater than those in
the administration. Never were so many new members, and Endymion
watched them, during the first days, and before the debate on the
address, taking the oaths at the table in batches with much interest.
Mr. Bertie Tremaine was returned, and his brother, Mr. Tremaine
Bertie. Job Thornberry was member for a manufacturing town, with which
he was not otherwise connected. Hortensius was successful, and Mr.
Vigo for a metropolitan borough, but what pleased Endymion more than
anything was the return of his valued friend Trenchard, who a short
time before had acceded to the paternal estate; all these gentlemen
were Liberals, and were destined to sit on the same side of the House
as Endymion.

After the fatal vote, the Whigs all left town. Society in general had
been greatly dispersed, but parliament had to remain sitting until
October.

"We are going to Princedown," Lady Montfort said one day to Endymion,
"and we had counted on seeing you there, but I have been thinking much
of your position since, and I am persuaded, that we must sacrifice
pleasure to higher objects. This is really a crisis in your life, and
much, perhaps everything, depends on your not making a mistake now.
What I want to see you is a great statesman. This is a political
economy parliament, both sides alike thinking of the price of corn and
all that. Finance and commerce are everybody's subjects, and are most
convenient to make speeches about for men who cannot speak French and
who have had no education. Real politics are the possession and
distribution of power. I want to see you give your mind to foreign
affairs. There you will have no rivals. There are a great many
subjects which Lord Roehampton cannot take up, but which you could
very properly, and you will have always the benefit of his counsel,
and, when necessary, his parliamentary assistance; but foreign affairs
are not to be mastered by mere reading. Bookworms do not make
chancellors of state. You must become acquainted with the great actors
in the great scene. There is nothing like personal knowledge of the
individuals who control the high affairs. That has made the fortune of
Lord Roehampton. What I think you ought to do, without doubt ought to
do, is to take advantage of this long interval before the meeting of
parliament, and go to Paris. Paris is now the Capital of Diplomacy. It
is not the best time of the year to go there, but you will meet a
great many people of the diplomatic world, and if the opportunity
offers, you can vary the scene, and go to some baths which princes and
ministers frequent. The Count of Ferroll is now at Paris, and minister
for his court. You know him; that is well. But he is my greatest
friend, and, as you know, we habitually correspond. He will do
everything for you, I am sure, for my sake. It is not pleasant to be
separated; I do not wish to conceal that; I should have enjoyed your
society at Princedown, but I am doing right, and you will some day
thank me for it. We must soften the pang of separation by writing to
each other every day, so when we meet again it will only be as if we
had parted yesterday. Besides--who knows?--I may run over myself to
Paris in the winter. My lord always liked Paris; the only place he
ever did, but I am not very sanguine he will go; he is so afraid of
being asked to dinner by our ambassador."



                            CHAPTER LXXII

In all lives, the highest and the humblest, there is a crisis in the
formation of character, and in the bent of the disposition. It comes
from many causes, and from some which on the surface are apparently
even trivial. It may be a book, a speech, a sermon; a man or a woman;
a great misfortune or a burst of prosperity. But the result is the
same; a sudden revelation to ourselves of our secret purpose, and a
recognition of our perhaps long shadowed, but now masterful
convictions.

A crisis of this kind occurred to Endymion the day when he returned to
his chambers, after having taken the oaths and his seat in the House
of Commons. He felt the necessity of being alone. For nearly the last
three months he had been the excited actor in a strange and even
mysterious drama. There had been for him no time to reflect; all he
could aim at was to comprehend, and if possible control, the present
and urgent contingency; he had been called upon, almost unceasingly,
to do or to say something sudden and unexpected; and it was only now,
when the crest of the ascent had been reached, that he could look
around him and consider the new world opening to his gaze.

The greatest opportunity that can be offered to an Englishman was now
his--a seat in the House of Commons. It was his almost in the first
bloom of youth, and yet after advantageous years of labour and
political training, and it was combined with a material independence
on which he never could have counted. A love of power, a passion for
distinction, a noble pride, which had been native to his early
disposition, but which had apparently been crushed by the enormous
sorrows and misfortunes of his childhood, and which had vanished, as
it were, before the sweetness of that domestic love which had been the
solace of his adversity, now again stirred their dim and mighty forms
in his renovated, and, as it were, inspired consciousness. "If this
has happened at twenty-two," thought Endymion, "what may not occur if
the average life of man be allotted to me? At any rate, I will never
think of anything else. I have a purpose in life, and I will fulfil
it. It is a charm that its accomplishment would be the most grateful
result to the two beings I most love in the world."

So when Lady Montfort shortly after opened her views to Endymion as to
his visiting Paris, and his purpose in so doing, the seeds were thrown
on a willing soil, and he embraced her counsels with the deepest
interest. His intimacy with the Count of Ferroll was the completing
event of this epoch of his life.

Their acquaintance had been slight in England, for after the Montfort
Tournament the Count had been appointed to Paris, where he was
required; but he received Endymion with a cordiality which contrasted
with his usual demeanour, which, though frank, was somewhat cynical.

"This is not a favourable time to visit Paris," he said, "so far as
society is concerned. There is some business stirring in the
diplomatic world, which has re-assembled the fraternity for the
moment, and the King is at St. Cloud, but you may make some
acquaintances which may be desirable, and at any rate look about you
and clear the ground for the coming season. I do not despair of our
dear friend coming over in the winter. It is one of the hopes that
keep me alive. What a woman! You may count yourself fortunate in
having such a friend. I do. I am not particularly fond of female
society. Women chatter too much. But I prefer the society of a first-
rate woman to that of any man; and Lady Montfort is a first-rate woman
--I think the greatest since Louise of Savoy; infinitely beyond the
Princess d'Ursins."

The "business that was then stirring in the diplomatic world," at a
season when the pleasures of Parisian society could not distract him,
gave Endymion a rare opportunity of studying that singular class of
human beings which is accustomed to consider states and nations as
individuals, and speculate on their quarrels and misunderstandings,
and the remedies which they require, in a tongue peculiar to
themselves, and in language which often conveys a meaning exactly
opposite to that which it seems to express. Diplomacy is hospitable,
and a young Englishman of graceful mien, well introduced, and a member
of the House of Commons--that awful assembly which produces those
dreaded blue books which strike terror in the boldest of foreign
statesmen--was not only received, but courted, in the interesting
circle in which Endymion found himself.


There he encountered men grey with the fame and wisdom of half a
century of deep and lofty action, men who had struggled with the first
Napoleon, and had sat in the Congress of Vienna; others, hardly less
celebrated, who had been suddenly borne to high places by the
revolutionary wave of 1830, and who had justly retained their exalted
posts when so many competitors with an equal chance had long ago, with
equal justice, subsided into the obscurity from which they ought never
to have emerged. Around these chief personages were others not less
distinguished by their abilities, but a more youthful generation, who
knew how to wait, and were always prepared or preparing for the
inevitable occasion when it arrived--fine and trained writers, who
could interpret in sentences of graceful adroitness the views of their
chiefs; or sages in precedents, walking dictionaries of diplomacy, and
masters of every treaty; and private secretaries reading human nature
at a glance, and collecting every shade of opinion for the use and
guidance of their principals.

Whatever their controversies in the morning, their critical interviews
and their secret alliances, all were smiles and graceful badinage at
the banquet and the reception; as if they had only come to Paris to
show their brilliant uniforms, their golden fleeces, and their grand
crosses, and their broad ribbons with more tints than the iris.

"I will not give them ten years," said the Count of Ferroll, lighting
his cigarette, and addressing Endymion on their return from one of
these assemblies; "I sometimes think hardly five."

"But where will the blow come from?"

"Here; there is no movement in Europe except in France, and here it
will always be a movement of subversion."

"A pretty prospect!"

"The sooner you realise it the better. The system here is supported by
journalists and bankers; two influential classes, but the millions
care for neither; rather, I should say, dislike both."

"Will the change affect Europe?"

"Inevitably. You rightly say Europe, for that is a geographical
expression. There is no State in Europe; I exclude your own country,
which belongs to every division of the globe, and is fast becoming
more commercial than political, and I exclude Russia, for she is
essentially oriental, and her future will be entirely the East."

"But there is Germany!"

"Where? I cannot find it on the maps. Germany is divided into various
districts, and when there is a war, they are ranged on different
sides. Notwithstanding our reviews and annual encampments, Germany is
practically as weak as Italy. We have some kingdoms who are allowed to
play at being first-rate powers; but it is mere play. They no more
command events than the King of Naples or the Duke of Modena."

"Then is France periodically to overrun Europe?"

"So long as it continues to be merely Europe."

A close intimacy occurred between Endymion and the Count of Ferroll.
He not only became a permanent guest at the official residence, but
when the Conference broke up, the Count invited Endymion to be his
companion to some celebrated baths, where they would meet not only
many of his late distinguished colleagues, but their imperial and
royal masters, seeking alike health and relaxation at this famous
rendezvous.

"You will find it of the first importance in public life," said the
Count of Ferroll, "to know personally those who are carrying on the
business of the world; so much depends on the character of an
individual, his habits of thought, his prejudices, his superstitions,
his social weaknesses, his health. Conducting affairs without this
advantage is, in effect, an affair of stationery; it is pens and paper
who are in communication, not human beings."

The brother-in-law of Lord Roehampton was a sort of personage. It was
very true that distinguished man was no longer minister, but he had
been minister for a long time, and had left a great name. Foreigners
rarely know more than one English minister at a time, but they
compensated for their ignorance of the aggregate body by even
exaggerating the qualities of the individual with whom they are
acquainted. Lord Roehampton had conducted the affairs of his country
always in a courteous, but still in a somewhat haughty spirit. He was
easy and obliging, and conciliatory in little matters, but where the
credit, or honour, or large interests of England were concerned, he
acted with conscious authority. On the continent of Europe, though he
sometimes incurred the depreciation of the smaller minds, whose self-
love he may not have sufficiently spared, by the higher spirits he was
feared and admired, and they knew, when he gave his whole soul to an
affair, that they were dealing with a master.

Endymion was presented to emperors and kings, and he made his way with
these exalted personages. He found them different from what he had
expected. He was struck by their intimate acquaintance with affairs,
and by the serenity of their judgment. The life was a pleasant as well
as an interesting one. Where there are crowned heads, there are always
some charming women. Endymion found himself in a delightful circle.
Long days and early hours, and a beautiful country, renovate the
spirit as well as the physical frame. Excursions to romantic forests,
and visits to picturesque ruins, in the noon of summer, are
enchanting, especially with princesses for your companions, bright and
accomplished. Yet, notwithstanding some distractions, Endymion never
omitted writing to Lady Montfort every day.



                            CHAPTER LXXIII

The season at Paris, which commenced towards the end of the year, was
a lively one, and especially interesting to Endymion, who met there a
great many of his friends. After his visit to the baths he had
travelled alone for a few weeks, and saw some famous places of which
he had long heard. A poet was then sitting on the throne of Bavaria,
and was realising his dreams in the creation of an ideal capital. The
Black Forest is a land of romance. He saw Walhalla, too, crowning the
Danube with the genius of Germany, as mighty as the stream itself.
Pleasant it is to wander among the quaint cities here clustering
together: Nuremberg with all its ancient art, imperial Augsburg, and
Wurzburg with its priestly palace, beyond the splendour of many kings.
A summer in Suabia is a great joy.

But what a contrast to the Rue de la Paix, bright and vivacious, in
which he now finds himself, and the companion of the Neuchatel family!
Endymion had only returned to Paris the previous evening, and the
Neuchatels had preceded him by a week; so they had seen everybody and
could tell him everything. Lord and Lady Beaumaris were there, and
Mrs. Rodney their companion, her husband detained in London by some
mysterious business; it was thought a seat in parliament, which Mr.
Tadpole had persuaded him might be secured on a vacancy occasioned by
a successful petition. They had seen the Count of Ferroll, who was
going to dine with them that day, and Endymion was invited to meet
him. It was Adriana's first visit to Paris, and she seemed delighted
with it; but Mrs. Neuchatel preferred the gay capital when it was out
of season. Mr. Neuchatel himself was always in high spirits,--sanguine
and self-satisfied. He was an Orleanist, had always been so, and
sympathised with the apparently complete triumph of his principles--
"real liberal principles, no nonsense; there was more gold in the Bank
of France than in any similar establishment in Europe. After all,
wealth is the test of the welfare of a people, and the test of wealth
is the command of the precious metals. Eh! Mr. Member of Parliament?"
And his eye flashed fire, and he seemed to smack his lips at the very
thought and mention of these delicious circumstances.

They were in a jeweller's shop, and Mrs. Neuchatel was choosing a
trinket for a wedding present. She seemed infinitely distressed. "What
do you think of this, Adriana? It is simple and in good taste. I
should like it for myself, and yet I fear it might not be thought fine
enough."

"This is pretty, mamma, and new," and she held before her mother a
bracelet of much splendour.

"Oh, no! that will never do, dear Adriana; they will say we are purse-
proud."

"I am afraid they will always say that, mamma," and she sighed.

"It is a long time since we all separated," said Endymion to Adriana.

"Months! Mr. Sidney Wilton said you were the first runaway. I think
you were quite right. Your new life now will be fresh to you. If you
had remained, it would only have been associated with defeat and
discomfiture."

"I am so happy to be in parliament, that I do not think I could ever
associate such a life with discomfiture."

"Does it make you very happy?" said Adriana, looking at him rather
earnestly.

"Very happy."

"I am glad of that."

The Neuchatels had a house at Paris--one of the fine hotels of the
First Empire. It was inhabited generally by one of the nephews, but it
was always ready to receive them with every luxury and every comfort.
But Mrs. Neuchatel herself particularly disliked Paris, and she rarely
accompanied her husband in his frequent but brief visits to the gay
city. She had yielded on this occasion to the wish of Adriana, whom
she had endeavoured to bring up in a wholesome prejudice against
French taste and fashions.

The dinner to-day was exquisite, in a chamber of many-coloured
marbles, and where there was no marble there was gold, and when the
banquet was over, they repaired to saloons hung with satin of a
delicate tint which exhibited to perfection a choice collection of
Greuse and Vanloo. Mr. Sidney Wilton dined there as well as the Count
of Ferroll, some of the French ministers, and two or three illustrious
Orleanist celebrities of literature, who acknowledged and emulated the
matchless conversational powers of Mrs. Neuchatel. Lord and Lady
Beaumaris and Mrs. Rodney completed the party.

Sylvia was really peerless. She was by birth half a Frenchwoman, and
she compensated for her deficiency in the other moiety, by a series of
exquisite costumes, in which she mingled with the spell-born fashion
of France her own singular genius in dress. She spoke not much, but
looked prettier than ever; a little haughty, and now and then faintly
smiling. What was most remarkable about her was her convenient and
complete want of memory. Sylvia had no past. She could not have found
her way to Warwick Street to save her life. She conversed with
Endymion with ease and not without gratification, but from all she
said, you might have supposed that they had been born in the same
sphere, and always lived in the same sphere, that sphere being one
peopled by duchesses and countesses and gentlemen of fashion and
ministers of state.

Lady Beaumaris was different from her sister almost in all respects,
except in beauty, though her beauty even was of a higher style than
that of Mrs. Rodney. Imogene was quite natural, though refined. She
had a fine disposition. All her impulses were good and naturally
noble. She had a greater intellectual range than Sylvia, and was much
more cultivated. This she owed to her friendship with Mr. Waldershare,
who was entirely devoted to her, and whose main object in life was to
make everything contribute to her greatness. "I hope he will come here
next week," she said to Endymion. "I heard from him to-day. He is at
Venice. And he gives me such lovely descriptions of that city, that I
shall never rest till I have seen it and glided in a gondola."

"Well, that you can easily do."

"Not so easily. It will never do to interfere with my lord's hunting--
and when hunting is over there is always something else--Newmarket, or
the House of Lords, or rook-shooting."

"I must say there is something delightful about Paris, which you meet
nowhere else," said Mr. Sidney Wilton to Endymion. "For my part, it
has the same effect on me as a bottle of champagne. When I think of
what we were doing at this time last year--those dreadful November
cabinets--I shudder! By the by, the Count of Ferroll says there is a
chance of Lady Montfort coming here; have you heard anything?"

Endymion knew all about it, but he was too discreet even to pretend to
exclusive information on that head. He thought it might be true, but
supposed it depended on my lord.

"Oh! Montfort will never come. He will bolt at the last moment when
the hall is full of packages. Their very sight will frighten him, and
he will steal down to Princedown and read 'Don Quixote.'"

Sidney Wilton was quite right. Lady Montfort arrived without her lord.
"He threw me over almost as we were getting into the carriage, and I
had quite given it up when dear Lady Roehampton came to my rescue. She
wanted to see her brother, and--here we are."

The arrival of these two great ladies gave a stimulant to gaieties
which were already excessive. The court and the ministers rivalled the
balls and the banquets which were profusely offered by the ambassadors
and bankers. Even the great faubourg relaxed, and its halls of high
ceremony and mysterious splendour were opened to those who in London
had extended to many of their order a graceful and abounding
hospitality. It was with difficulty, however, that they persuaded Lady
Montfort to honour with her presence the embassy of her own court.

"I dined with those people once," she said to Endymion, "but I confess
when I thought of those dear Granvilles, their /entrees/ stuck in my
throat."

There was, however, no lack of diplomatic banquets for the successor
of Louise of Savoy. The splendid hotel of the Count of Ferroll was the
scene of festivals not to be exceeded in Paris, and all in honour of
this wondrous dame. Sometimes they were feasts, sometimes they were
balls, sometimes they were little dinners, consummate and select,
sometimes large receptions, multifarious and amusing. Her pleasure was
asked every morn, and whenever she was disengaged, she issued orders
to his devoted household. His boxes at opera or play were at her
constant disposal; his carriages were at her command, and she rode, in
his society, the most beautiful horses in Paris.

The Count of Ferroll had wished that both ladies should have taken up
their residence at his mansion.

"But I think we had better not," said Lady Montfort to Myra. "After
all, there is nothing like 'my crust of bread and liberty,' and so I
think we had better stay at the Bristol."



                            CHAPTER LXXIV

"Go and talk to Adriana," said Lady Roehampton to her brother. "It
seems to me you never speak to her."

Endymion looked a little confused.

"Lady Montfort has plenty of friends here," his sister continued. "You
are not wanted, and you should always remember those who have been our
earliest and kindest friends."

There was something in Lady Roehampton's words and look which rather
jarred upon him. Anything like reproach or dissatisfaction from those
lips and from that countenance, sometimes a little anxious but always
affectionate, not to say adoring, confused and even agitated him. He
was tempted to reply, but, exercising successfully the self-control
which was the result rather of his life than of his nature, he said
nothing, and, in obedience to the intimation, immediately approached
Miss Neuchatel.

About this time Waldershare arrived at Paris, full of magnificent
dreams which he called plans. He was delighted with his office; it was
much the most important in the government, and more important because
it was not in the cabinet. Well managed, it was power without
responsibility. He explained to Lady Beaumaris that an Under-Secretary
of State for Foreign Affairs, with his chief in the House of Lords,
was "master of the situation." What the situation was, and what the
under-secretary was to master, he did not yet deign to inform Imogene;
but her trust in Waldershare was implicit, and she repeated to Lord
Beaumaris, and to Mrs. Rodney, with an air of mysterious self-
complacency, that Mr. Waldershare was "master of the situation." Mrs.
Rodney fancied that this was the correct and fashionable title of an
under-secretary of state. Mr. Waldershare was going to make a
collection of portraits of Under-Secretaries for Foreign Affairs whose
chiefs had been in the House of Lords. It would be a collection of the
most eminent statesmen that England had ever produced. For the rest,
during his Italian tour, Waldershare seemed to have conducted himself
with distinguished discretion, and had been careful not to solicit an
audience of the Duke of Modena in order to renew his oath of
allegiance.

When Lady Montfort successfully tempted Lady Roehampton to be her
travelling companion to Paris, the contemplated visit was to have been
a short one--"a week, perhaps ten days at the outside." The outside
had been not inconsiderably passed, and yet the beautiful Berengaria
showed no disposition of returning to England. Myra was uneasy at her
own protracted absence from her lord, and having made a last, but
fruitless effort to induce Lady Montfort to accompany her, she said
one day to Endymion, "I think I must ask you to take me back. And
indeed you ought to be with my lord some little time before the
meeting of Parliament."

Endymion was really of the same opinion, though he was conscious of
the social difficulty which he should have to encounter in order to
effect his purpose. Occasionally a statesman in opposition is assisted
by the same private secretary who was his confidant when in office;
but this is not always the case--perhaps not even generally. In the
present instance, the principal of Lord Roehampton's several
secretaries had been selected from the permanent clerks in the Foreign
Office itself, and therefore when his chief retired from his official
duties, the private secretary resumed his previous post, an act which
necessarily terminated all relations between himself and the late
minister, save those of private, though often still intimate,
acquaintance.

Now one of the great objects of Lady Roehampton for a long time had
been, that her brother should occupy a confidential position near her
husband. The desire had originally been shared, and even warmly, by
Lady Montfort; but the unexpected entrance of Endymion into the House
of Commons had raised a technical difficulty in this respect which
seemed to terminate the cherished prospect. Myra, however, was
resolved not to regard these technical difficulties, and was
determined to establish at once the intimate relations she desired
between her husband and her brother. This purpose had been one of the
principal causes which induced her to accompany Lady Montfort to
Paris. She wanted to see Endymion, to see what he was about, and to
prepare him for the future which she contemplated.

The view which Lady Montfort took of these matters was very different
from that of Lady Roehampton. Lady Montfort was in her riding habit,
leaning back in an easy chair, with her whip in one hand and the
"Charivari" in the other, and she said, "Are you not going to ride
to-day, Endymion?"

"I think not. I wanted to talk to you a little about my plans, Lady
Montfort."

"Your plans? Why should you have any plans?"

"Well, Lady Roehampton is about to return to England, and she proposes
I should go with her."

"Why?"

And then Endymion entered into the whole case, the desirableness of
being with Lord Roehampton before the meeting of parliament, of
assisting him, working with him, acting for him, and all the other
expedient circumstances of the situation.

Lady Montfort said nothing. Being of an eager nature, it was rather
her habit to interrupt those who addressed her, especially on matters
she deemed disagreeable. Her husband used to say, "Berengaria is a
charming companion, but if she would only listen a little more, she
would have so much more to tell me." On the present occasion, Endymion
had no reason to complain that he had not a fair opportunity of
stating his views and wishes. She was quite silent, changed colour
occasionally, bit her beautiful lip, and gently but constantly lashed
her beautiful riding habit. When he paused, she inquired if he had
done, and he assenting, she said, "I think the whole thing
preposterous. What can Lord Roehampton have to do before the meeting
of parliament? He has not got to write the Queen's speech. The only
use of being in opposition is that we may enjoy ourselves. The best
thing that Lord Roehampton and all his friends can do is travel for a
couple of years. Ask the Count of Ferroll what he thinks of the
situation. He will tell you that he never knew one more hopeless.
Taxes and tariffs--that's the future of England, and, so far as I can
see, it may go on for ever. The government here desires nothing better
than what they call Peace. What they mean by peace is agiotage, shares
at a premium, and bubble companies. The whole thing is corrupt, as it
ever must be when government is in the hands of a mere middle class,
and that, too, a limited one; but it may last hopelessly long, and in
the meantime, 'Vive la bagatelle!'"

"These are very different views from those which, I had understood,
were to guide us in opposition," said Endymion, amazed.

"There is no opposition," rejoined Lady Montfort, somewhat tartly.
"For a real opposition there must be a great policy. If your friend,
Lord Roehampton, when he was settling the Levant, had only seized upon
Egypt, we should have been somewhere. Now, we are the party who wanted
to give, not even cheap bread to the people, but only cheaper bread.
Faugh!"

"Well, I do not think the occupation of Egypt in the present state of
our finances"----

"Do not talk to me about 'the present state of our finances.' You are
worse than Mr. Sidney Wilton. The Count of Ferroll says that a
ministry which is upset by its finances must be essentially imbecile.
And that, too, in England--the richest country in the world!"

"Well, I think the state of the finances had something to do with the
French Revolution," observed Endymion quietly.

"The French Revolution! You might as well talk of the fall of the
Roman Empire. The French Revolution was founded on nonsense--on the
rights of man; when all sensible people in every country are now
agreed, that man has no rights whatever."

"But, dearest Lady Montfort," said Endymion, in a somewhat deprecating
tone, "about my returning; for that is the real subject on which I
wished to trouble you."

"You have made up your mind to return," she replied. "What is the use
of consulting me with a foregone conclusion? I suppose you think it a
compliment."

"I should be very sorry to do anything without consulting you," said
Endymion.

"The worst person in the world to consult," said Lady Montfort
impatiently. "If you want advice, you had better go to your sister.
Men who are guided by their sisters seldom make very great mistakes.
They are generally so prudent; and, I must say, I think a prudent man
quite detestable."

Endymion turned pale, his lips quivered. What might have been the
winged words they sent forth it is now impossible to record, for at
that moment the door opened, and the servant announced that her
ladyship's horse was at the door. Lady Montfort jumped up quickly, and
saying, "Well, I suppose I shall see you before you go," disappeared.



                             CHAPTER LXXV

In the meantime, Lady Roehampton was paying her farewell visit to her
former pupil. They were alone, and Adriana was hanging on her neck and
weeping.

"We were so happy," she murmured.

"And are so happy, and will be," said Myra.

"I feel I shall never be happy again," sighed Adriana.

"You deserve to be the happiest of human beings, and you will be."

"Never, never!"

Lady Roehampton could say no more; she pressed her friend to her
heart, and left the room in silence.

When she arrived at her hotel, her brother was leaving the house. His
countenance was disquieted; he did not greet her with that mantling
sunniness of aspect which was natural to him when they met.

"I have made all my farewells," she said; "and how have you been
getting on?" And she invited him to re-enter the hotel.

"I am ready to depart at this moment," he said somewhat fiercely, "and
was only thinking how I could extricate myself from that horrible
dinner to-day at the Count of Ferroll's."

"Well, that is not difficult," said Myra; "you can write a note here
if you like, at once. I think you must have seen quite enough of the
Count of Ferroll and his friends."

Endymion sat down at the table, and announced his intended non-
appearance at the Count's dinner, for it could not be called an
excuse. When he had finished, his sister said--

"Do you know, we were nearly having a travelling companion to-morrow?"

He looked up with a blush, for he fancied she was alluding to some
previous scheme of Lady Montfort. "Indeed!" he said, "and who?"

"Adriana."

"Adriana!" he repeated, somewhat relieved; "would she leave her
family?"

"She had a fancy, and I am sure I do not know any companion I could
prefer to her. She is the only person of whom I could truly say, that
every time I see her, I love her more."

"She seemed to like Paris very much," said Endymion a little
embarrassed.

"The first part of her visit," said Lady Roehampton, "she liked it
amazingly. But my arrival and Lady Montfort's, I fear, broke up their
little parties. You were a great deal with the Neuchatels before we
came?"

"They are such a good family," said Endymion; "so kind, so hospitable,
such true friends. And Mr. Neuchatel himself is one of the shrewdest
men that probably ever lived. I like talking with him, or rather, I
like to hear him talk."

"O Endymion," said Lady Roehampton, "if you were to marry Adriana, my
happiness would be complete."

"Adriana will never marry," said Endymion; "she is afraid of being
married for her money. I know twenty men who would marry her, if they
thought there was a chance of being accepted; and the best man,
Eusford, did make her an offer--that I know. And where could she find
a match more suitable?--high rank, and large estate, and a man that
everybody speaks well of."

"Adriana will never marry except for the affections; there you are
right, Endymion; she must love and she must be loved; but that is not
very unreasonable in a person who is young, pretty, accomplished, and
intelligent."

"She is all that," said Endymion moodily.

"And she loves you," said Lady Roehampton.

Endymion rather started, looked up for a moment at his sister, and
then withdrew as hastily an agitated glance, and then with his eyes on
the ground said, in a voice half murmuring, and yet scoffingly: "I
should like to see Mr. Neuchatel's face were I to ask permission to
marry his daughter. I suppose he would not kick me downstairs; that is
out of fashion; but he certainly would never ask me to dinner again,
and that would be a sacrifice."

"You jest, Endymion; I am not jesting."

"There are some matters that can only be treated as a jest; and my
marriage with Miss Neuchatel is one."

"It would make you one of the most powerful men in England," said his
sister.

"Other impossible events would do the same."

"It is not impossible; it is very possible," said his sister, "believe
me, trust in me. The happiness of their daughter is more precious to
the Neuchatels even than their fortune."

"I do not see why, at my age, I should be in such a hurry to marry,"
said Endymion.

"You cannot marry too soon, if by so doing you obtain the great object
of life. Early marriages are to be deprecated, especially for men,
because they are too frequently imprudent; but when a man can marry
while he is young, and at once realise, by so doing, all the results
which successful time may bring to him, he should not hesitate."

"I hesitate very much," said Endymion. "I should hesitate very much,
even if affairs were as promising as I think you may erroneously
assume."

"But you must not hesitate, Endymion. We must never forget the great
object for which we two live, for which, I believe, we were born twins
--to rebuild our house; to raise it from poverty, and ignominy, and
misery and squalid shame, to the rank and position which we demand,
and which we believe we deserve. Did I hesitate when an offer of
marriage was made to me, and the most unexpected that could have
occurred? True it is, I married the best and greatest of men, but I
did not know that when I accepted his hand. I married him for your
sake, I married him for my own sake, for the sake of the house of
Ferrars, which I wished to release and raise from its pit of
desolation. I married him to secure for us both that opportunity for
our qualities which they had lost, and which I believed, if enjoyed,
would render us powerful and great."

Endymion rose from his seat and kissed his sister. "So long as you
live," he said, "we shall never be ignominious."

"Yes, but I am nothing; I am not a man, I am not a Ferrars. The best
of me is that I may be a transient help to you. It is you who must do
the deed. I am wearied of hearing you described as Lady Roehampton's
brother, or Lord Roehampton's brother-in-law. I shall never be content
till you are greater than we are, and there is but one and only one
immediate way of accomplishing it, it is by this marriage--and a
marriage with whom? with an angelic being!"

"You take me somewhat by surprise, Myra. My thoughts have not been
upon this matter. I cannot fairly describe myself at this moment as a
marrying man."

"I know what you mean. You have female friendships, and I approve of
them. They are invaluable to youth, and you have been greatly favoured
in this respect. They have been a great assistance to you; beware lest
they become a hindrance. A few years of such feelings in a woman's
life are a blazoned page, and when it is turned she has many other
chapters, though they may not be as brilliant or adorned. But these
few years in a man's life may be, and in your case certainly would be,
the very marrow of his destiny. During the last five or six years,
ever since our emancipation, there has been a gradual but continuous
development in your life. All has been preparatory for a position
which you have acquired. That position may lead to anything--in your
case, I will still believe, to everything--but there must be no
faltering. Having crossed the Alps, you must not find a Capua. I speak
to you as I have not spoken to you of late, because it was not
necessary. But here is an opportunity which must not be lost. I feel
half inspired, as when we parted in our misery at Hurstley, and I bade
you, poor and obscure, go forth and conquer the world."

Late on the night of the day, their last day at Paris, on which this
conversation took place, Endymion received a note in well-known
handwriting, and it ran thus:


 "If it be any satisfaction to you to know that you made me very
  unhappy by not dining here to-day, you may be gratified. I am very
  unhappy. I know that I was unkind this morning, and rude, but as
  my anger was occasioned by your leaving me, my conduct might annoy
  but surely could not mortify you. I shall see you to-morrow,
  however early you may depart, as I cannot let your dear sister
  leave Paris without my embracing her.
                                    "Your faithful friend,
                                                    "Berengaria."



                            CHAPTER LXXVI

In old days, it was the habit to think and say that the House of
Commons was an essentially "queer place," which no one could
understand until he was a member of it. It may, perhaps, be doubted
whether that somewhat mysterious quality still altogether attaches to
that assembly. "Our own Reporter," has invaded it in all its purlieus.
No longer content with giving an account of the speeches of its
members, he is not satisfied unless he describes their persons, their
dress, and their characteristic mannerisms. He tells us how they dine,
even the wines and dishes which they favour, and follows them into the
very mysteries of their smoking-room. And yet there is perhaps a
certain fine sense of the feelings, and opinions, and humours of this
assembly, which cannot be acquired by hasty notions and necessarily
superficial remarks, but must be the result of long and patient
observation, and of that quick sympathy with human sentiment, in all
its classes, which is involved in the possession of that inestimable
quality styled tact.

When Endymion Ferrars first took his seat in the House of Commons, it
still fully possessed its character of enigmatic tradition. It had
been thought that this, in a great degree, would have been dissipated
by the Reform Act of 1832, which suddenly introduced into the hallowed
precinct a number of individuals whose education, manners, modes of
thought, were different from those of the previous inhabitants, and in
some instances, and in some respects, quite contrary to them. But this
was not so. After a short time it was observed that the old material,
though at first much less in quantity, had leavened the new mass; that
the tone of the former House was imitated and adopted, and that at the
end of five years, about the time Endymion was returned to Parliament,
much of its serene, and refined, and even classical character had been
recovered.

For himself, he entered the chamber with a certain degree of awe,
which, with use, diminished, but never entirely disappeared. The scene
was one over which his boyhood even had long mused, and it was
associated with all those traditions of genius, eloquence, and power
that charm and inspire youth. His practical acquaintance with the
forms and habits of the House from his customary attendance on their
debates as private secretary to a cabinet minister, was of great
advantage to him, and restrained that excitement which dangerously
accompanies us when we enter into a new life, and especially a life of
such deep and thrilling interests and such large proportions. This
result was also assisted by his knowledge, at least by sight, of a
large proportion of the old members, and by his personal and sometimes
intimate acquaintance with those of his own party. There was much in
his position, therefore, to soften that awkward feeling of being a
freshman, which is always embarrassing.

He took his place on the second bench of the opposition side of the
House, and nearly behind Lord Roehampton. Mr. Bertie Tremaine, whom
Endymion encountered in the lobby as he was escaping to dinner, highly
disapproved of this step. He had greeted Endymion with affable
condescension. "You made your first mistake to-night, my dear Ferrars.
You should have taken your seat below the gangway and near me, on the
Mountain. You, like myself, are a man of the future."

"I am a member of the opposition. I do not suppose it signifies much
where I sit."

"On the contrary, it signifies everything. After this great Tory
reaction there is nothing to be done now by speeches, and, in all
probability, very little that can be effectually opposed. Much,
therefore, depends upon where you sit. If you sit on the Mountain, the
public imagination will be attracted to you, and when they are
aggrieved, which they will be in good time, the public passion, which
is called opinion, will look to you for representation. My advice to
my friends now is to sit together and say nothing, but to profess
through the press the most advanced opinions. We sit on the back bench
of the gangway, and we call ourselves the Mountain."

Notwithstanding Mr. Bertie Tremaine's oracular revelations, Endymion
was very glad to find his old friend Trenchard generally his
neighbour. He had a high opinion both of Trenchard's judgment and
acquirements, and he liked the man. In time they always managed to sit
together. Job Thornberry took his seat below the gangway, on the
opposition side, and on the floor of the House. Mr. Bertie Tremaine
had sent his brother, Mr. Tremaine Bertie, to look after this new
star, who he was anxious should ascend the Mountain; but Job
Thornberry wishing to know whether the Mountain were going for "total
and immediate," and not obtaining a sufficiently distinct reply,
declined the proffered intimation. Mr. Bertie Tremaine, being a landed
proprietor as well as leader of the Mountain, was too much devoted to
the rights of labour to sanction such middle-class madness.

"Peel with have to do it," said Job. "You will see."

"Peel now occupies the position of Necker," said Mr. Bertie Tremaine,
"and will make the same /fiasco/. Then you will at last have a popular
government."

"And the rights of labour?" asked Job. "All I hope is, I may have got
safe to the States before that day."

"There will be no danger," said Mr. Bertie Tremaine. "There is this
difference between the English Mountain and the French. The English
Mountain has its government prepared. And my brother spoke to you
because, when the hour arrives, I wished to see you a member of it."

"My dear Endymion," said Waldershare, "let us dine together before we
meet in mortal conflict, which I suppose will be soon. I really think
your Mr. Bertie Tremaine the most absurd being out of Colney Hatch."

"Well, he has a purpose," said Endymion; "and they say that a man with
a purpose generally sees it realised.'

"What I do like in him," said Waldershare, "is this revival of the
Pythagorean system, and a leading party of silence. That is rich."

One of the most interesting members of the House of Commons was Sir
Fraunceys Scrope. He was the father of the House, though it was
difficult to believe that from his appearance. He was tall, and had
kept his distinguished figure; a handsome man, with a musical voice,
and a countenance now benignant, though very bright, and once haughty.
He still retained the same fashion of costume in which he had ridden
up to Westminster more than half a century ago, from his seat in
Derbyshire, to support his dear friend Charles Fox; real top-boots,
and a blue coat and buff waistcoat. He was a great friend of Lord
Roehampton, had a large estate in the same county, and had refused an
earldom. Knowing Endymion, he came and sate by him one day in the
House, and asked him, good-naturedly, how he liked his new life.

"It is very different from what it was when I was your age. Up to
Easter we rarely had a regular debate, never a party division; very
few people came up indeed. But there was a good deal of speaking on
all subjects before dinner. We had the privilege then of speaking on
the presentation of petitions at any length, and we seldom spoke on
any other occasion. After Easter there was always at least one great
party fight. This was a mighty affair, talked of for weeks before it
came off, and then rarely an adjourned debate. We were gentlemen, used
to sit up late, and should have been sitting up somewhere else had we
not been in the House of Commons. After this party fight, the House
for the rest of the session was a mere club."

"There was not much business doing then," said Endymion.

"There was not much business in the country then. The House of Commons
was very much like what the House of Lords is now. You went home to
dine, and now and then came back for an important division."

"But you must always have had the estimates here," said Endymion.

"Yes, but they ran through very easily. Hume was the first man who
attacked the estimates. What are you going to do with yourself to-day?
Will you take your mutton with me? You must come in boots, for it is
now dinner-time, and you must return, I fancy. Twenty years ago, no
man would think of coming down to the House except in evening dress. I
remember so late as Mr. Canning, the minister always came down in silk
stockings and pantaloons, or knee breeches. All things change, and
quoting Virgil, as that young gentleman has just done, will be the
next thing to disappear. In the last parliament we often had Latin
quotations, but never from a member with a new constituency. I have
heard Greek quoted here, but that was long ago, and a great mistake.
The House was quite alarmed. Charles Fox used to say as to quotation--
'No Greek; as much Latin as you like; and never French under any
circumstances. No English poet unless he had completed his century.'
These were like some other good rules, the unwritten orders of the
House of Commons."



                            CHAPTER LXXVII

While parliaments were dissolving and ministries forming, the
disappointed seeking consolation and the successful enjoying their
triumph, Simon, Earl of Montfort, who just missed being a great
philosopher, was reading "Topsy Turvy," which infinitely amused him;
the style so picturesque and lambent! the tone so divertingly cynical!
And if the knowledge of society in its pages was not so distinguished
as that of human nature generally, this was a deficiency obvious only
to a comparatively limited circle of its readers.

Lord Montfort had reminded Endymion of his promise to introduce the
distinguished author to him, and accordingly, after due researches as
to his dwelling-place, Mr. Ferrars called in Jermyn Street and sent up
his card, to know whether Mr. St. Barbe would receive him. This was
evidently not a matter-of-course affair, and some little time had
elapsed when the maid-servant appeared, and beckoned to Endymion to
follow her upstairs.

In the front drawing-room of the first floor, robed in a flaming
dressing-gown, and standing with his back to the fire and to the
looking-glass, the frame of which was encrusted with cards of
invitation, the former colleague of Endymion received his visitor with
a somewhat haughty and reserved air.

"Well, I am delighted to see you again," said Endymion.

No reply but a ceremonious bow.

"And to congratulate you," Endymion added after a moment's pause. "I
hear of nothing but of your book; I suppose one of the most successful
that have appeared for a long time."

"Its success is not owing to your friends," said Mr. St. Barbe tartly.

"My friends!" said Endymion; "what could they have done to prevent
it?"

"They need not have dissolved parliament," said Mr. St. Barbe with
irritation. "It was nearly fatal to me; it would have been to anybody
else. I was selling forty thousand a month; I believe more than Gushy
ever reached; and so they dissolved parliament. The sale went down
half at once--and now you expect me to support your party!"

"Well, it was unfortunate, but the dissolution could hardly have done
you any permanent injury, and you could scarcely expect that such an
event could be postponed even for the advantage of an individual so
distinguished as yourself."

"Perhaps not," said St. Barbe, apparently a little mollified, "but
they might have done something to show their regret at it."

"Something!" said Endymion, "what sort of thing?"

"The prime minister might have called on me, or at least written to me
a letter. I want none of their honours; I have scores of letters every
day, suggesting that some high distinction should be conferred on me.
I believe the nation expects me to be made a baronet. By the by, I
heard the other day you had got into parliament. I know nothing of
these matters; they do not interest me. Is it the fact?"

"Well, I was so fortunate, and there are others of your old friends,
Trenchard, for example."

"You do not mean to say that Trenchard is in parliament!" said St.
Barbe, throwing off all his affected reserve. "Well, it is too
disgusting! Trenchard in parliament, and I obliged to think it a great
favour if a man gives me a frank! Well, representative institutions
have seen their day. That is something."

"I have come here on a social mission," said Endymion in a soothing
tone. "There is a great admirer of yours who much wishes to make your
acquaintance. Trusting to our old intimacy, of which of course I am
very proud, it was even hoped that you might waive ceremony, and come
and dine."

"Quite impossible!" exclaimed St. Barbe, and turning round, he pointed
to the legion of invitations before him. "You see, the world is at my
feet. I remember that fellow Seymour Hicks taking me to his rooms to
show me a card he had from a countess. What would he say to this?"

"Well, but you cannot be engaged to dinner every day," said Endymion;
"and you really may choose any day you like."

"Well, there are not many dinners among them, to be sure," said St.
Barbe. "Small and earlies. How I hate a 'small and early'! Shown into
a room where you meet a select few who have been asked to dinner, and
who are chewing the cud like a herd of kine, and you are expected to
tumble before them to assist their digestion! Faugh! No, sir; we only
dine out now, and we think twice, I can tell you, before we accept
even an invitation to dinner. Who's your friend?"

"Well, my friend is Lord Montfort."

"You do not mean to say that! And he is an admirer of mine?"

"An enthusiastic admirer."

"I will dine with Lord Montfort. There is no one who appreciates so
completely and so highly the old nobility of England as myself. They
are a real aristocracy. None of the pinchbeck pedigrees and ormolu
titles of the continent. Lord Montfort is, I think, an earl. A
splendid title, earl! an English earl; count goes for nothing. The
Earl of Montfort! An enthusiastic admirer of mine! The aristocracy of
England, especially the old aristocracy, are highly cultivated.
Sympathy from such a class is to be valued. I care for no other--I
have always despised the million of vulgar. They have come to me, not
I to them, and I have always told them the truth about themselves,
that they are a race of snobs, and they rather like being told so. And
now for your day?"

"Why not this day if you be free? I will call for you about eight, and
take you in my brougham to Montfort House."

"You have got a brougham! Well, I suppose so, being a member of
parliament, though I know a good many members of parliament who have
not got broughams. But your family, I remember, married into the
swells. I do not grudge it you. You were always a good comrade to me.
I never knew a man more free from envy than you, Ferrars, and envy is
an odious vice. There are people I know, who, when they hear I have
dined with the Earl of Montfort, will invent all sorts of stories
against me, and send them to what they call the journals of society."

"Well, then, it shall be to-day," said Endymion, rising.

"It shall be to-day, and to tell the truth, I was thinking this
morning where I should dine to-day. What I miss here are the cafes.
Now in Paris you can dine every day exactly as it suits your means and
mood. You may dine for a couple of francs in a quiet, unknown street,
and very well; or you may dine for a couple of napoleons in a flaming
saloon, with windows opening on a crowded boulevard. London is
deficient in dining capability."

"You should belong to a club. Do you not?"

"So I was told by a friend of mine the other day,--one of your great
swells. He said I ought to belong to the Athenaeum, and he would
propose me, and the committee would elect me as a matter of course.
They rejected me and selected a bishop. And then people are surprised
that the Church is in danger!"



                           CHAPTER LXXVIII

The condition of England at the meeting of Parliament in 1842 was not
satisfactory. The depression of trade in the manufacturing districts
seemed overwhelming, and continued increasing during the whole of the
year. A memorial from Stockport to the Queen in the spring represented
that more than half the master spinners had failed, and that no less
than three thousand dwelling-houses were untenanted. One-fifth of the
population of Leeds were dependent on the poor-rates. The state of
Sheffield was not less severe--and the blast furnaces of Wolverhampton
were extinguished. There were almost daily meetings, at Liverpool,
Manchester, and Leeds, to consider the great and increasing distress
of the country, and to induce ministers to bring forward remedial
measures; but as these were impossible, violence was soon substituted
for passionate appeals to the fears or the humanity of the government.
Vast bodies of the population assembled in Staleybridge, and Ashton,
and Oldham, and marched into Manchester.

For a week the rioting was unchecked, but the government despatched a
strong military force to that city, and order was restored.

The state of affairs in Scotland was not more favourable. There were
food riots in several of the Scotch towns, and in Glasgow the
multitude assembled, and then commenced what they called a begging
tour, but which was really a progress of not disguised intimidation.
The economic crisis in Ireland was yet to come, but the whole of that
country was absorbed in a harassing and dangerous agitation for the
repeal of the union between the two countries.

During all this time, the Anti-Corn Law League was holding regular and
frequent meetings at Manchester, at which statements were made
distinguished by great eloquence and little scruple. But the able
leaders of this confederacy never succeeded in enlisting the
sympathies of the great body of the population. Between the masters
and the workmen there was an alienation of feeling, which apparently
never could be removed. This reserve, however, did not enlist the
working classes on the side of the government; they had their own
object, and one which they themselves enthusiastically cherished. And
this was the Charter, a political settlement which was to restore the
golden age, and which the master manufacturers and the middle classes
generally looked upon with even more apprehension than Her Majesty's
advisers. It is hardly necessary to add, that in a state of affairs
like that which is here faintly but still faithfully sketched, the
rapid diminution of the revenue was inevitable, and of course that
decline mainly occurred in the two all-important branches of the
customs and excise.

There was another great misfortune also which at this trying time hung
over England. The country was dejected. The humiliating disasters of
Afghanistan, dark narratives of which were periodically arriving, had
produced a more depressing effect on the spirit of the country than
all the victories and menaces of Napoleon in the heyday of his wild
career. At home and abroad, there seemed nothing to sustain the
national spirit; financial embarrassment, commercial and manufacturing
distress, social and political agitation on the one hand, and on the
other, the loss of armies, of reputation, perhaps of empire. It was
true that these external misfortunes could hardly be attributed to the
new ministry--but when a nation is thoroughly perplexed and
dispirited, it soon ceases to make distinctions between political
parties. The country is out of sorts, and the "government" is held
answerable for the disorder.

Thus it will be seen, that, though the new ministry were supported by
a commanding majority in parliament, and that, too, after a recent
appeal to the country, they were not popular, it may be truly said
they were even the reverse. The opposition, on the other hand,
notwithstanding their discomfiture, and, on some subjects, their
disgrace, were by no means disheartened, and believed that there were
economical causes at work, which must soon restore them to power.

The minister brought forward his revision of the tariff, which was
denounced by the League as futile, and in which anathema the
opposition soon found it convenient to agree. Had the minister
included in his measure that "total and immediate repeal" of the
existing corn laws which was preached by many as a panacea, the effect
would have been probably much the same. No doubt a tariff may
aggravate, or may mitigate, such a condition of commercial depression
as periodically visits a state of society like that of England, but it
does not produce it. It was produced in 1842, as it had been produced
at the present time, by an abuse of capital and credit, and by a
degree of production which the wants of the world have not warranted.

And yet all this time, there were certain influences at work in the
great body of the nation, neither foreseen, nor for some time
recognised, by statesmen and those great capitalists on whose opinion
statesmen much depend, which were stirring, as it were, like the
unconscious power of the forces of nature, and which were destined to
baffle all the calculations of persons in authority and the leading
spirits of all parties, strengthen a perplexed administration,
confound a sanguine opposition, render all the rhetoric, statistics,
and subscriptions of the Anti-Corn Law League fruitless, and
absolutely make the Chartists forget the Charter.

"My friends will not assist themselves by resisting the government
measures," said Mr. Neuchatel, with his usual calm smile, half
sceptical, half sympathetic. "The measures will do no good, but they
will do no harm. There are no measures that will do any good at this
moment. We do not want measures; what we want is a new channel."

That is exactly what was wanted. There was abundant capital in the
country and a mass of unemployed labour. But the markets on which they
had of late depended, the American especially, were overworked and
overstocked, and in some instances were not only overstocked, but
disturbed by war, as the Chinese, for example--and capital and labour
wanted "a new channel."

The new channel came, and all the persons of authority, alike
political and commercial, seemed quite surprised that it had arrived;
but when a thing or a man is wanted, they generally appear. One or two
lines of railway, which had been long sleepily in formation, about
this time were finished, and one or two lines of railway, which had
been finished for some time and were unnoticed, announced dividends,
and not contemptible ones. Suddenly there was a general feeling in the
country, that its capital should be invested in railways; that the
whole surface of the land should be transformed, and covered, as by a
network, with these mighty means of communication. When the passions
of the English, naturally an enthusiastic people, are excited on a
subject of finance, their will, their determination, and resource, are
irresistible. This was signally proved in the present instance, for
they never ceased subscribing their capital until the sum entrusted to
this new form of investment reached an amount almost equal to the
national debt; and this too in a very few years. The immediate effect
on the condition of the country was absolutely prodigious. The value
of land rose, all the blast furnaces were relit, a stimulant was given
to every branch of the home trade, the amount suddenly paid in wages
exceeded that ever known in this country, and wages too at a high
rate. Large portions of the labouring classes not only enjoyed
comfort, but commanded luxury. All this of course soon acted on the
revenue, and both customs and especially excise soon furnished an
ample surplus.

It cannot be pretended that all this energy and enterprise were free
in their operation from those evils which, it seems, must inevitably
attend any extensive public speculation, however well founded. Many of
the scenes and circumstances recalled the days of the South Sea
Scheme. The gambling in shares of companies which were formed only in
name was without limit. The principal towns of the north established
for that purpose stock exchanges of their own, and Leeds especially,
one-fifth of whose population had been authoritatively described in
the first session of the new parliament as dependent on the poor-
rates, now boasted a stock exchange which in the extent of its
transactions rivalled that of the metropolis. And the gambling was
universal, from the noble to the mechanic. It was confined to no class
and to no sex. The scene which took place at the Board of Trade on the
last day on which plans could be lodged, and when midnight had arrived
while crowds from the country were still filling the hall, and
pressing at the doors, deserved and required for its adequate
representation the genius of a Hogarth. This was the day on which it
was announced that the total number of railway projects, on which
deposits had been paid, had reached nearly to eight hundred.

What is remarkable in this vast movement in which so many millions
were produced, and so many more promised, is, that the great leaders
of the financial world took no part in it. The mighty loan-mongers, on
whose fiat the fate of kings and empires sometimes depended, seemed
like men who, witnessing some eccentricity of nature, watch it with
mixed feelings of curiosity and alarm. Even Lombard Street, which
never was more wanted, was inactive, and it was only by the
irresistible pressure of circumstances that a banking firm which had
an extensive country connection was ultimately forced to take the
leading part that was required, and almost unconsciously lay the
foundation of the vast fortunes which it has realised, and organise
the varied connection which it now commands. All seemed to come from
the provinces, and from unknown people in the provinces.

But in all affairs there must be a leader, and a leader appeared. He
was more remarkable than the movement itself. He was a London
tradesman, though a member of parliament returned for the first time
to this House of Commons. This leader was Mr. Vigo.

Mr. Vigo had foreseen what was coming, and had prepared for it. He
agreed with Mr. Neuchatel, what was wanted was "a new channel." That
channel he thought he had discovered, and he awaited it. He himself
could command no inconsiderable amount of capital, and he had a
following of obscure rich friends who believed in him, and did what he
liked. His daily visits to the City, except when he was travelling
over England, and especially the north and midland counties, had their
purpose and bore fruit. He was a director, and soon the chairman and
leading spirit, of a railway which was destined to be perhaps our most
important one. He was master of all the details of the business; he
had arrived at conclusions on the question of the gauges, which then
was a /pons asinorum/ for the multitude, and understood all about
rolling stock and permanent ways, and sleepers and branch lines, which
were then cabalistic terms to the general. In his first session in
parliament he had passed quietly and almost unnoticed several bills on
these matters, and began to be recognised by the Committee of
Selection as a member who ought to be "put on" for questions of this
kind.

The great occasion had arrived, and Mr. Vigo was equal to it. He was
one of those few men who awake one day and find themselves famous.
Suddenly it would seem that the name of Mr. Vigo was in everybody's
mouth. There was only one subject which interested the country, and he
was recognised as the man who best understood it. He was an oracle,
and, naturally, soon became an idol. The tariff of the ministers was
forgotten, the invectives of the League were disregarded, their
motions for the repeal of the corn laws were invariably defeated by
large and contemptuous majorities. The House of Commons did nothing
but pass railway bills, measures which were welcomed with unanimity by
the House of Lords, whose estates were in consequence daily increasing
in value. People went to the gallery to see Mr. Vigo introduce bills,
and could scarcely restrain their enthusiasm at the spectacle of so
much patriotic energy, which secured for them premiums for shares,
which they held in undertakings of which the first sod was not yet
cut. On one morning, the Great Cloudland Company, of which he was
chairman, gave their approval of twenty-six bills, which he
immediately introduced into parliament. Next day, the Ebor and North
Cloudland sanctioned six bills under his advice, and affirmed deeds
and agreements which affected all the principal railway projects in
Lancashire and Yorkshire. A quarter of an hour later, just time to
hurry from one meeting to another, where he was always received with
rampant enthusiasm, Newcastle and the extreme north accepted his
dictatorship. During a portion of two days, he obtained the consent of
shareholders to forty bills, involving an expenditure of ten millions;
and the engagements for one session alone amounted to one hundred and
thirty millions sterling.

Mr. Neuchatel shrugged his shoulders, but no one would listen even to
Mr. Neuchatel, when the prime minister himself, supposed to be the
most wary of men, and especially on financial subjects, in the very
white heat of all this speculation, himself raised the first sod on
his own estate in a project of extent and importance.

Throughout these extraordinary scenes, Mr. Vigo, though not free from
excitement, exhibited, on the whole, much self-control. He was
faithful to his old friends, and no one profited more in this respect
than Mr. Rodney. That gentleman became the director of several lines,
and vice-chairman of one over which Mr. Vigo himself presided. No one
was surprised that Mr. Rodney therefore should enter parliament. He
came in by virtue of one of those petitions that Tadpole was always
cooking, or baffling. Mr. Rodney was a supporter of the ministry, and
Mr. Vigo was a Liberal, but Mr. Vigo returned Mr. Rodney to parliament
all the same, and no one seemed astonished or complained. Political
connection, political consistency, political principle, all vanished
before the fascination of premiums.

As for Endymion, the great man made him friendly and earnest
overtures, and offered, if he would give his time to business, which,
as he was in opposition, would be no great sacrifice, to promote and
secure his fortune. But Endymion, after due reflection, declined,
though with gratitude, these tempting proposals. Ferrars was an
ambitious man, but not too imaginative a one. He had a main object in
life, and that was to regain the position which had been forfeited,
not by his own fault. His grandfather and his father before him had
both been privy councillors and ministers of state. There had, indeed,
been more than the prospect of his father filling a very prominent
position. All had been lost, but the secret purpose of the life of
Endymion was that, from being a clerk in a public office, he should
arrive by his own energies at the station to which he seemed, as it
were, born. To accomplish this he felt that the entire devotion of his
labour and thought was requisite. His character was essentially
tenacious, and he had already realised no inconsiderable amount of
political knowledge and official experience. His object seemed
difficult and distant, but there was nothing wild or visionary in its
pursuit. He had achieved some of the first steps, and he was yet very
young. There were friends about him, however, who were not content
with what they deemed his moderate ambition, and thought they
discerned in him qualities which might enable him to mount to a higher
stage. However this might be, his judgment was that he must resist the
offers of Mr. Vigo, though they were sincerely kind, and so he felt
them.

In the meantime, he frequently met that gentleman, and not merely in
the House of Commons. Mr. St. Barbe would have been frantically
envious could he have witnessed and perused the social invitations
that fell like a continuous snow-storm on the favoured roof of Mr.
Vigo. Mr. Vigo was not a party question. He dined with high patricians
who forgot their political differences, while they agreed in courting
the presence of this great benefactor of his country. The fine ladies
were as eager in their homage to this real patriot, and he might be
seen between rival countesses, who emulated each other in their
appreciation of his public services. These were Mr. Vigo's dangerous
suitors. He confessed to Endymion one day that he could not manage the
great ladies. "Male swells," he would say laughingly, "I have measured
physically and intellectually." The golden youth of the country seemed
fascinated by his society, repeated his sententious bons-mot, and
applied for shares in every company which he launched into prosperous
existence.

Mr. Vigo purchased a splendid mansion in St. James' Square, where
invitations to his banquets were looked upon almost as commands. His
chief cook was one of the celebrities of Europe, and though he had
served emperors, the salary he received from Mr. Vigo exceeded any one
he had hitherto condescended to pocket. Mr. Vigo bought estates, hired
moors, lavished his money, not only with profusion, but with
generosity. Everything was placed at his command, and it appeared that
there was nothing that he refused. "When this excitement is over,"
said Mr. Bertie Tremaine, "I hope to induce him to take India."

In the midst of this commanding effulgence, the calmer beam of Mr.
Rodney might naturally pass unnoticed, yet its brightness was clear
and sustained. The Rodneys engaged a dwelling of no mean proportion in
that favoured district of South Kensington, which was then beginning
to assume the high character it has since obtained. Their equipages
were distinguished, and when Mrs. Rodney entered the Park, driving her
matchless ponies, and attended by outriders, and herself bright as
Diana, the world leaning over its palings witnessed her appearance
with equal delight and admiration.



                            CHAPTER LXXIX

We have rather anticipated, for the sake of the subject, in our last
chapter, and we must now recur to the time when, after his return from
Paris, Endymion entered into what was virtually his first session in
the House of Commons. Though in opposition, and with all the delights
of the most charming society at his command, he was an habitual and
constant attendant. One might have been tempted to believe that he
would turn out to be, though a working, only a silent member, but his
silence was only prudence. He was deeply interested and amused in
watching the proceedings, especially when those took part in them with
whom he was acquainted. Job Thornberry occupied a leading position in
the debates. He addressed the House very shortly after he took his
seat, and having a purpose and a most earnest one, and being what is
styled a representative man of his subject, the House listened to him
at once, and his place in debate was immediately recognised. The times
favoured him, especially during the first and second session, while
the commercial depression lasted; afterwards, he was always listened
to, because he had great oratorical gifts, a persuasive style that was
winning, and, though he had no inconsiderable powers of sarcasm, his
extreme tact wisely guided him to restrain for the present that
dangerous, though most effective, weapon.

The Pythagorean school, as Waldershare styled Mr. Bertie Tremaine and
his following, very much amused Endymion. The heaven-born minister air
of the great leader was striking. He never smiled, or at any rate
contemptuously. Notice of a question was sometimes publicly given from
this bench, but so abstruse in its nature and so quaint in its
expression, that the House never comprehended it, and the unfortunate
minister who had to answer, even with twenty-four hours' study, was
obliged to commence his reply by a conjectural interpretation of the
query formally addressed to him. But though they were silent in the
House, their views were otherwise powerfully represented. The weekly
journal devoted to their principles was sedulously circulated among
members of the House. It was called the "Precursor," and
systematically attacked not only every institution, but, it might be
said, every law, and all the manners and customs, of the country. Its
style was remarkable, never excited or impassioned, but frigid,
logical, and incisive, and suggesting appalling revolutions with the
calmness with which one would narrate the ordinary incidents of life.
The editor of the "Precursor" was Mr. Jawett, selected by that great
master of human nature, Mr. Bertie Tremaine. When it got about, that
the editor of this fearful journal was a clerk in a public office, the
indignation of the government, or at least of their supporters, was
extreme, and there was no end to the punishments and disgrace to which
he was to be subjected; but Waldershare, who lived a good deal in
Bohemia, was essentially cosmopolitan, and dabbled in letters,
persuaded his colleagues not to make the editor of the "Precursor" a
martyr, and undertook with their authority to counteract his evil
purposes by literary means alone.

Being fully empowered to take all necessary steps for this object,
Waldershare thought that there was no better mode of arresting public
attention to his enterprise than by engaging for its manager the most
renowned pen of the hour, and he opened himself on the subject in the
most sacred confidence to Mr. St. Barbe. That gentleman, invited to
call upon a minister, sworn to secrecy, and brimful of state secrets,
could not long restrain himself, and with admirable discretion
consulted on his views and prospects Mr. Endymion Ferrars.

"But I thought you were one of us," said Endymion; "you asked me to
put you in the way of getting into Brooks'!"

"What of that?" said Mr. St. Barbe; "and when you remember what the
Whigs owe to literary men, they ought to have elected me into Brooks'
without my asking for it."

"Still, if you be on the other side?"

"It is nothing to do with sides," said Mr. St. Barbe; "this affair
goes far beyond sides. The 'Precursor' wants to put down the Crown; I
shall put down the 'Precursor.' It is an affair of the closet, not of
sides--an affair of the royal closet, sir. I am acting for the Crown,
sir; the Crown has appealed to me. I save the Crown, and there must be
personal relations with the highest," and he looked quite fierce.

"Well, you have not written your first article yet," said Endymion. "I
shall look forward to it with much interest."

After Easter, Lord Roehampton said to Endymion that a question ought
to be put on a subject of foreign policy of importance, and on which
he thought the ministry were in difficulties; "and I think you might
as well ask it, Endymion. I will draw up the question, and you will
give notice of it. It will be a reconnaissance."

The notice of this question was the first time Endymion opened his
mouth in the House of Commons. It was an humble and not a very
hazardous office, but when he got on his legs his head swam, his heart
beat so violently, that it was like a convulsion preceding death, and
though he was only on his legs for a few seconds, all the sorrows of
his life seemed to pass before him. When he sate down, he was quite
surprised that the business of the House proceeded as usual, and it
was only after some time that he became convinced that no one but
himself was conscious of his sufferings, or that he had performed a
routine duty otherwise than in a routine manner.

The crafty question, however, led to some important consequences. When
asked, to the surprise of every one the minister himself replied to
it. Waldershare, with whom Endymion dined at Bellamy's that day, was
in no good humour in consequence.

When Lord Roehampton had considered the ministerial reply, he said to
Endymion, "This must be followed up. You must move for papers. It will
be a good opportunity for you, for the House is up to something being
in the wind, and they will listen. It will be curious to see whether
the minister follows you. If so, he will give me an opening."

Endymion felt that this was the crisis of his life. He knew the
subject well, and he had all the tact and experience of Lord
Roehampton to guide him in his statement and his arguments. He had
also the great feeling that, if necessary, a powerful arm would
support him. It was about a week before the day arrived, and Endymion
slept very little that week, and the night before his motion not a
wink. He almost wished he was dead as he walked down to the House in
the hope that the exercise might remedy, or improve, his languid
circulation; but in vain, and when his name was called and he had to
rise, his hands and feet were like ice.

Lady Roehampton and Lady Montfort were both in the ventilator, and he
knew it.

It might be said that he was sustained by his utter despair. He felt
so feeble and generally imbecile, that he had not vitality enough to
be sensible of failure.

He had a kind audience, and an interested one. When he opened his
mouth, he forgot his first sentence, which he had long prepared. In
trying to recall it and failing, he was for a moment confused. But it
was only for a moment; the unpremeditated came to his aid, and his
voice, at first tremulous, was recognised as distinct and rich. There
was a murmur of sympathy, and not merely from his own side. Suddenly,
both physically and intellectually, he was quite himself. His arrested
circulation flowed, and fed his stagnant brain. His statement was
lucid, his arguments were difficult to encounter, and his manner was
modest. He sate down amid general applause, and though he was then
conscious that he had omitted more than one point on which he had
relied, he was on the whole satisfied, and recollected that he might
use them in reply, a privilege to which he now looked forward with
feelings of comfort and confidence.

The minister again followed him, and in an elaborate speech. The
subject evidently, in the opinion of the minister, was of too delicate
and difficult a character to trust to a subordinate. Overwhelmed as he
was with the labours of his own department, the general conduct of
affairs, and the leadership of the House, he still would undertake the
representation of an office with whose business he was not familiar.
Wary and accurate he always was, but in discussions on foreign
affairs, he never exhibited the unrivalled facility with which he ever
treated a commercial or financial question, or that plausible
promptness with which, at a moment's notice, he could encounter any
difficulty connected with domestic administration.

All these were qualities which Lord Roehampton possessed with
reference to the affairs over which he had long presided, and in the
present instance, following the minister, he was particularly happy.
He had a good case, and he was gratified by the success of Endymion.
He complimented him and confuted his opponent, and, not satisfied with
demolishing his arguments, Lord Roehampton indulged in a little
raillery which the House enjoyed, but which was never pleasing to the
more solemn organisation of his rival.

No language can describe the fury of Waldershare as to the events of
this evening. He looked upon the conduct of the minister, in not
permitting him to represent his department, as a decree of the
incapacity of his subordinate, and of the virtual termination of the
official career of the Under-Secretary of State. He would have
resigned the next day had it not been for the influence of Lady
Beaumaris, who soothed him by suggesting, that it would be better to
take an early opportunity of changing his present post for another.

The minister was wrong. He was not fond of trusting youth, but it is a
confidence which should be exercised, particularly in the conduct of a
popular assembly. If the under-secretary had not satisfactorily
answered Endymion, which no one had a right to assume, for Waldershare
was a brilliant man, the minister could have always advanced to the
rescue at the fitting time. As it was, he made a personal enemy of one
who naturally might have ripened into a devoted follower, and who from
his social influence, as well as from his political talents, was no
despicable foe.



                             CHAPTER LXXX

Notwithstanding the great political, and consequently social, changes
that had taken place, no very considerable alteration occurred in the
general life of those chief personages in whose existence we have
attempted to interest the reader. However vast may appear to be the
world in which we move, we all of us live in a limited circle. It is
the result of circumstances; of our convenience and our taste. Lady
Beaumaris became the acknowledged leader of Tory society, and her
husband was so pleased with her position, and so proud of it, that he
in a considerable degree sacrificed his own pursuits and pleasures for
its maintenance. He even refused the mastership of a celebrated hunt,
which had once been an object of his highest ambition, that he might
be early and always in London to support his wife in her receptions.
Imogene herself was universally popular. Her gentle and natural
manners, blended with a due degree of self-respect, her charming
appearance, and her ready but unaffected sympathy, won every heart.
Lady Roehampton was her frequent guest. Myra continued her duties as a
leader of society, as her lord was anxious that the diplomatic world
should not forget him. These were the two principal and rival houses.
The efforts of Lady Montfort were more fitful, for they were to a
certain degree dependent on the moods of her husband. It was observed
that Lady Beaumaris never omitted attending the receptions of Lady
Roehampton, and the tone of almost reverential affection with which
she ever approached Myra was touching to those who were in the secret,
but they were few.

No great change occurred in the position of Prince Florestan, except
that in addition to the sports to which he was apparently devoted, he
gradually began to interest himself in the turf. He had bred several
horses of repute, and one, which he had named Lady Roehampton, was the
favourite for a celebrated race. His highness was anxious that Myra
should honour him by being his guest. This had never occurred before,
because Lord Roehampton felt that so avowed an intimacy with a
personage in the peculiar position of Prince Florestan was hardly
becoming a Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs; but that he was no
longer, and being the most good-natured man that ever lived, and
easily managed in little things, he could not refuse Myra when she
consulted him, as they call it, on the subject, and it was settled
that Lord and Lady Roehampton were to dine with Prince Florestan. The
prince was most anxious that Mr. Sidney Wilton should take this
occasion of consenting to a reconciliation with him, and Lady
Roehampton exerted herself much for this end. Mr. Sidney Wilton was in
love with Lady Roehampton, and yet on this point he was inexorable.
Lord and Lady Beaumaris went, and Lady Montfort, to whom the prince
had addressed a private note of his own that quite captivated her, and
Mr. and Mrs. Neuchatel and Adriana. Waldershare, Endymion, and Baron
Sergius completed the guests, who were received by the Duke of St.
Angelo and a couple of aides-de-camp. When the prince entered all
rose, and the ladies curtseyed very low. Lord Roehampton resumed his
seat immediately, saying to his neighbour, "I rose to show my respect
to my host; I sit down to show that I look upon him as a subject like
myself."

"A subject of whom?" inquired Lady Montfort.

"There is something in that," said Lord Roehampton, smiling.

The Duke of St. Angelo was much disturbed by the conduct of Lord
Roehampton, which had disappointed his calculations, and he went about
lamenting that Lord Roehampton had a little gout.

They had assembled in the library and dined on the same floor. The
prince was seated between Lady Montfort, whom he accompanied to
dinner, and Lady Roehampton. Adriana fell to Endymion's lot. She
looked very pretty, was beautifully dressed, and for her, was even
gay. Her companion was in good spirits, and she seemed interested and
amused. The prince never spoke much, but his remarks always told. He
liked murmuring to women, but when requisite, he could throw a fly
over the table with adroitness and effect. More than once during the
dinner he whispered to Lady Roehampton: "This is too kind--your coming
here. But you have always been my best friend." The dinner would have
been lively and successful even if Waldershare had not been there, but
he to-day was exuberant and irresistible. His chief topic was abuse of
the government of which he was a member, and he lavished all his
powers of invective and ridicule alike on the imbecility of their
policy and their individual absurdities. All this much amused Lady
Montfort, and gave Lord Roehampton an opportunity to fool the Under-
Secretary of State to the top of his bent.

"If you do not take care," said Mr. Neuchatel, "they will turn you
out."

"I wish they would," said Waldershare. "That is what I am longing for.
I should go then all over the country and address public meetings. It
would be the greatest thing since Sacheverell."

"Our people have not behaved well to Mr. Waldershare," whispered
Imogene to Lord Roehampton, "but I think we shall put it all right."

"Do you believe it?" inquired Lady Montfort of Lord Roehampton. He had
been speaking to her for some little time in a hushed tone, and rather
earnestly.

"Indeed I do; I cannot well see what there is to doubt about it. We
know the father very well--an excellent man; he was the parish priest
of Lady Roehampton before her marriage, when she lived in the country.
And we know from him that more than a year ago something was
contemplated. The son gave up his living then; he has remained at Rome
ever since. And now I am told he returns to us, the Pope's legate and
an archbishop /in partibus/!"

"It is most interesting," said Lady Montfort. "I was always his great
admirer."

"I know that; you and Lady Roehampton made me go and hear him. The
father will be terribly distressed."

"I do not care at all about the father," said Lady Montfort; "but the
son had such a fine voice and was so very good-looking. I hope I shall
see him."

They were speaking of Nigel Penruddock, whose movements had been a
matter of much mystery during the last two years. Rumours of his
having been received into the Roman Church had been often rife;
sometimes flatly, and in time faintly, contradicted. Now the facts
seemed admitted, and it would appear that he was about to return to
England not only as a Roman Catholic, but as a distinguished priest of
the Church, and, it was said, even the representative of the Papacy.

All the guests rose at the same time--a pleasant habit--and went
upstairs to the brilliantly lighted saloons. Lord Roehampton seated
himself by Baron Sergius, with whom he was always glad to converse.
"We seem here quiet and content?" said the ex-minister inquiringly.

"I hope so, and I think so," said Sergius. "He believes in his star,
and will leave everything to its influence. There are to be no more
adventures."

"It must be a great relief to Lord Roehampton to have got quit of
office," said Mrs. Neuchatel to Lady Roehampton. "I always pitied him
so much. I never can understand why people voluntarily incur such
labours and anxiety."

"You should join us," said Mr. Neuchatel to Waldershare. "They would
be very glad to see you at Brooks'."

"Brooks' may join the October Club which I am going to revive," said
Waldershare.

"I never heard of that club," said Mr. Neuchatel.

"It was a much more important thing than the Bill of Rights or the Act
of Settlement," said Waldershare, "all the same."

"I want to see his mother's portrait in the farther saloon," said Lady
Montfort to Myra.

"Let us go together." And Lady Roehampton rose, and they went.

It was a portrait of Queen Agrippina by a master hand, and admirably
illumined by reflected light, so that it seemed to live.

"She must have been very beautiful," said Lady Montfort.

"Mr. Sidney Wilton was devotedly attached to her, my lord has told
me," said Lady Roehampton.

"So many were devotedly attached to her," said Lady Montfort.

"Yes; she was like Mary of Scotland, whom some men are in love with
even to this day. Her spell was irresistible. There are no such women
now."

"Yes; there is one," said Lady Montfort, suddenly turning round and
embracing Lady Roehampton; "and I know she hates me, because she
thinks I prevent her brother from marrying."

"Dear Lady Montfort, how can you use such strong expressions? I am
sure there can be only one feeling of Endymion's friends to you, and
that is gratitude for your kindness to him."

"I have done nothing for him; I can do nothing for him. I felt that
when we were trying to get him into parliament. If he could marry, and
be independent, and powerful, and rich, it would be better, perhaps,
for all of us."

"I wish he were independent, and powerful, and rich," said Myra
musingly. "That would be a fairy tale. At present, he must be content
that he has some of the kindest friends in the world."

"He interests me very much; no one so much. I am sincerely, even
deeply attached to him; but it is like your love, it is a sister's
love. There is only one person I really love in the world, and alas!
he does not love me!" And her voice was tremulous.

"Do not say such things, dear Lady Montfort. I never can believe what
you sometimes intimate on that subject. Do you know, I think it a
little hallucination."

Lady Montfort shook her head with a truly mournful expression, and
then suddenly, her beautiful face wreathed with smiles, she said in a
gay voice, "We will not think of such sorrows. I wish them to be
entombed in my heart, but the spectres will rise sometimes. Now about
your brother. I do not mean to say that it would not be a great loss
to me if he married, but I wish him to marry if you do. For myself, I
must have a male friend, and he must be very clever, and thoroughly
understand politics. You know you deprived me of Lord Roehampton," she
continued smilingly, "who was everything I could desire; and the Count
of Ferroll would have suited me excellently, but then he ran away. Now
Endymion could not easily run away, and he is so agreeable and so
intelligent, that at last I thought I had found a companion worth
helping--and I meant, and still mean, to work hard--until he is prime
minister."

"I have my dreams too about that," said Lady Roehampton, "but we are
all about the same age, and can wait a little."

"He cannot be minister too soon," said Lady Montfort. "It was not
being minister soon that ruined Charles Fox."

The party broke up. The prince made a sign to Waldershare, which meant
a confidential cigar, and in a few minutes they were alone together.

"What women!" exclaimed the prince. "Not to be rivalled in this city,
and yet quite unlike each other."

"And which do you admire most, sir?" said Waldershare.

The prince trimmed his cigar, and then he said, "I will tell you this
day five years."



                            CHAPTER LXXXI

The ecclesiastical incident mentioned at the dinner described in our
last chapter, produced a considerable effect in what is called
society. Nigel Penruddock had obtained great celebrity as a preacher,
while his extreme doctrines and practices had alike amazed,
fascinated, and alarmed a large portion of the public. For some time
he had withdrawn from the popular gaze, but his individuality was too
strong to be easily forgotten, even if occasional paragraphs as to his
views and conduct, published, contradicted, and reiterated, were not
sufficient to sustain, and even stimulate, curiosity. That he was
about to return to his native land, as the Legate of His Holiness, was
an event which made many men look grave, and some female hearts
flutter.

The memory of Lady Roehampton could not escape from the past, and she
could not recall it and all the scenes at Hurstley without emotion;
and Lady Montfort remembered with some pride and excitement, that the
Legate of the Pope had been one of her heroes. It was evident that he
had no wish to avoid his old acquaintances, for shortly after his
arrival, and after he had assembled his suffragans, and instructed the
clergy of his district, for dioceses did not then exist, Archbishop
Penruddock, for so the Metropolitan of Tyre simply styled himself,
called upon both these ladies.

His first visit was to Myra, and notwithstanding her disciplined self-
control, her intense pride, and the deep and daring spirit which
always secretly sustained her, she was nervous and agitated, but only
in her boudoir. When she entered the saloon to welcome him, she seemed
as calm as if she were going to an evening assembly.

Nigel was changed. Instead of that anxious and moody look which
formerly marred the refined beauty of his countenance, his glance was
calm and yet radiant. He was thinner, it might almost be said
emaciated, which seemed to add height to his tall figure.

Lady Roehampton need not have been nervous about the interview, and
the pain of its inevitable associations. Except one allusion at the
end of his visit, when his Grace mentioned some petty grievance, of
which he wished to relieve his clergy, and said, "I think I will
consult your brother; being in the opposition, he will be less
embarrassed than some of my friends in the government, or their
supporters," he never referred to the past. All he spoke of was the
magnitude of his task, the immense but inspiring labours which awaited
him, and his deep sense of his responsibility. Nothing but the Divine
principle of the Church could sustain him. He was at one time hopeful
that His Holiness might have thought the time ripe for the restoration
of the national hierarchy, but it was decreed otherwise. Had it been
accorded, no doubt it would have assisted him. A prelate /in partibus/
is, in a certain sense, a stranger, whatever his duties, and the world
is more willing when it is appealed to by one who has "a local
habitation and a name;" he is identified with the people among whom he
lives. There was much to do. The state of the Catholic poor in his own
district was heartrending. He never could have conceived such misery,
and that too under the shadow of the Abbey. The few schools which
existed were wretched, and his first attention must be given to this
capital deficiency. He trusted much to female aid. He meant to invite
the great Catholic ladies to unite with him in a common labour of
love. In this great centre of civilisation, and wealth, and power,
there was need of the spirit of a St. Ursula.

No one seemed more pleased by the return of Archbishop Penruddock than
Lord Montfort. He appeared to be so deeply interested in his Grace's
mission, sought his society so often, treated him with such profound
respect, almost ceremony, asked so many questions about what was
happening at Rome, and what was going to be done here--that Nigel
might have been pardoned if he did not despair of ultimately inducing
Lord Montfort to return to the faith of his illustrious ancestors. And
yet, all this time, Lord Montfort was only amusing himself; a new
character was to him a new toy, and when he could not find one, he
would dip into the "Memoirs of St. Simon."

Instead of avoiding society, as was his wont in the old days, the
Archbishop sought it. And there was nothing exclusive in his social
habits; all classes and all creeds, all conditions and orders of men,
were alike interesting to him; they were part of the mighty community,
with all whose pursuits, and passions, and interests, and occupations
he seemed to sympathise, but respecting which he had only one object--
to bring them back once more to that imperial fold from which, in an
hour of darkness and distraction, they had miserably wandered. The
conversion of England was deeply engraven on the heart of Penruddock;
it was his constant purpose, and his daily and nightly prayer.

So the Archbishop was seen everywhere, even at fashionable assemblies.
He was a frequent guest at banquets which he never tasted, for he was
a smiling ascetic, and though he seemed to be preaching or celebrating
high mass in every part of the metropolis, organising schools,
establishing convents, and building cathedrals, he could find time to
move philanthropic resolutions at middle-class meetings, attend
learned associations, and even occasionally send a paper to the Royal
Society.

The person who fell most under the influence of the archbishop was
Waldershare. He was fairly captivated by him. Nothing would satisfy
Waldershare till he had brought the archbishop and Prince Florestan
together. "You are a Roman Catholic prince, sir," he would say. "It is
absolute folly to forego such a source of influence and power as the
Roman Catholic Church. Here is your man; a man made for the occasion,
a man who may be pope. Come to an understanding with him, and I
believe you will regain your throne in a year."

"But, my dear Waldershare, it is very true I am a Roman Catholic, but
I am also the head of the Liberal party in my country, and perhaps
also on the continent of Europe, and they are not particularly
affected to archbishops and popes."

"Old-fashioned twaddle of the Liberal party," exclaimed Waldershare.
"There is more true democracy in the Roman Catholic Church than in all
the secret societies of Europe."

"There is something in that," said the prince musingly, "and my
friends are Roman Catholics, nominally Roman Catholics. If I were
quite sure your man and the priests generally were nominally Roman
Catholics, something might be done."

"As for that," said Waldershare, "sensible men are all of the same
religion."

"And pray what is that?" inquired the prince.

"Sensible men never tell."

Perhaps there was no family which suited him more, and where the
archbishop became more intimate, than the Neuchatels. He very much
valued a visit to Hainault, and the miscellaneous and influential
circles he met there--merchant princes, and great powers of Lombard
Street and the Stock Exchange. The Governor of the Bank happened to be
a high churchman, and listened to the archbishop with evident relish.
Mrs. Neuchatel also acknowledged the spell of his society, and he
quite agreed with her that people should be neither so poor nor so
rich. She had long mused over plans of social amelioration, and her
new ally was to teach her how to carry them into practice. As for Mr.
Neuchatel, he was pleased that his wife was amused, and liked the
archbishop as he liked all clever men. "You know," he would say, "I am
in favour of all churches, provided, my lord archbishop, they do not
do anything very foolish. Eh? So I shall subscribe to your schools
with great pleasure. We cannot have too many schools, even if they
only keep young people from doing mischief."



                            CHAPTER LXXXII

The prosperity of the country was so signal, while Mr. Vigo was
unceasingly directing millions of our accumulated capital, and
promises of still more, into the "new channel," that it seemed beyond
belief that any change of administration could even occur, at least in
the experience of the existing generation. The minister to whose happy
destiny it had fallen to gratify the large appetites and reckless
consuming powers of a class now first known in our social hierarchy as
"Navvies," was hailed as a second Pitt. The countenance of the
opposition was habitually dejected, with the exception of those
members of it on whom Mr. Vigo graciously conferred shares, and Lady
Montfort taunted Mr. Sidney Wilton with inquiries, why he and his
friends had not made railroads, instead of inventing nonsense about
cheap bread. Job Thornberry made wonderful speeches in favour of total
and immediate repeal of the corn laws, and the Liberal party, while
they cheered him, privately expressed their regret that such a capital
speaker, who might be anything, was not a practical man. Low prices,
abundant harvests, and a thriving commerce had rendered all appeals,
varied even by the persuasive ingenuity of Thornberry, a wearisome
irritation; and, though the League had transplanted itself from
Manchester to the metropolis, and hired theatres for their rhetoric,
the close of 1845 found them nearly reduced to silence.

Mr. Bertie Tremaine, who was always studying the spirit of the age,
announced to the initiated that Mr. Vigo had something of the
character and structure of Napoleon, and that he himself began to
believe, that an insular nation, with such an enormous appetite, was
not adapted to cosmopolitan principles, which were naturally of a
character more spiritual and abstract. Mr. Bertie Tremaine asked Mr.
Vigo to dinner, and introduced him to several distinguished youths of
extreme opinions, who were dining off gold plate. Mr. Vigo was much
flattered by his visit; his host made much of him; and he heard many
things on the principles of government, and even of society, in the
largest sense of the expression, which astonished and amused him. In
the course of the evening he varied the conversation--one which became
the classic library and busts of the surrounding statesmen--by
promising to most of the guests allotments of shares in a new company,
not yet launched, but whose securities were already at a high premium.

Endymion, in the meantime, pursued the even tenor of his way. Guided
by the experience, unrivalled knowledge, and consummate tact of Lord
Roehampton, he habitually made inquiries, or brought forward motions,
which were evidently inconvenient or embarrassing to the ministry; and
the very circumstance, that he was almost always replied to by the
prime minister, elevated him in the estimation of the House as much as
the pertinence of his questions, and the accurate information on which
he founded his motions. He had not taken the House with a rush like
Job Thornberry, but, at the end of three sessions, he was a personage
universally looked upon as one who was "certain to have office."

There was another new member who had also made way, though slowly, and
that was Mr. Trenchard; he had distinguished himself on a difficult
committee, on which he had guided a perplexed minister, who was
chairman, through many intricacies. Mr. Trenchard watched the
operations of Mr. Vigo, with a calm, cold scrutiny, and ventured one
day to impart his conviction to Endymion that there were breakers
ahead. "Vigo is exhausting the floating capital of the country," he
said, and he offered to give him all the necessary details, if he
would call the attention of the House to the matter. Endymion declined
to do this, chiefly because he wished to devote himself to foreign
affairs, and thought the House would hardly brook his interference
also in finance. So he strongly advised Trenchard himself to undertake
the task. Trenchard was modest, and a little timid about speaking; so
it was settled that he should consult the leaders on the question, and
particularly the gentleman who it was supposed would be their
Chancellor of the Exchequer, if ever they were again called upon to
form a ministry. This right honourable individual listened to
Trenchard with the impatience which became a man of great experience
addressed by a novice, and concluded the interview by saying, that he
thought "there was nothing in it;" at the same time, he would turn it
in his mind, and consult some practical men. Accordingly the ex- and
future minister consulted Mr. Vigo, who assured him that he was quite
right; that "there was nothing in it," and that the floating capital
of the country was inexhaustible.

In the midst of all this physical prosperity, one fine day in August,
parliament having just been prorogued, an unknown dealer in potatoes
wrote to the Secretary of State, and informed him that he had reason
to think that a murrain had fallen over the whole of the potato crops
in England, and that, if it extended to Ireland, the most serious
consequences must ensue.

This mysterious but universal sickness of a single root changed the
history of the world.

"There is no gambling like politics," said Lord Roehampton, as he
glanced at the "Times," at Princedown; "four cabinets in one week; the
government must be more sick than the potatoes."

"Berengaria always says," said Lord Montfort, "that you should see
Princedown in summer. I, on the contrary, maintain it is essentially a
winter residence, for, if there ever be a sunbeam in England,
Princedown always catches it. Now to-day, one might fancy one's self
at Cannes."

Lord Montfort was quite right, but even the most wilful and selfish of
men was generally obliged to pass his Christmas at his northern
castle. Montforts had passed their Christmas in that grim and mighty
dwelling-place for centuries. Even he was not strong enough to contend
against such tradition. Besides, every one loves power, even if they
do not know what to do with it. There are such things as memberships
for counties, which, if public feeling be not outraged, are
hereditary, and adjacent boroughs, which, with a little management and
much expense, become reasonable and loyal. If the flag were rarely to
wave on the proud keep of Montfort, all these satisfactory
circumstances would be greatly disturbed and baffled; and if the
ancient ensign did not promise welcome and hospitality at Christmas,
some of the principal uses even of Earls of Montfort might be
questioned.

There was another reason, besides the distance and the clime, why Lord
Montfort disliked the glorious pile which every Englishman envied him
for possession. The mighty domain of Montfort was an estate in strict
settlement. Its lord could do nothing but enjoy its convenience and
its beauty, and expend its revenues. Nothing could be sold or bought,
not the slightest alteration--according to Lord Montfort--be made,
without applying to trustees for their sanction. Lord Montfort spoke
of this pitiable state of affairs as if he were describing the serfdom
of the Middle Ages. "If I were to pull this bell-rope, and it came
down," he would say, "I should have to apply to the trustees before it
could be arranged."

Such a humiliating state of affairs had induced his lordship, on the
very first occasion, to expend half a million of accumulations, which
were at his own disposal, in the purchase of Princedown, which
certainly was a very different residence from Montfort Castle, alike
in its clime and character.

Princedown was situate in a southern county, hardly on a southern
coast, for it was ten miles from the sea, though enchanting views of
the Channel were frequent and exquisite. It was a palace built in old
days upon the Downs, but sheltered and screened from every hostile
wind. The full warmth of the south fell upon the vast but fantastic
pile of the Renaissance style, said to have been built by that gifted
but mysterious individual, John of Padua. The gardens were wonderful,
terrace upon terrace, and on each terrace a tall fountain. But the
most peculiar feature was the park, which was undulating and
extensive, but its timber entirely ilex: single trees of an age and
size not common in that tree, and groups and clumps of ilex, but
always ilex. Beyond the park, and extending far into the horizon, was
Princedown forest, the dominion of the red deer.

The Roehamptons and Endymion were the only permanent visitors at
Princedown at this moment, but every day brought guests who stayed
eight-and-forty hours, and then flitted. Lady Montfort, like the
manager of a theatre, took care that there should be a succession of
novelties to please or to surprise the wayward audience for whom she
had to cater. On the whole, Lord Montfort was, for him, in an
extremely good humour; never very ill; Princedown was the only place
where he never was very ill; he was a little excited, too, by the
state of politics, though he did not exactly know why; "though, I
suppose," he would say to Lord Roehampton, "if you do come in again,
there will be no more nonsense about O'Connell and all that sort of
thing. If you are prudent on that head, and carry a moderate fixed
duty, not too high, say ten shillings--that would satisfy everybody--I
do not see why the thing might not go on as long as you liked."

Mr. Waldershare came down, exuberant with endless combinations of
persons and parties. He foresaw in all these changes that most
providential consummation, the end of the middle class.

Mr. Waldershare had become quite a favourite with Lord Montfort, who
delighted to talk with him about the Duke of Modena, and imbibe his
original views of English History. "Only," Lord Montfort would
observe, "the Montforts have so much Church property, and I fancy the
Duke of Modena would want us to disgorge."

St. Barbe had been invited, and made his appearance. There had been a
degree of estrangement between him and his patron. St. Barbe was very
jealous; he was indeed jealous of everybody and everything, and of
late there was a certain Doctor Comeley, an Oxford don of the new
school, who had been introduced to Lord Montfort, and was initiating
him in all the mysteries of Neology. This celebrated divine, who, in a
sweet silky voice, quoted Socrates instead of St. Paul, and was
opposed to all symbols and formulas as essentially unphilosophical,
had become the hero of "the little dinners" at Montfort House, where
St. Barbe had been so long wont to shine, and who in consequence
himself had become every day more severely orthodox.

"Perhaps we may meet to-day," said Endymion one morning to St. Barbe
in Pall Mall as they were separating. "There is a little dinner at
Montfort House."

"Confound your little dinners!" exclaimed the indignant St. Barbe; "I
hope never to go to another little dinner, and especially at Montfort
House. I do not want to be asked to dinner to tumble and play tricks
to amuse my host. I want to be amused myself. One cannot be silent at
these little dinners, and the consequence is, you say all the good
things which are in your next number, and when it comes out, people
say they have heard them before. No, sir, if Lord Montfort, or any
other lord, wishes me to dine with him, let him ask me to a banquet of
his own order, and where I may hold my tongue like the rest of his
aristocratic guests."

Mr. Trenchard had come down and brought the news that the ministry had
resigned, and that the Queen had sent for the leader of the
opposition, who was in Scotland.

"I suppose we shall have to go to town," said Lady Roehampton to her
brother, in a room, busy and full. "It is so difficult to be alone
here," she continued in a whisper; "let us get into the gardens." And
they escaped. And then, when they were out of hearing and of sight of
any one, she said, "This is a most critical time of your life,
Endymion; it makes me very anxious. I look upon it as certain that you
will be in office, and in all probability under my lord. He has said
nothing to me about it, but I feel quite assured it will happen. It
will be a great event. Poor papa began by being an under-secretary of
state!" she continued in a moody tone, half speaking to herself, "and
all seemed so fair then, but he had no root. What I want, Endymion, is
that you should have a root. There is too much chance and favour in
your lot. They will fail you some day, some day too when I may not be
by you. Even this great opening, which is at hand, would never have
been at your command, but for a mysterious gift on which you never
could have counted."

"It is very true, Myra, but what then?"

"Why, then, I think we should guard against such contingencies. You
know what is in my mind; we have spoken of it before, and not once
only. I want you to marry, and you know whom."

"Marriage is a serious affair!" said Endymion, with a distressed look.

"The most serious. It is the principal event for good or for evil in
all lives. Had I not married, and married as I did, we should not have
been here--and where, I dare not think."

"Yes; but you made a happy marriage; one of the happiest that was ever
known, I think."

"And I wish you, Endymion, to make the same. I did not marry for love,
though love came, and I brought happiness to one who made me happy.
But had it been otherwise, if there had been no sympathy, or prospect
of sympathy, I still should have married, for it was the only chance
of saving you."

"Dearest sister! Everything I have, I owe to you."

"It is not much," said Myra, "but I wish to make it much. Power in
every form, and in excess, is at your disposal if you be wise. There
is a woman, I think with every charm, who loves you; her fortune may
have no limit; she is a member of one of the most powerful families in
England--a noble family I may say, for my lord told me last night that
Mr. Neuchatel would be instantly raised to the peerage, and you
hesitate! By all the misery of the past--which never can be forgotten
--for Heaven's sake, be wise; do not palter with such a chance."

"If all be as you say, Myra, and I have no reason but your word to
believe it is so--if, for example, of which I never saw any evidence,
Mr. Neuchatel would approve, or even tolerate, this alliance--I have
too deep and sincere a regard for his daughter, founded on much
kindness to both of us, to mock her with the offer of a heart which
she has not gained."

"You say you have a deep and sincere regard for Adriana," said his
sister. "Why, what better basis for enduring happiness can there be?
You are not a man to marry for romantic sentiment, and pass your life
in writing sonnets to your wife till you find her charms and your
inspiration alike exhausted; you are already wedded to the State, you
have been nurtured in the thoughts of great affairs from your very
childhood, and even in the darkest hour of our horrible adversity. You
are a man born for power and high condition, whose name in time ought
to rank with those of the great statesmen of the continent, the true
lords of Europe. Power, and power alone, should be your absorbing
object, and all the accidents and incidents of life should only be
considered with reference to that main result."

"Well, I am only five-and-twenty after all. There is time yet to
consider this."

"Great men should think of Opportunity, and not of Time. Time is the
excuse of feeble and puzzled spirits. They make time the sleeping
partner of their lives to accomplish what ought to be achieved by
their own will. In this case, there certainly is no time like the
present. The opportunity is unrivalled. All your friends would,
without an exception, be delighted if you now were wise."

"I hardly think my friends have given it a thought," said Endymion, a
little flushed.

"There is nothing that would please Lady Montfort more."

He turned pale. "How do you know that?" he inquired.

"She told me so, and offered to help me in bringing about the result."

"Very kind of her! Well, dearest Myra, you and Lord Roehampton have
much to think of at this anxious moment. Let this matter drop. We have
discussed it before, and we have discussed it enough. It is more than
pain for me to differ from you on any point, but I cannot offer to
Adriana a heart which belongs to another."



                           CHAPTER LXXXIII

All the high expectations of December at Princedown were doomed to
disappointment; they were a further illustration of Lord Roehampton's
saying, that there was no gambling like politics. The leader of the
opposition came up to town, but he found nothing but difficulties, and
a few days before Christmas he had resigned the proffered trust. The
protectionist ministry were to remain in office, and to repeal the
corn laws. The individual who was most baulked by this unexpected
result was perhaps Lord Roehampton. He was a man who really cared for
nothing but office and affairs, and being advanced in life, he
naturally regretted a lost opportunity. But he never showed his
annoyance. Always playful, and even taking refuge in a bantering
spirit, the world seemed to go light with him when everything was dark
and everybody despondent.

The discontent or indignation which the contemplated revolution in
policy was calculated to excite in the Conservative party generally
were to a certain degree neutralised for the moment by mysterious and
confidential communications, circulated by Mr. Tadpole and the
managers of the party, that the change was to be accompanied by
"immense compensations." As parliament was to meet as soon as
convenient after Christmas, and the statement of the regenerated
ministry was then to be made immediately, every one held his hand, as
they all felt the blow must be more efficient when the scheme of the
government was known.

The Montforts were obliged to go to their castle, a visit the sad
necessity of which the formation of a new government, at one time,
they had hoped might have prevented. The Roehamptons passed their
Christmas with Mr. Sidney Wilton at Gaydene, where Endymion also and
many of the opposition were guests. Waldershare took refuge with his
friends the Beaumaris', full of revenge and unceasing combinations. He
took down St. Barbe with him, whose services in the session might be
useful. There had been a little misunderstanding between these two
eminent personages during the late season. St. Barbe was not satisfied
with his position in the new journal which Waldershare had
established. He affected to have been ill-treated and deceived, and
this with a mysterious shake of the head which seemed to intimate
state secrets that might hereafter be revealed. The fact is, St.
Barbe's political articles were so absurd that it was impossible to
print them; but as his name stood high as a clever writer on matters
with which he was acquainted, they permitted him, particularly as they
were bound to pay him a high salary, to contribute essays on the
social habits and opinions of the day, which he treated in a happy and
taking manner. St. Barbe himself had such quick perception of
peculiarities, so fine a power of observation, and so keen a sense of
the absurd, that when he revealed in confidence the causes of his
discontent, it was almost impossible to believe that he was entirely
serious. It seems that he expected this connection with the journal in
question to have been, to use his own phrase, "a closet affair," and
that he was habitually to have been introduced by the backstairs of
the palace to the presence of Royalty to receive encouragement and
inspiration. "I do not complain of the pay," he added, "though I could
get more by writing for Shuffle and Screw, but I expected a
decoration. However, I shall probably stand for next parliament on the
principles of the Mountain, so perhaps it is just as well."

Parliament soon met, and that session began which will long be
memorable. The "immense compensations" were nowhere. Waldershare, who
had only waited for this, resigned his office as Under-Secretary of
State. This was a bad example and a blow, but nothing compared to the
resignation of his great office in the Household by the Earl of
Beaumaris. This involved unhappily the withdrawal of Lady Beaumaris,
under whose bright, inspiring roof the Tory party had long assembled,
sanguine and bold. Other considerable peers followed the precedent of
Lord Beaumaris, and withdrew their support from the ministry.
Waldershare moved the amendment to the first reading of the obnoxious
bill; but although defeated by a considerable majority, the majority
was mainly formed by members of the opposition. Among these was Mr.
Ferrars, who it was observed never opened his lips during the whole
session.

This was not the case with Mr. Bertie Tremaine and the school of
Pythagoras. The opportunity long waited for had at length arrived.
There was a great parliamentary connection deserted by their leaders.
This distinguished rank and file required officers. The cabinet of Mr.
Bertie Tremaine was ready, and at their service. Mr. Bertie Tremaine
seconded the amendment of Waldershare, and took the occasion of
expounding the new philosophy, which seemed to combine the principles
of Bentham with the practice of Lord Liverpool. "I offered to you
this," he said reproachfully to Endymion; "you might have been my
secretary of state. Mr. Tremaine Bertie will now take it. He would
rather have had an embassy, but he must make the sacrifice."

The debates during the session were much carried on by the
Pythagoreans, who never ceased chattering. They had men ready for
every branch of the subject, and the debate was often closed by their
chief in mystical sentences, which they cheered like awestruck
zealots.

The great bill was carried, but the dark hour of retribution at length
arrived. The ministry, though sanguine to the last of success, and not
without cause, were completely and ignominiously defeated. The new
government, long prepared, was at once formed. Lord Roehampton again
became secretary of state, and he appointed Endymion to the post under
him. "I shall not press you unfairly," said Mr. Bertie Tremaine to
Endymion, with encouraging condescension. "I wish my men for a season
to comprehend what is a responsible opposition. I am sorry Hortensius
is your solicitor-general, for I had intended him always for my
chancellor."



                            CHAPTER LXXXIV

Very shortly after the prorogation of parliament, an incident occurred
which materially affected the position of Endymion. Lord Roehampton
had a serious illness. Having a fine constitution, he apparently
completely rallied from the attack, and little was known of it by the
public. The world also, at that moment, was as usual much dispersed
and distracted; dispersed in many climes, and distracted by the
fatigue and hardships they annually endure, and which they call
relaxation. Even the colleagues of the great statesman were scattered,
and before they had realised that he had been seriously ill, they read
of him in the fulfilment of his official duties. But there was no
mistake as to his state under his own roof. Lord Roehampton had,
throughout the later period of his life, been in the habit of working
at night. It was only at night that he could command that abstraction
necessary for the consideration of great affairs. He was also a real
worker. He wrote his own despatches, whenever they referred to matters
of moment. He left to the permanent staff of his office little but the
fulfilment of duties which, though heavy and multifarious, were duties
of routine. The composition of these despatches was a source to Lord
Roehampton of much gratification and excitement. They were of European
fame, and their terse argument, their clear determination, and often
their happy irony, were acknowledged in all the cabinets, and duly
apprehended.

The physicians impressed upon Lady Roehampton that this night-work
must absolutely cease. A neglect of their advice must lead to serious
consequences; following it, there was no reason why her husband should
not live for years, and continue to serve the State. Lord Roehampton
must leave the House of Commons; he must altogether change the order
of his life; he must seek more amusement in society, and yet keep
early hours; and then he would find himself fresh and vigorous in the
morning, and his work would rather benefit than distress him. It was
all an affair of habit.

Lady Roehampton threw all her energies into this matter. She
entertained for her lord a reverential affection, and his life to her
seemed a precious deposit, of which she was the trustee. She succeeded
where the physicians would probably have failed. Towards the end of
the year Lord Roehampton was called up to the House of Lords for one
of his baronies, and Endymion was informed that when parliament met,
he would have to represent the Foreign Office in the House of Commons.

Waldershare heartily congratulated him. "You have got what I most
wished to have in the world; but I will not envy you, for envy is a
vile passion. You have the good fortune to serve a genial chief. I had
to deal with a Harley,--cold, suspicious, ambiguous, pretending to be
profound, and always in a state of perplexity."

It was not a very agreeable session. The potato famine did something
more than repeal the corn laws. It proved that there was no floating
capital left in the country; and when the Barings and Rothschilds
combined, almost as much from public spirit as from private
speculation, to raise a loan of a few millions for the minister, they
absolutely found the public purse was exhausted, and had to supply the
greater portion of the amount from their own resources. In one of the
many financial debates that consequently occurred, Trenchard
established himself by a clear and comprehensive view of the position
of affairs, and by modestly reminding the House, that a year ago he
had predicted the present condition of things, and indicated its
inevitable cause.

This was the great speech on a great night, and Mr. Bertie Tremaine
walked home with Trenchard. It was observed that Mr. Bertie Tremaine
always walked home with the member who had made the speech of the
evening.

"Your friends did not behave well to you," he said in a hollow voice
to Trenchard. "They ought to have made you Secretary of the Treasury.
Think of this. It is an important post, and may lead to anything; and,
so far as I am concerned, it would give me real pleasure to see it."

But besides the disquietude of domestic affairs, famine and failures
competing in horrible catastrophe and the Bank Act suspended, as the
year advanced matters on the Continent became not less dark and
troubled. Italy was mysteriously agitated; the pope announced himself
a reformer; there were disturbances in Milan, Ancona, and Ferrara; the
Austrians threatened the occupation of several States, and Sardinia
offered to defend His Holiness from the Austrians. In addition to all
this, there were reform banquets in France, a civil war in
Switzerland, and the King of Prussia thought it prudent to present his
subjects with a Constitution.

The Count of Ferroll about this time made a visit to England. He was
always a welcome guest there, and had received the greatest
distinction which England could bestow upon a foreigner; he had been
elected an honorary member of White's. "You may have troubles here,"
he said to Lady Montfort, "but they will pass; you will have mealy
potatoes again and plenty of bank notes, but we shall not get off so
cheaply. Everything is quite rotten throughout the Continent. This
year is tranquillity to what the next will be. There is not a throne
in Europe worth a year's purchase. My worthy master wants me to return
home and be minister; I am to fashion for him a new constitution. I
will never have anything to do with new constitutions; their inventors
are always the first victims. Instead of making a constitution, he
should make a country, and convert his heterogeneous domains into a
patriotic dominion."

"But how is that to be done?"

"There is only one way; by blood and iron."

"My dear count, you shock me!"

"I shall have to shock you a great deal more before the inevitable is
brought about."

"Well, I am glad that there is something," said Lady Montfort, "which
is inevitable. I hope it will come soon. I am sure this country is
ruined. What with cheap bread at famine prices and these railroads, we
seem quite finished. I thought one operation was to counteract the
other; but they appear both to turn out equally fatal."

Endymion had now one of those rare opportunities which, if men be
equal to them, greatly affect their future career. As the session
advanced, debates on foreign affairs became frequent and deeply
interesting. So far as the ministry was concerned, the burthen of
these fell on the Under-Secretary of State. He was never wanting. The
House felt that he had not only the adequate knowledge, but that it
was knowledge perfectly digested; that his remarks and conduct were
those of a man who had given constant thought to his duties, and was
master of his subject. His oratorical gifts also began to be
recognised. The power and melody of his voice had been before
remarked, and that is a gift which much contributes to success in a
popular assembly. He was ready without being too fluent. There were
light and shade in his delivery. He repressed his power of sarcasm;
but if unjustly and inaccurately attacked, he could be keen. Over his
temper he had a complete control; if, indeed, his entire insensibility
to violent language on the part of an opponent was not organic. All
acknowledged his courtesy, and both sides sympathised with a young man
who proved himself equal to no ordinary difficulties. In a word,
Endymion was popular, and that popularity was not diminished by the
fact of his being the brother of Lady Roehampton, who exercised great
influence in society, and who was much beloved.

As the year advanced external affairs became daily more serious, and
the country congratulated itself that its interests were entrusted to
a minister of the experience and capacity of Lord Roehampton. That
statesman seemed never better than when the gale ran high. Affairs in
France began to assume the complexion that the Count of Ferroll had
prophetically announced. If a crash occurred in that quarter, Lord
Roehampton felt that all Europe might be in a blaze. Affairs were
never more serious than at the turn of the year. Lord Roehampton told
his wife that their holidays must be spent in St. James' Square, for
he could not leave London; but he wished her to go to Gaydene, where
they had been invited by Mr. Sidney Wilton to pass their Christmas as
usual. Nothing, however, would induce her to quit his side. He seemed
quite well, but the pressure of affairs was extreme; and sometimes,
against all her remonstrances, he was again working at night. Such
remonstrances on other subjects would probably have been successful,
for her influence over him was extreme. But to a minister responsible
for the interests of a great country they are vain, futile,
impossible. One might as well remonstrate with an officer on the field
of battle on the danger he was incurring. She said to him one night in
his library, where she paid him a little visit before she retired, "My
heart, I know it is no use my saying anything, and yet--remember your
promise. This night-work makes me very unhappy."

"I remember my promise, and I will try not to work at night again in a
hurry, but I must finish this despatch. If I did not, I could not
sleep, and you know sleep is what I require."

"Good night, then."

He looked up with his winning smile, and held out his lips. "Kiss me,"
he said; "I never felt better."

Lady Roehampton after a time slumbered; how long she knew not, but
when she woke, her lord was not at her side. She struck a light and
looked at her watch. It was past three o'clock; she jumped out of bed,
and, merely in her slippers and her /robe de chambre/, descended to
the library. It was a large, long room, and Lord Roehampton worked at
the extreme end of it. The candles were nearly burnt out. As she
approached him, she perceived that he was leaning back in his chair.
When she reached him, she observed he was awake, but he did not seem
to recognise her. A dreadful feeling came over her. She took his hand.
It was quite cold. Her intellect for an instant seemed to desert her.
She looked round her with an air void almost of intelligence, and then
rushing to the bell she continued ringing it till some of the
household appeared. A medical man was near at hand, and in a few
minutes arrived, but it was a bootless visit. All was over, and all
had been over, he said, "for some time."



                            CHAPTER LXXXV

"Well, you have made up your government?" asked Lady Montfort of the
prime minister as he entered her boudoir. He shook his head.

"Have you seen her?" he inquired.

"No, not yet; I suppose she will see me as soon as any one."

"I am told she is utterly overwhelmed."

"She was devoted to him; it was the happiest union I ever knew; but
Lady Roehampton is not the woman to be utterly overwhelmed. She has
too imperial a spirit for that."

"It is a great misfortune," said the prime minister. "We have not been
lucky since we took the reins."

"Well, there is no use in deploring. There is nobody else to take the
reins, so you may defy misfortunes. The question now is, what are you
going to do?"

"Well, there seems to me only one thing to do. We must put Rawchester
there."

"Rawchester!" exclaimed Lady Montfort, "what, 'Niminy-Piminy'?"

"Well, he is conciliatory," said the premier, "and if you are not very
clever, you should be conciliatory."

"He never knows his own mind for a week together."

"We will take care of his mind," said the prime minister, "but he has
travelled a good deal, and knows the public men."

"Yes," said Lady Montfort, "and the public men, I fear, know him."

"Then he can make a good House of Lords' speech, and we have a first-
rate man in the Commons; so it will do."

"I do not think your first-rate man in the House of Commons will
remain," said Lady Montfort drily.

"You do not mean that?" said the prime minister, evidently alarmed.

"His health is delicate," said Lady Montfort; "had it not been for his
devotion to Lord Roehampton, I know he thought of travelling for a
couple of years."

"Ferrars' health delicate?" said the premier; "I thought he was the
picture of health and youthful vigour. Health is one of the elements
to be considered in calculating the career of a public man, and I have
always predicted an eminent career for Ferrars, because, in addition
to his remarkable talents, he had apparently such a fine
constitution."

"No health could stand working under Lord Rawchester."

"Well, but what am I to do? I cannot make Mr. Ferrars secretary of
state."

"Why not?"

The prime minister looked considerably perplexed. Such a promotion
could not possibly have occurred to him. Though a man of many gifts,
and a statesman, he had been educated in high Whig routine, and the
proposition of Lady Montfort was like recommending him to make a
curate a bishop.

"Well," he said, "Ferrars is a very clever fellow. He is our rising
young man, and there is no doubt that, if his health is not so
delicate as you fear, he will mount high; but though our rising young
man, he is a young man, much too young to be a secretary of state. He
wants age, larger acquaintance with affairs, greater position, and
more root in the country."

"What was Mr. Canning's age, who held Mr. Ferrars' office, when he was
made secretary of state? and what root in the country had he?"

When the prime minister got back to Downing Street, he sent
immediately for his head whip. "Look after Ferrars," he said; "they
are trying to induce him to resign office. If he does, our
embarrassments will be extreme. Lord Rawchester will be secretary of
state; send a paragraph at once to the papers announcing it. But look
after Ferrars, and immediately, and report to me."

Lord Roehampton had a large entailed estate, though his affairs were
always in a state of confusion. That seems almost the inevitable
result of being absorbed in the great business of governing mankind.
If there be exceptions among statesmen of the highest class, they will
generally be found among those who have been chiefly in opposition,
and so have had leisure and freedom of mind sufficient to manage their
estates. Lord Roehampton had, however, extensive powers of charging
his estate in lieu of dower, and he had employed them to their utmost
extent; so his widow was well provided for. The executors were Mr.
Sidney Wilton and Endymion.

After a short period, Lady Roehampton saw Adriana, and not very long
after, Lady Montfort. They both of them, from that time, were her
frequent, if not constant, companions, but she saw no one else. Once
only, since the terrible event, was she seen by the world, and that
was when a tall figure, shrouded in the darkest attire, attended as
chief mourner at the burial of her lord in Westminster Abbey. She
remained permanently in London, not only because she had no country
house, but because she wished to be with her brother. As time
advanced, she frequently saw Mr. Sidney Wilton, who, being chief
executor of the will, and charged with all her affairs, had
necessarily much on which to consult her. One of the greatest
difficulties was to provide her with a suitable residence, for of
course, she was not to remain in the family mansion in St. James'
Square. That difficulty was ultimately overcome in a manner highly
interesting to her feelings. Her father's mansion in Hill Street,
where she had passed her prosperous and gorgeous childhood, was in the
market, and she was most desirous to occupy it. "It will seem like a
great step towards the restoration," she said to Endymion. "My plans
are, that you should give up the Albany, and that we should live
together. I should like to live together in Hill Street; I should like
to see our nursery once more. The past then will be a dream, or at
least all the past that is disagreeable. My fortune is yours; as we
are twins, it is likely that I may live as long as you do. But I wish
you to be the master of the house, and in time receive your friends in
a manner becoming your position. I do not think that I shall ever much
care to go out again, but I may help you at home, and then you can
invite women; a mere bachelor's house is always dull."

There was one difficulty still in this arrangement. The mansion in
Hill Street was not to be let, it was for sale, and the price
naturally for such a mansion in such a situation, was considerable;
quite beyond the means of Lady Roehampton who had a very ample income,
but no capital. This difficulty, however, vanished in a moment. Mr.
Sidney Wilton purchased the house; he wanted an investment, and this
was an excellent one; so Lady Roehampton became his tenant.

The change was great in the life of Myra, and she felt it. She loved
her lord, and had cut off her beautiful hair, which reached almost to
her feet, and had tied it round his neck in his coffin. But Myra,
notwithstanding she was a woman, and a woman of transcendent beauty,
had never had a romance of the heart. Until she married, her pride and
love for her brother, which was part of her pride, had absorbed her
being. When she married, and particularly as time advanced, she felt
all the misery of her existence had been removed, and nothing could
exceed the tenderness and affectionate gratitude, and truly unceasing
devotion, which she extended to the gifted being to who she owed this
deliverance. But it was not in the nature of things that she could
experience those feelings which still echo in the heights of
Meilleraie, and compared with which all the glittering accidents of
fortune sink into insignificance.

The year rolled on, an agitated year of general revolution. Endymion
himself was rarely in society, for all the time which the House of
Commons spared to him he wished chiefly to dedicate to his sister. His
brougham was always ready to take him up to Hill Street for one of
those somewhat hurried, but amusing little dinners, which break the
monotony of parliamentary life. And sometimes he brought a companion,
generally Mr. Wilton, and sometimes they met Lady Montfort or Adriana,
now ennobled as the daughter of Lord Hainault. There was much to talk
about, even if they did not talk about themselves and their friends,
for every day brought great events, fresh insurrections, new
constitutions, changes of dynasties, assassinations of ministers,
states of siege, evanescent empires, and premature republics.

On one occasion, having previously prepared his sister, who seemed not
uninterested by the suggestion, Endymion brought Thornberry to dine in
Hill Street. There was no one else present except Adriana. Job was a
great admirer of Lady Roehampton, but was a little awestruck by her.
He remembered her in her childhood, a beautiful being who never
smiled. She received him very graciously, and after dinner, inviting
him to sit by her on the sofa, referred with delicacy to old times.

"Your ladyship," said Thornberry, "would not know that I live myself
now at Hurstley."

"Indeed!" said Myra, unaffectedly surprised.

"Well, it happened in this way; my father now is in years, and can no
longer visit us as he occasionally did in Lancashire; so wishing to
see us all, at least once more, we agreed to pay him a visit. I do not
know how it exactly came about, but my wife took a violent fancy to
the place. They all received us very kindly. The good rector and his
dear kind wife made it very pleasant, and the archbishop was there--
whom we used to call Mr. Nigel--only think! That is a wonderful
affair. He is not at all high and mighty, but talked with us, and
walked with us, just the same as in old days. He took a great fancy to
my boy, John Hampden, and, after all, my boy is to go to Oxford, and
not to Owens College, as I had first intended."

"That is a great change."

"Well, I wanted him to go to Owens College, I confess, but I did not
care so much about Mill Hill. That was his mother's fancy; she was
very strong about that. It is a Nonconformist school, but I am not a
Nonconformist. I do not much admire dogmas, but I am a Churchman as my
fathers were. However, John Hampden is not to go to Mill Hill. He has
gone to a sort of college near Oxford, which the archbishop
recommended to us; the principal, and all the tutors are clergyman--of
course of our Church. My wife was quite delighted with it all."

"Well, that is a good thing."

"And so," continued Thornberry, "she got it into her head she should
like to live at Hurstley, and I took the place. I am afraid I have
been foolish enough to lay out a great deal of money there--for a
place not my own. Your ladyship would not know the old hall. I have,
what they call, restored it, and upon my word, except the new hall of
the Clothworkers' Company, where I dined the other day, I do not know
anything of the kind that is prettier."

"The dear old hall!" murmured Lady Roehampton.

In time, though no one mentioned it, everybody thought that if an
alliance ultimately took place between Lady Roehampton and Mr. Sidney
Wilton, it would be the most natural thing in the world, and everybody
would approve it. True, he was her father's friend, and much her
senior, but then he was still good-looking, very clever, very much
considered, and lord of a large estate, and at any rate he was a
younger man than her late husband.

When these thoughts became more rife in society, and began to take the
form of speech, the year was getting old, and this reminds us of a
little incident which took place many months previously, at the
beginning of the year, and which we ought to record.

Shortly after the death of Lord Roehampton, Prince Florestan called
one morning in St. James' Square. He said he would not ask Lady
Roehampton to see him, but he was obliged suddenly to leave England,
and he did not like to depart without personally inquiring after her.
He left a letter and a little packet. And the letter ran thus:


 "I am obliged, madam, to leave England suddenly, and it is probable
  that we shall never meet again. I should be happy if I had your
  prayers! This little jewel enclosed belonged to my mother, the
  Queen Agrippina. She told me that I was never to part with it,
  except to somebody I loved as much as herself. There is only one
  person in the world to whom I owe affection. It is to her who from
  the first was always kind to me, and who, through dreary years of
  danger and anxiety, has been the charm and consolation of the life
  of

                                                    "Florestan."



                            CHAPTER LXXXVI

On the evening of the day on which Prince Florestan personally left
the letter with Lady Roehampton, he quitted London with the Duke of
St. Angelo and his aides-de-camp, and, embarking in his steam yacht,
which was lying at Southampton, quitted England. They pursued a
prosperous course for about a week, when they passed through the
Straits of Gibraltar, and, not long afterwards, cast anchor in a small
and solitary bay. There the prince and his companions, and half-a-
dozen servants, well armed and in military attire, left the yacht, and
proceeded on foot into the country for a short distance, when they
arrived at a large farmhouse. Here, it was evident, they were
expected. Men came forward with many horses, and mounted, and
accompanied the party which had arrived. They advanced about ten
miles, and halted as they were approaching a small but fortified town.

The prince sent the Duke of St. Angelo forward to announce his arrival
to the governor, and to require him to surrender. The governor,
however, refused, and ordered the garrison to fire on the invaders.
This they declined to do; the governor, with many ejaculations, and
stamping with rage, broke his sword, and the prince entered the town.
He was warmly received, and the troops, amounting to about twelve
hundred men, placed themselves at his disposal. The prince remained at
this town only a couple of hours, and at the head of his forces
advanced into the country. At a range of hills he halted, sent out
reconnoitring parties, and pitched his camp. In the morning, the
Marquis of Vallombrosa, with a large party of gentlemen well mounted,
arrived, and were warmly greeted. The prince learnt from them that the
news of his invasion had reached the governor of the province, who was
at one of the most considerable cities of the kingdom, with a
population exceeding two hundred thousand, and with a military
division for its garrison. "They will not wait for our arrival," said
Vallombrosa, "but, trusting to their numbers, will come out and attack
us."

The news of the scouts being that the mountain passes were quite
unoccupied by the enemy, the prince determined instantly to continue
his advance, and take up a strong position on the other side of the
range, and await his fate. The passage was well effected, and on the
fourth day of the invasion the advanced guard of the enemy were in
sight. The prince commanded that no one should attend him, but alone
and tying a white handkerchief round his sword, he galloped up to the
hostile lines, and said in a clear, loud voice, "My men, this is the
sword of my father!"

"Florestan for ever!" was the only and universal reply. The cheers of
the advanced guard reached and were re-echoed by the main body. The
commander-in-chief, bareheaded, came up to give in his allegiance and
receive his majesty's orders. They were for immediate progress, and at
the head of the army which had been sent out to destroy him, Florestan
in due course entered the enthusiastic city which recognised him as
its sovereign. The city was illuminated, and he went to the opera in
the evening. The singing was not confined to the theatre. During the
whole night the city itself was one song of joy and triumph, and that
night no one slept.

After this there was no trouble and no delay. It was a triumphal
march. Every town opened its gates, and devoted municipalities
proffered golden keys. Every village sent forth its troop of beautiful
maidens, scattering roses, and singing the national anthem which had
been composed by Queen Agrippina. On the tenth day of the invasion
King Florestan, utterly unopposed, entered the magnificent capital of
his realm, and slept in the purple bed which had witnessed his
princely birth.

Among all the strange revolutions of this year, this adventure of
Florestan was not the least interesting to the English people.
Although society had not smiled on him, he had always been rather a
favourite with the bulk of the population. His fine countenance, his
capital horsemanship, his graceful bow that always won a heart, his
youth, and love of sport, his English education, and the belief that
he was sincere in his regard for the country where he had been so long
a guest, were elements of popularity that, particularly now he was
successful, were unmistakable. And certainly Lady Roehampton, in her
solitude, did not disregard his career or conduct. They were naturally
often in her thoughts, for there was scarcely a day in which his name
did not figure in the newspapers, and always in connection with
matters of general interest and concern. The government he established
was liberal, but it was discreet, and, though conciliatory, firm. "If
he declares for the English alliance," said Waldershare, "he is safe;"
and he did declare for the English alliance, and the English people
were very pleased by his declaration, which in their apprehension
meant national progress, the amelioration of society, and increased
exports.

The main point, however, which interested his subjects was his
marriage. That was both a difficult and a delicate matter to decide.
The great continental dynasties looked with some jealousy and
suspicion on him, and the small reigning houses, who were all allied
with the great continental dynasties, thought it prudent to copy their
example. All these reigning families, whether large or small, were
themselves in a perplexed and alarmed position at this period, very
disturbed about their present, and very doubtful about their future.
At last it was understood that a Princess of Saxe-Babel, though allied
with royal and imperial houses, might share the diadem of a successful
adventurer, and then in time, and when it had been sufficiently
reiterated, paragraphs appeared unequivocally contradicting the
statement, followed with agreeable assurances that it was unlikely
that a Princess of Saxe-Babel, allied with royal and imperial houses,
should unite herself to a parvenu monarch, however powerful. Then in
turn these articles were stigmatised as libels, and entirely
unauthorised, and no less a personage than a princess of the house of
Saxe-Genesis was talked of as the future queen; but on referring to
the "Almanach de Gotha," it was discovered that family had been
extinct since the first French Revolution. So it seemed at last that
nothing was certain, except that his subjects were very anxious that
King Florestan should present them with a queen.



                           CHAPTER LXXXVII

As time flew on, the friends of Lady Roehampton thought and spoke,
with anxiety about her re-entrance into society. Mr. Sidney Wilton had
lent Gaydene to her for the autumn, when he always visited Scotland,
and the winter had passed away uninterruptedly, at a charming and
almost unknown watering-place, where she seemed the only visitant, and
where she wandered about in silence on the sands. The time was fast
approaching when the inevitable year of seclusion would expire, and
Lady Roehampton gave no indication of any change in her life and
habits. At length, after many appeals, and expostulations, and
entreaties, and little scenes, the second year of the widowhood having
advanced some months, it was decided that Lady Roehampton should
re-enter society, and the occasion on which this was to take place was
no mean one.

Lady Montfort was to give a ball early in June, and Royalty itself was
to be her guests. The entertainments at Montfort House were always
magnificent, but this was to exceed accustomed splendour. All the
world was to be there, and all the world, who were not invited, were
in as much despair as if they had lost their fortune or their
character.

Lady Roehampton had a passion for light, provided the light was not
supplied by gas or oil. Her saloons, even when alone, were always
brilliantly illuminated. She held that the moral effect of such a
circumstance on her temperament was beneficial, and not slight. It is
a rare, but by no means a singular, belief. When she descended into
her drawing-room on the critical night, its resplendence was some
preparation for the scene which awaited her. She stood for a moment
before the tall mirror which reflected her whole person. What were her
thoughts? What was the impression that the fair vision conveyed?

Her countenance was grave, but it was not sad. Myra had now completed,
or was on the point of completing, her thirtieth year. She was a woman
of transcendent beauty; perhaps she might justly be described as the
most beautiful woman then alive. Time had even improved her commanding
mien, the graceful sweep of her figure and the voluptuous undulation
of her shoulders; but time also had spared those charms which are more
incidental to early youth, the splendour of her complexion, the
whiteness of her teeth, and the lustre of her violet eyes. She had cut
off in her grief the profusion of her dark chestnut locks, that once
reached to her feet, and she wore her hair as, what was then and
perhaps is now called, a crop, but it was luxuriant in natural
quantity and rich in colour, and most effectively set off her arched
brow, and the oval of her fresh and beauteous cheek. The crop was
crowned to-night by a coronet of brilliants.

"Your carriage is ready, my lady," said a servant; "but there is a
gentleman below who has brought a letter for your ladyship, and which,
he says, he must personally deliver to you, madam. I told him your
ladyship was going out and could not see him, but he put his card in
this envelope, and requested that I would hand it to you, madam. He
says he will only deliver the letter to your ladyship, and not detain
you a moment."

Lady Roehampton opened the envelope, and read the card, "The Duke of
St. Angelo."

"The Duke of St. Angelo!" she murmured to herself, and looked for a
moment abstracted. Then turning to the servant, she said, "He must be
shown up."

"Madam," said the duke as he entered, and bowed with much ceremony, "I
am ashamed of appearing to be an intruder, but my commands were to
deliver this letter to your ladyship immediately on my arrival,
whatever the hour. I have only this instant arrived. We had a bad
passage. I know your ladyship's carriage is at the door. I will redeem
my pledge and not trespass on your time for one instant. If your
ladyship requires me, I am ever at your command."

"At Carlton Gardens?"

"No; at our embassy."

"His Majesty, I hope, is well?"

"In every sense, my lady," and bowing to the ground the duke withdrew.

She broke the seal of the letter while still standing, and held it to
a sconce that was on the mantel-piece, and then she read:


 "You were the only person I called upon when I suddenly left
  England. I had no hope of seeing you, but it was the homage of
  gratitude and adoration. Great events have happened since we last
  met. I have realised my dreams, dreams which I sometimes fancied
  you, and you alone, did not depreciate or discredit, and, in the
  sweetness of your charity, would not have been sorry were they
  accomplished.

 "I have established what I believe to be a strong and just
  government in a great kingdom. I have not been uninfluenced by the
  lessons of wisdom I gained in your illustrious land. I have done
  some things which it was a solace for me to believe you would not
  altogether disapprove.

 "My subjects are anxious that the dynasty I have re-established
  should not be evanescent. Is it too bold to hope that I may find a
  companion in you to charm and to counsel me? I can offer you
  nothing equal to your transcendent merit, but I can offer you the
  heart and the throne of

                                                    "Florestan."


Still holding the letter in one hand, she looked around as if some one
might be present. Her cheek was scarlet, and there was for a moment an
expression of wildness in her glance. Then she paced the saloon with
an agitated step, and then she read the letter again and again, and
still she paced the saloon. The whole history of her life revolved
before her; every scene, every character, every thought, and
sentiment, and passion. The brightness of her nursery days, and
Hurstley with all its miseries, and Hainault with its gardens, and the
critical hour, which had opened to her a future of such unexpected
lustre and happiness.

The clock had struck more than once during this long and terrible
soliloquy, wherein she had to search and penetrate her inmost heart,
and now it struck two. She started, and hurriedly rang the bell.

"I shall not want the carriage to-night," she said, and when again
alone, she sat down and, burying her face in her alabaster arms, for a
long time remained motionless.



                           CHAPTER LXXXVIII

Had he been a youth about to make a /debut/ in the great world, Sidney
Wilton could not have been more agitated than he felt at the prospect
of the fete at Montfort House. Lady Roehampton, after nearly two years
of retirement, was about to re-enter society. During this interval she
had not been estranged from him. On the contrary, he had been her
frequent and customary companion. Except Adriana, and Lady Montfort,
and her brother, it might almost be said, her only one. Why then was
he agitated? He had been living in a dream for two years, cherishing
wild thoughts of exquisite happiness. He would have been content, had
the dream never been disturbed; but this return to hard and practical
life of her whose unconscious witchery had thrown a spell over his
existence, roused him to the reality of his position, and it was one
of terrible emotion.

During the life of her husband, Sidney Wilton had been the silent
adorer of Myra. With every accomplishment and every advantage that are
supposed to make life delightful--a fine countenance, a noble mien, a
manner natural and attractive, an ancient lineage, and a vast estate--
he was the favourite of society, who did more than justice to his
talents, which, though not brilliant, were considerable, and who could
not too much appreciate the high tone of his mind; his generosity and
courage, and true patrician spirit which inspired all his conduct, and
guided him ever to do that which was liberal, and gracious, and just.

There was only one fault which society found in Sidney Wilton; he
would not marry. This was provoking, because he was the man of all
others who ought to marry, and make a heroine happy. Society did not
give it up till he was forty, about the time he became acquainted with
Lady Roehampton; and that incident threw no light on his purposes or
motives, for he was as discreet as he was devoted, and Myra herself
was unconscious of his being anything to her save the dearest friend
of her father, and the most cherished companion of her husband.

When one feels deeply, one is apt to act suddenly, perhaps rashly.
There are moments in life when suspense can be borne no longer. And
Sidney Wilton, who had been a silent votary for more than ten years,
now felt that the slightest delay in his fate would be intolerable. It
was the ball at Montfort House that should be the scene of this
decision of destiny.

She was about to re-enter society, radiant as the morn, amid flowers
and music, and all the accidents of social splendour. His sympathetic
heart had been some solace to her in her sorrow and her solitude. Now,
in the joyous blaze of life, he was resolved to ask her whether it
were impossible that they should never again separate, and in the
crowd, as well as when alone, feel their mutual devotion.

Mr. Wilton was among those who went early to Montfort House, which was
not his wont; but he was restless and disquieted. She could hardly
have arrived; but there would be some there who would speak of her.
That was a great thing. Sidney Wilton had arrived at that state when
conversation can only interest on one subject. When a man is really in
love, he is disposed to believe that, like himself, everybody is
thinking of the person who engrosses his brain and heart.

The magnificent saloons, which in half an hour would be almost
impassable, were only sprinkled with guests, who, however, were
constantly arriving. Mr. Wilton looked about him in vain for the
person who, he was quite sure, could not then be present. He lingered
by the side of Lady Montfort, who bowed to those who came, but who
could spare few consecutive words, even to Mr. Wilton, for her
watchful eye expected every moment to be summoned to descend her
marble staircase and receive her royal guests.

The royal guests arrived; there was a grand stir, and many gracious
bows, and some cordial, but dignified, shake-hands. The rooms were
crowded; yet space in the ball-room was well preserved, so that the
royal vision might range with facility from its golden chairs to the
beauteous beings, and still more beautiful costumes, displaying with
fervent loyalty their fascinating charms.

There was a new band to-night, that had come from some distant but
celebrated capital; musicians known by fame to everybody, but whom
nobody had ever heard. They played wonderfully on instruments of new
invention, and divinely upon old ones. It was impossible that anything
could be more gay and inspiring than their silver bugles, and their
carillons of tinkling bells.

They found an echo in the heart of Sidney Wilton, who, seated near the
entrance of the ball-room, watched every arrival with anxious
expectation. But the anxiety vanished for a moment under the influence
of the fantastic and frolic strain. It seemed a harbinger of happiness
and joy. He fell into a reverie, and wandered with a delightful
companion in castles of perpetual sunshine, and green retreats, and
pleasant terraces.

But the lady never came.

"Where can your sister be?" said Lady Montfort to Endymion. "She
promised me to come early; something must have happened. Is she ill?"

"Quite well; I saw her before I left Hill Street. She wished me to
come alone, as she would not be here early.

"I hope she will be in time for the royal supper table; I quite count
on her."

"She is sure to be here."

Lord Hainault was in earnest conversation with Baron Sergius, now the
minister of King Florestan at the Court of St. James'. It was a wise
appointment, for Sergius knew intimately all the English statesmen of
eminence, and had known them for many years. They did not look upon
him as the mere representative of a revolutionary and parvenu
sovereign; he was quite one of themselves, had graduated at the
Congress of Vienna, and, it was believed, had softened many subsequent
difficulties by his sagacity. He had always been a cherished guest at
Apsley House, and it was known the great duke often consulted him. "As
long as Sergius sways his councils, He will indulge in no adventures,"
said Europe. "As long as Sergius remains here, the English alliance is
safe," said England. After Europe and England, the most important
confidence to obtain was that of Lord Hainault, and Baron Sergius had
not been unsuccessful in that respect.

"Your master has only to be liberal and steady," said Lord Hainault,
with his accustomed genial yet half-sarcastic smile, "and he may have
anything he likes. But we do not want any wars; they are not liked in
the City."

"Our policy is peace," said Sergius.

"I think we ought to congratulate Sir Peter," said Mr. Waldershare to
Adriana, with whom he had been dancing, and whom he was leading back
to Lady Hainault. "Sir Peter, here is a lady who wishes to
congratulate you on your deserved elevation."

"Well, I do not know what to say about it," said the former Mr. Vigo,
highly gratified, but a little confused; "my friends would have it."

"Ay, ay," said Waldershare, "'at the request of friends;' the excuse I
gave for publishing my sonnets." And then, advancing, he delivered his
charge to her /chaperon/, who looked dreamy, abstracted, and
uninterested.

"We have just been congratulating the new baronet, Sir Peter Vigo,"
said Waldershare.

"Ah!" said Lady Hainault with a contemptuous sigh, "he is, at any
rate, not obliged to change his name. The desire to change one's name
does indeed appear to me to be a singular folly. If your name had been
disgraced, I could understand it, as I could understand a man then
going about in a mask. But the odd thing is, the persons who always
want to change their names are those whose names are the most
honoured."

"Oh, you are here!" said Mr. St. Barbe acidly to Mr. Seymour Hicks. "I
think you are everywhere. I suppose they will make you a baronet next.
Have you seen the batch? I could not believe my eyes when I read it. I
believe the government is demented. Not a single literary man among
them. Not that I wanted their baronetcy. Nothing would have tempted me
to accept one. But there is Gushy; he, I know, would have liked it. I
must say I feel for Gushy; his works only selling half what they did,
and then thrown over in this insolent manner!"

"Gushy is not in society," said Mr. Seymour Hicks in a solemn tone of
contemptuous pity.

"That is society," said St. Barbe, as he received a bow of haughty
grace from Mrs. Rodney, who, fascinating and fascinated, was listening
to the enamoured murmurs of an individual with a very bright star and
a very red ribbon.

"I dined with the Rodneys yesterday," said Mr. Seymour Hicks; "they do
the thing well."

"You dined there!" exclaimed St. Barbe. "It is very odd, they have
never asked me. Not that I would have accepted their invitation. I
avoid parvenus. They are too fidgety for my taste. I require repose,
and only dine with the old nobility."



                           CHAPTER LXXXXIX

The Right Honourable Job Thornberry and Mrs. Thornberry had received
an invitation to the Montfort ball. Job took up the card, and turned
it over more than once, and looked at it as if it were some strange
animal, with an air of pleased and yet cynical perplexity; then he
shrugged his shoulders and murmured to himself, "No, I don't think
that will do. Besides, I must be at Hurstley by that time."

Going to Hurstley now was not so formidable an affair as it was in
Endymion's boyhood. Then the journey occupied a whole and wearisome
day. Little Hurstley had become a busy station of the great Slap-Bang
railway, and a despatch train landed you at the bustling and
flourishing hostelry, our old and humble friend, the Horse Shoe,
within the two hours. It was a rate that satisfied even Thornberry,
and almost reconciled him to the too frequent presence of his wife and
family at Hurstley, a place to which Mrs. Thornberry had, it would
seem, become passionately attached.

"There is a charm about the place, I must say," said Job to himself,
as he reached his picturesque home on a rich summer evening; "and yet
I hated it as a boy. To be sure, I was then discontented and unhappy,
and now I have every reason to be much the reverse. Our feelings
affect even scenery. It certainly is a pretty place; I really think
one of the prettiest places in England."

Job was cordially welcomed. His wife embraced him, and the younger
children clung to him with an affection which was not diminished by
the remembrance that their father never visited them with empty hands.
His eldest son, a good-looking and well-grown stripling, just home for
the holidays, stood apart, determined to show he was a man of the
world, and superior to the weakness of domestic sensibility. When the
hubbub was a little over, he advanced and shook hands with his father
with a certain dignity.

"And when did you arrive, my boy? I was looking up your train in
Bradshaw as I came along. I made out you should get the branch at
Culvers Gate."

"I drove over," replied the son; "I and a friend of mine drove tandem,
and I'll bet we got here sooner than we should have done by the
branch."

"Hem!" said Job Thornberry.

"Job," said Mrs. Thornberry, "I have made two engagements for you this
evening. First, we will go and see your father, and then we are to
drink tea at the rectory."

"Hem!" said Job Thornberry; "well, I would rather the first evening
should have been a quiet one; but let it be so."

The visit to the father was kind, dutiful, and wearisome. There was
not a single subject on which the father and son had thoughts in
common. The conversation of the father took various forms of
expressing his wonder that his son had become what he was, and the son
could only smile, and turn the subject, by asking after the produce of
some particular field that had been prolific or obstinate in the old
days. Mrs. Thornberry looked absent, and was thinking of the rectory;
the grandson who had accompanied them was silent and supercilious; and
everybody felt relieved when Mrs. Thornberry, veiling her impatience
by her fear of keeping her father-in-law up late, made a determined
move and concluded the domestic ceremony.

The rectory afforded a lively contrast to the late scene. Mr. and Mrs.
Penruddock were full of intelligence and animation. Their welcome of
Mr. Thornberry was exactly what it ought to have been; respectful,
even somewhat differential, but cordial and unaffected. They conversed
on all subjects, public and private, and on both seemed equally well
informed, for they not only read more than one newspaper, but Mrs.
Penruddock had an extensive correspondence, the conduct of which was
one of the chief pleasures and excitements of her life. Their tea-
equipage, too, was a picture of abundance and refinement. Such pretty
china, and such various and delicious cakes! White bread, and brown
bread, and plum cakes, and seed cakes, and no end of cracknels, and
toasts, dry or buttered. Mrs. Thornberry seemed enchanted and gushing
with affection,--everybody was dear or dearest. Even the face of John
Hampden beamed with condescending delight as he devoured a pyramid of
dainties.

Just before the tea-equipage was introduced Mrs. Penruddock rose from
her seat and whispered something to Mrs. Thornberry, who seemed
pleased and agitated and a little blushing, and then their hostess
addressed Job and said, "I was mentioning to your wife that the
archbishop was here, and that I hope you would not dislike meeting
him."

And very shortly after this, the archbishop, who had been taking a
village walk, entered the room. It was evident that he was intimate
with the occupiers of Hurstley Hall. He addressed Mrs. Thornberry with
the ease of habitual acquaintance, while John Hampden seemed almost to
rush into his arms. Job himself had seen his Grace in London, though
he had never had the opportunity of speaking to him, but yielded to
his cordiality, when the archbishop, on his being named, said, "It is
a pleasure to meet an old friend, and in times past a kind one."

It was a most agreeable evening. The archbishop talked to every one,
but never seemed to engross the conversation. He talked to the ladies
of gardens, and cottages, and a little of books, seemed deeply
interested in the studies and progress of the grandson Thornberry, who
evidently idolised him; and in due course his Grace was engaged in
economical speculations with Job himself, who was quite pleased to
find a priest as liberal and enlightened as he was able and thoroughly
informed. An hour before midnight they separated, though the
archbishop attended them to the hall.

Mrs. Thornberry's birthday was near at hand, which Job always
commemorated with a gift. It had commenced with some severe offering,
like "Paradise Lost," then it fell into the gentler form of Tennyson,
and, of late, unconsciously under the influence of his wife, it had
taken the shape of a bracelet or a shawl.

This evening, as he was rather feeling his way as to what might please
her most, Mrs. Thornberry embracing him, and hiding her face on his
breast, murmured, "Do not give me any jewel, dear Job. What I should
like would be that you should restore the chapel here."

"Restore the chapel here! oh, oh!" said Job Thornberry.



                              CHAPTER XC

The archbishop called at Hurstley House the next day. It was a visit
to Mr. Thornberry, but all the family were soon present, and clustered
round the visitor. Then they walked together in the gardens, which had
become radiant under the taste and unlimited expenditure of Mrs.
Thornberry; beds glowing with colour or rivalling mosaics, choice
conifers with their green or purple fruit, and rare roses with their
fanciful and beauteous names; one, by the by, named "Mrs. Penruddock,"
and a very gorgeous one, "The Archbishop."

As they swept along the terraces, restored to their pristine
comeliness, and down the green avenues bounded by copper beeches and
ancient yews, where men were sweeping away every leaf and twig that
had fallen in the night and marred the consummate order, it must have
been difficult for the Archbishop of Tyre not to recall the days gone
by, when this brilliant and finished scene, then desolate and
neglected, the abode of beauty and genius, yet almost of penury, had
been to him a world of deep and familiar interest. Yes, he was walking
in the same glade where he had once pleaded his own cause with an
eloquence which none of his most celebrated sermons had excelled. Did
he think of this? If he did, it was only to wrench the thought from
his memory. Archbishops who are yet young, who are resolved to be
cardinals, and who may be popes, are superior to all human weakness.

"I should like to look at your chapel," said his Grace to Mr.
Thornberry; "I remember it a lumber room, and used to mourn over its
desecration."

"I never was in it," said Job, "and cannot understand why my wife is
so anxious about it as she seems to be. When we first went to London,
she always sate under the Reverend Socinus Frost, and seemed very
satisfied. I have heard him; a sensible man--but sermons are not much
in my way, and I do not belong to his sect, or indeed any other."

However, they went to the chapel all the same, for Mrs. Thornberry was
resolved on the visit. It was a small chamber but beautifully
proportioned, like the mansion itself--of a blended Italian and Gothic
style. The roof was flat, but had been richly gilt and painted, and
was sustained by corbels of angels, divinely carved. There had been
some pews in the building; some had fallen to pieces, and some
remained, but these were not in the original design. The sacred table
had disappeared, but two saintly statues, sculptured in black oak,
seemed still to guard the spot which it had consecrated.

"I wonder what became of the communion table?" said Job.

"Oh! my dear father, do not call it a communion table," exclaimed John
Hampden pettishly.

"Why, what should I call it, my boy?"

"The altar."

"Why, what does it signify what we call it? The thing is the same."

"Ah!" exclaimed the young gentleman, in a tone of contemptuous
enthusiasm, "it is all the difference in the world. There should be a
stone altar and a reredos. We have put up a reredos in our chapel at
Bradley. All the fellows subscribed; I gave a sovereign."

"Well, I must say," said the archbishop, who had been standing in
advance with Mrs. Thornberry and the children, while this brief and
becoming conversation was taking place between father and son, "I
think you could hardly do a better thing than restore this chapel, Mr.
Thornberry, but there must be no mistake about it. It must be restored
to the letter, and it is a style that is not commonly understood. I
have a friend, however, who is a master of it, the most rising man in
his profession, as far as church architecture is concerned, and I will
get him just to run down and look at this, and if, as I hope, you
resolve to restore it, rest assured he will do you justice, and you
will be proud of your place of worship."

"I do not care how much we spend on our gardens," said Job, "for they
are transitory pleasures, and we enjoy what we produce; but why I
should restore a chapel in a house which does not belong to myself is
not so clear to me."

"But it should belong to yourself," rejoined the archbishop. "Hurstley
is not in the market, but it is to be purchased. Take it altogether, I
have always thought it one of the most enviable possessions in the
world. The house, when put in order, would be one of the ornaments of
the kingdom. The acreage, though considerable, is not overwhelming,
and there is a range of wild country of endless charm. I wandered
about it in my childhood and my youth, and I have never known anything
equal to it. Then as to the soil and all that, you know it. You are a
son of the soil. You left it for great objects, and you have attained
those objects. They have given you fame as well as fortune. There
would be something wonderfully dignified and graceful in returning to
the land after you have taken the principal part in solving the
difficulties which pertained to it, and emancipating it from many
perils."

"I am sure it would be the happiest day of my life, if Job would
purchase Hurstley," said Mrs. Thornberry.

"I should like to go to Oxford, and my father purchase Hurstley," said
the young gentleman. "If we have not landed property, I would sooner
have none. If we have not land, I should like to go into the Church,
and if I may not go to Oxford, I would go to Cuddesdon at once. I know
it can be done, for I know a fellow who has done it."

Poor Job Thornberry! He had ruled multitudes, and had conquered and
commanded senates. His Sovereign had made him one of her privy
councillors, and half a million of people had returned him their
representative to parliament. And here he stood silent, and a little
confused; sapped by his wife, bullied by his son, and after having
passed a great part of his life in denouncing sacerdotalism, finding
his whole future career chalked out, without himself being consulted,
by a priest who was so polite, sensible, and so truly friendly, that
his manner seemed to deprive its victims of every faculty of retort or
repartee. Still he was going to say something when the door opened,
and Mrs. Penruddock appeared, exclaiming in a cheerful voice, "I
thought I should find you here. I would not have troubled your Grace,
but this letter marked 'private, immediate, and to be forwarded,' has
been wandering about for some time, and I thought it was better to
bring it to you at once."

The Archbishop of Tyre took the letter, and seemed to start as he read
the direction. Then he stood aside, opened it, and read its contents.
The letter was from Lady Roehampton, desiring to see him as soon as
possible on a matter of the utmost gravity, and entreating him not to
delay his departure, wherever he might be.

"I am sorry to quit you all," said his Grace; "but I must go up to
town immediately. The business is urgent."



                             CHAPTER XCI

Endymion arrived at home very late from the Montfort ball, and rose in
consequence at an unusually late hour. He had taken means to become
sufficiently acquainted with the cause of his sister's absence the
night before, so he had no anxiety on that head. Lady Roehampton had
really intended to have been present, was indeed dressed for the
occasion; but when the moment of trial arrived, she was absolutely
unequal to the effort. All this was amplified in a little note from
his sister, which his valet brought him in the morning. What, however,
considerably surprised him in this communication was her announcement
that her feelings last night had proved to her that she ought not to
remain in London, and that she intended to find solitude and repose in
the little watering-place where she had passed a tranquil autumn
during the first year of her widowhood. What completed his
astonishment, however, was the closing intimation that, in all
probability, she would have left town before he rose. The moment she
had got a little settled she would write to him, and when business
permitted, he must come and pay her a little visit.

"She was always capricious," exclaimed Lady Montfort, who had not
forgotten the disturbance of her royal supper-table.

"Hardly that, I think," said Endymion. "I have always looked on Myra
as a singularly consistent character."

"I know, you never admit your sister has a fault."

"You said the other day yourself that she was the only perfect
character you knew."

"Did I say that? I think her capricious."

"I do not think you are capricious," said Endymion, "and yet the world
sometimes says you are."

"I change my opinion of persons when my taste is offended," said Lady
Montfort. "What I admired in your sister, though I confess I sometimes
wished not to admire her, was that she never offended my taste."

"I hope satisfied it," said Endymion.

"Yes, satisfied it, always satisfied it. I wonder what will be her
lot, for, considering her youth, her destiny has hardly begun. Somehow
or other, I do not think she will marry Sidney Wilton."

"I have sometimes thought that would be," said Endymion.

"Well, it would be, I think, a happy match. All the circumstances
would be collected that form what is supposed to be happiness. But
tastes differ about destinies as well as about manners. For my part, I
think to have a husband who loved you, and he clever, accomplished,
charming, ambitious, would be happiness; but I doubt whether your
sister cares so much about these things. She may, of course does, talk
to you more freely; but with others, in her most open hours, there
seems a secret fund of reserve in her character which I never could
penetrate, except, I think, it is a reserve which does not originate
in a love of tranquillity, but quite the reverse. She is a strong
character."

"Then, hardly a capricious one."

"No, not capricious; I only said that to tease you. I am capricious; I
know it. I disregard people sometimes that I have patronised and
flattered. It is not merely that I have changed my opinion of them,
but I positively hate them."

"I hope you will never hate me," said Endymion.

"You have never offended my taste yet," said Lady Montfort with a
smile.

Endymion was engaged to dine to-day with Mr. Bertie Tremaine. Although
now in hostile political camps, that great leader of men never
permitted their acquaintance to cease. "He is young," reasoned Mr.
Bertie Tremaine; "every political party changes its principles on an
average once in ten years. Those who are young must often then form
new connections, and Ferrars will then come to me. He will be ripe and
experienced, and I could give him a good deal. I do not want numbers.
I want men. In opposition, numbers often only embarrass. The power of
the future is ministerial capacity. The leader with a cabinet formed
will be the minister of England. He is not to trouble himself about
numbers; that is an affair of the constituencies."

Male dinners are in general not amusing. When they are formed, as they
usually are, of men who are supposed to possess a strong and common
sympathy--political, sporting, literary, military, social--there is
necessarily a monotony of thought and feeling, and of the materials
which induce thought and feeling. In a male dinner of party
politicians, conversation soon degenerates into what is termed "shop;"
anecdotes about divisions, criticism of speeches, conjectures about
office, speculations on impending elections, and above all, that
heinous subject on which enormous fibs are ever told, the
registration. There are, however, occasional glimpses in their talk
which would seem to intimate that they have another life outside the
Houses of Parliament. But that extenuating circumstance does not apply
to the sporting dinner. There they begin with odds and handicaps, and
end with handicaps and odds, and it is doubtful whether it ever occurs
to any one present, that there is any other existing combination of
atoms than odds and handicaps. A dinner of wits is proverbially a
place of silence; and the envy and hatred which all literary men
really feel for each other, especially when they are exchanging
dedications of mutual affection, always ensure, in such assemblies,
the agreeable presence of a general feeling of painful constraint. If
a good thing occurs to a guest, he will not express it, lest his
neighbour, who is publishing a novel in numbers, shall appropriate it
next month, or he himself, who has the same responsibility of
production, be deprived of its legitimate appearance. Those who desire
to learn something of the manoeuvres at the Russian and Prussian
reviews, or the last rumour at Aldershot or the military clubs, will
know where to find this feast of reason. The flow of soul in these
male festivals is perhaps, on the whole, more genial when found in a
society of young gentlemen, graduates of the Turf and the Marlborough,
and guided in their benignant studies by the gentle experience and the
mild wisdom of White's. The startling scandal, the rattling anecdote,
the astounding leaps, and the amazing shots, afford for the moment a
somewhat pleasing distraction, but when it is discovered that all
these habitual flim-flams are, in general, the airy creatures of
inaccuracy and exaggeration--that the scandal is not true, the
anecdote has no foundation, and that the feats and skill and strength
are invested with the organic weakness of tradition, the vagaries lose
something of the charm of novelty, and are almost as insipid as claret
from which the bouquet has evaporated.

The male dinners of Mr. Bertie Tremaine were an exception to the
general reputation of such meetings. They were never dull. In the
first place, though to be known at least by reputation was an
indispensable condition of being present, he brought different classes
together, and this, at least for once, stimulates and gratifies
curiosity. His house too was open to foreigners of celebrity, without
reference to their political parties or opinions. Every one was
welcome except absolute assassins. The host too had studied the art of
developing character and conversation, and if sometimes he was not so
successful in this respect as he deserved, there was no lack of
amusing entertainment, for in these social encounters Mr. Bertie
Tremaine was a reserve in himself, and if nobody else would talk, he
would avail himself of the opportunity of pouring forth the treasures
of his own teeming intelligence. His various knowledge, his power of
speech, his eccentric paradoxes, his pompous rhetoric, relieved by
some happy sarcasm, and the obvious sense, in all he said and did, of
innate superiority to all his guests, made these exhibitions extremely
amusing.

"What Bertie Tremaine will end in," Endymion would sometimes say,
"perplexes me. Had there been no revolution in 1832, and he had
entered parliament for his family borough, I think he must by this
time have been a minister. Such tenacity of purpose could scarcely
fail. But he has had to say and do so many odd things, first to get
into parliament, and secondly to keep there, that his future now is
not so clear. When I first knew him, he was a Benthamite; at present,
I sometimes seem to foresee that he will end by being the leader of
the Protectionists and the Protestants."

"And a good strong party too," said Trenchard, "but query whether
strong enough?"

"That is exactly what Bertie Tremaine is trying to find out."

Mr. Bertie Tremaine's manner in receiving his guests was courtly and
ceremonious; a contrast to the free and easy style of the time. But it
was adopted after due reflection. "No man can tell you what will be
the position he may be called upon to fill. But he has a right to
assume he will always be ascending. I, for example, may be destined to
be the president of a republic, the regent of a monarchy, or a
sovereign myself. It would be painful and disagreeable to have to
change one's manner at a perhaps advanced period of life, and become
liable to the unpopular imputation that you had grown arrogant and
overbearing. On the contrary, in my case, whatever my elevation, there
will be no change. My brother, Mr. Tremaine Bertie, acts on a
different principle. He is a Sybarite, and has a general contempt for
mankind, certainly for the mob and the middle class, but he is 'Hail
fellow, well met!' with them all. He says it answers at elections; I
doubt it. I myself represent a popular constituency, but I believe I
owe my success in no slight measure to the manner in which I gave my
hand when I permitted it to be touched. As I say sometimes to Mr.
Tremaine Bertie, 'You will find this habit of social familiarity
embarrassing when I send you to St. Petersburg or Vienna.'"

Waldershare dined there, now a peer, though, as he rejoiced to say,
not a peer of parliament. An Irish peer, with an English constituency,
filled, according to Waldershare, the most enviable of positions. His
rank gave him social influence, and his seat in the House of Commons
that power which all aspire to obtain. The cynosure of the banquet,
however, was a gentleman who had, about a year before, been the
president of a republic for nearly six weeks, and who being master of
a species of rhapsodical rhetoric, highly useful in troubled times,
when there is no real business to transact, and where there is nobody
to transact it, had disappeared when the treasury was quite empty, and
there were no further funds to reward the enthusiastic citizens who
had hitherto patriotically maintained order at wages about double in
amount to what they had previously received in their handicrafts. This
great reputation had been brought over by Mr. Tremaine Bertie, now
introducing him into English political society. Mr. Tremaine Bertie
hung upon the accents of the oracle, every word of which was intended
to be picturesque or profound, and then surveyed his friends with a
glance of appreciating wonder. Sensible Englishmen, like Endymion and
Trenchard, looked upon the whole exhibition as fustian, and received
the revelations with a smile of frigid courtesy.

The presence, however, of this celebrity of six weeks gave
occasionally a tone of foreign politics to the conversation, and the
association of ideas, which, in due course, rules all talk, brought
them, among other incidents and instances, to the remarkable career of
King Florestan.

"And yet he has his mortifications," said a sensible man. "He wants a
wife, and the princesses of the world will not furnish him with one."

"What authority have you for saying so?" exclaimed the fiery
Waldershare. "The princesses of the world would be great fools if they
refused such a man, but I know of no authentic instance of such
denial."

"Well, it is the common rumour."

"And, therefore, probably a common falsehood."

"Were he wise," said Mr. Bertie Tremaine, "King Florestan would not
marry. Dynasties are unpopular; especially new ones. The present age
is monarchical, but not dynastic. The king, who is a man of reach, and
who has been pondering such circumstances all his life, is probably
well aware of this, and will not be such a fool as to marry."

"How is the monarchy to go on, if there is to be no successor?"
inquired Trenchard. "You would not renew the Polish constitution?"

"The Polish constitution, by the by, was not so bad a thing," said Mr.
Bertie Tremaine. "Under it a distinguished Englishman might have mixed
with the crowned heads of Europe, as Sir Philip Sidney nearly did. But
I was looking to something superior to the Polish constitution, or
perhaps any other; I was contemplating a monarchy with the principle
of adoption. That would give you all the excellence of the Polish
constitution, and the order and constancy in which it failed. It would
realise the want of the age; monarchical, not dynastical,
institutions, and it would act independent of the passions and
intrigues of the multitude. The principle of adoption was the secret
of the strength and endurance of Rome. It gave Rome alike the Scipios
and the Antonines."

"A court would be rather dull without a woman at its head."

"On the contrary," said Mr. Bertie Tremaine. "It was Louis Quatorze
who made the court; not his queen."

"Well," said Waldershare, "all the same, I fear King Florestan will
adopt no one in this room, though he has several friends here, and I
am one; and I believe that he will marry, and I cannot help fancying
that the partner of this throne will not be as insignificant as Louis
the Fourteenth's wife, or Catherine of Braganza."

Jawett dined this day with Mr. Bertie Tremaine. He was a frequent
guest there, and still was the editor of the "Precursor," though it
sometimes baffled all that lucidity of style for which he was
celebrated to reconcile the conduct of the party, of which the
"Precursor" was alike the oracle and organ, with the opinions with
which that now well-established journal first attempted to direct and
illuminate the public mind. It seemed to the editor that the
"Precursor" dwelt more on the past than became a harbinger of the
future. Not that Mr. Bertie Tremaine ever for a moment admitted that
there was any difficulty in any case. He never permitted any dogmas
that he had ever enunciated to be surrendered, however contrary at
their first aspect.

             "All are but parts of one stupendous whole,"

and few things were more interesting than the conference in which Mr.
Bertie Tremaine had to impart his views and instructions to the master
of that lucid style, which had the merit of making everything so very
clear when the master himself was, as at present, extremely perplexed
and confused. Jawett lingered after the other guests, that he might
have the advantage of consulting the great leader on the course which
he ought to take in advocating a measure which seemed completely at
variance with all the principles they had ever upheld.

"I do not see your difficulty," wound up the host. "Your case is
clear. You have a principle which will carry you through everything.
That is the charm of a principle. You have always an answer ready."

"But in this case," somewhat timidly inquired Mr. Jawett, "what would
be the principle on which I should rest?"

"You must show," said Mr. Bertie Tremaine, "that democracy is
aristocracy in disguise; and that aristocracy is democracy in
disguise. It will carry you through everything."

Even Jawett looked a little amazed.

"But"--he was beginning, when Mr. Bertie Tremaine arose. "Think of
what I have said, and if on reflection any doubt or difficulty remain
in your mind, call on me to-morrow before I go to the House. At
present, I must pay my respects to Lady Beaumaris. She is the only
woman the Tories can boast of; but she is a first-rate woman, and is a
power which I must secure."



                             CHAPTER XCII

A month had nearly elapsed since the Montfort ball; the season was
over and the session was nearly finished. The pressure of
parliamentary life for those in office is extreme during this last
month, yet Endymion would have contrived, were it only for a day, to
have visited his sister, had Lady Roehampton much encouraged his
appearance. Strange as it seemed to him, she did not, but, on the
contrary, always assumed that the prorogation of parliament would
alone bring them together again. When he proposed on one occasion to
come down for four-and-twenty hours, she absolutely, though with much
affection, adjourned the fulfilment of the offer. It seemed that she
was not yet quite settled.

Lady Montfort lingered in London even after Goodwood. She was rather
embarrassed, as she told Endymion, about her future plans. Lord
Montfort was at Princedown, where she wished to join him, but he did
not respond to her wishes; on the contrary, while announcing that he
was indisposed, and meant to remain at Princedown for the summer, he
suggested that she should avail herself of the opportunity, and pay a
long visit to her family in the north. "I know what he means," she
observed; "he wants the world to believe that we are separated. He
cannot repudiate me--he is too great a gentleman to do anything
coarsely unjust; but he thinks, by tact and indirect means, he may
achieve our virtual separation. He has had this purpose for years, I
believe now ever since our marriage, but hitherto I have baffled him.
I ought to be with him; I really believe he is indisposed, his face
has become so pale of late; but were I to persist in going to
Princedown I should only drive him away. He would go off into the
night without leaving his address, and something would happen--
dreadful or absurd. What I had best do, I think, is this. You are
going at last to pay your visit to your sister; I will write to my
lord and tell him that as he does not wish me to go to Princedown, I
propose to go to Montfort Castle. When the flag is flying at Montfort,
I can pay a visit of any length to my family. It will only be a
neighbouring visit from Montfort to them; perhaps, too, they might
return it. At any rate, then they cannot say my lord and I are
separated. We need not live under the same roof, but so long as I live
under his roof the world considers us united. It is a pity to have to
scheme in this manner, and rather degrading, particularly when one
might be so happy with him. But you know, my dear Endymion, all about
our affairs. Your friend is not a very happy woman, and if not a very
unhappy one, it is owing much to your dear friendship, and a little to
my own spirit which keeps me up under what is frequent and sometimes
bitter mortification. And now adieu! I suppose you cannot be away less
than a week. Probably on your return you will find me here. I cannot
go to Montfort without his permission. But he will give it. I observe
that he will always do anything to gain his immediate object. His
immediate object is, that I shall not go to Princedown, and so he will
agree that I shall go to Montfort."

For the first time in his life, Endymion felt some constraint in the
presence of Myra. There was something changed in her manner. No
diminution of affection, for she threw her arms around him and pressed
him to her heart; and then she looked at him anxiously, even sadly,
and kissed both his eyes, and then she remained for some moments in
silence with her face hid on his shoulder. Never since the loss of
Lord Roehampton had she seemed so subdued.

"It is a long separation," she at length said, with a voice and smile
equally faint, "and you must be a little wearied with your travelling.
Come and refresh yourself, and then I will show you my boudoir I have
made here; rather pretty, out of nothing. And then we will sit down
and have a long talk together, for I have much to tell you, and I want
your advice."

"She is going to marry Sidney Wilton," thought Endymion; "that is
clear."

The boudoir was really pretty, "made out of nothing;" a gay chintz,
some shelves of beautiful books, some fanciful chairs, and a portrait
of Lord Roehampton.

It was a long interview, very long, and if one could judge by the
countenance of Endymion, when he quitted the boudoir and hastened to
his room, of grave import. Sometimes his face was pale, sometimes
scarlet; the changes were rapid, but the expression was agitated
rather than one of gratification.

He sent instantly for his servant, and then penned this telegram to
Lady Montfort: "My visit here will be short. I am to see you
immediately. Nothing must prevent your being at home when I call
to-morrow, about four o'clock. Most, most important."



                            CHAPTER XCIII

"Well, something has happened at last," said Lady Montfort with a
wondering countenance; "it is too marvellous."

"She goes to Osborne to-day," continued Endymion, "and I suppose after
that, in due course, it will be generally known. I should think the
formal announcement would be made abroad. It has been kept wonderfully
close. She wished you to know it first, at least from her. I do not
think she ever hesitated about accepting him. There was delay from
various causes; whether there should be a marriage by proxy first in
this country, and other points; about religion, for example."

"Well?"

"She enters the Catholic Church, the Archbishop of Tyre has received
her. There is no difficulty and no great ceremonies in such matters.
She was re-baptized, but only by way of precaution. It was not
necessary, for our baptism, you know, is recognised by Rome."

"And that was all!"

"All, with a first communion and confession. It is all consummated
now; as you say, 'It is too wonderful.' A first confession, and to
Nigel Penruddock, who says life is flat and insipid!"

"I shall write to her: I must write to her. I wonder if I shall see
her before she departs."

"That is certain if you wish it; she wishes it."

"And when does she go? And who goes with her?"

"She will be under my charge," said Endymion. "It is fortunate that it
should happen at a time when I am free. I am personally to deliver her
to the king. The Duke of St. Angelo, Baron Sergius, and the archbishop
accompany her, and Waldershare, at the particular request of his
Majesty."

"And no lady?"

"She takes Adriana with her."

"Adriana!" repeated Lady Montfort, and a cloud passed over her brow.
There was a momentary pause, and then Lady Montfort said, "I wish she
would take me."

"That would be delightful," said Endymion, "and most becoming--to have
for a companion the greatest lady of our court."

"She will not take me with her," said Lady Montfort, sorrowfully but
decisively, and shaking her head. "Dear woman! I loved her always,
often most when I seemed least affectionate--but there was between us
something"--and she hesitated. "Heigho! I may be the greatest lady of
our court, but I am a very unhappy woman, Endymion, and what annoys
and dispirits me most, sometimes quite breaks me down, is that I
cannot see that I deserve my lot."

It happened as Endymion foresaw; the first announcement came from
abroad. King Florestan suddenly sent a message to his parliament, that
his Majesty was about to present them with a queen. She was not the
daughter of a reigning house, but she came from the land of freedom
and political wisdom, and from the purest and most powerful court in
Europe. His subjects soon learnt that she was the most beautiful of
women, for the portrait of the Countess of Roehampton, as it were by
magic, seemed suddenly to fill every window in every shop in the
teeming and brilliant capital where she was about to reign.

It was convenient that these great events should occur when everybody
was out of town. Lady Montfort alone remained, the frequent, if not
constant, companion of the new sovereign. Berengaria soon recovered
her high spirits. There was much to do and prepare in which her hints
and advice were invaluable. Though she was not to have the honour of
attending Myra to her new home, which, considering her high place in
the English court, was perhaps hardly consistent with etiquette, for
so she now cleverly put it, she was to pay her Majesty a visit in due
time. The momentary despondency that had clouded her brilliant
countenance had not only disappeared, but she had quite forgotten, and
certainly would not admit, that she was anything but the most sanguine
and energetic of beings, and rallied Endymion unmercifully for his
careworn countenance and too frequent air of depression. The truth is,
the great change that was impending was one which might well make him
serious, and sometimes sad.

The withdrawal of a female influence, so potent on his life as that of
his sister, was itself a great event. There had been between them from
the cradle, which, it may be said, they had shared, a strong and
perfect sympathy. They had experienced together vast and strange
vicissitudes of life. Though much separated in his early youth, there
had still been a constant interchange of thought and feeling between
them. For the last twelve years or so, ever since Myra had become
acquainted with the Neuchatel family, they may be said never to have
separated--at least they had maintained a constant communication, and
generally a personal one. She had in a great degree moulded his life.
Her unfaltering, though often unseen, influence had created his
advancement. Her will was more powerful than his. He was more prudent
and plastic. He felt this keenly. He was conscious that, left to
himself, he would probably have achieved much less. He remembered her
words when they parted for the first time at Hurstley, "Women will be
your best friends in life." And that brought his thoughts to the only
subject on which they had ever differed--her wished-for union between
himself and Adriana. He felt he had crossed her there--that he had
prevented the fulfilment of her deeply-matured plans. Perhaps, had
that marriage taken place, she would never have quitted England.
Perhaps; but was that desirable? Was it not fitter that so lofty a
spirit should find a seat as exalted as her capacity? Myra was a
sovereign! In this age of strange events, not the least strange. No
petty cares and griefs must obtrude themselves in such majestic
associations. And yet the days at Hainault were very happy, and the
bright visits to Gaydene, and her own pleasant though stately home.
His heart was agitated, and his eyes were often moistened with
emotion. He seemed to think that all the thrones of Christendom could
be no compensation for the loss of this beloved genius of his life,
whom he might never see again. Sometimes, when he paid his daily visit
to Berengaria, she who knew him by heart, who studied every expression
of his countenance and every tone of his voice, would say to him,
after a few minutes of desultory and feeble conversation, "You are
thinking of your sister, Endymion?"

He did not reply, but gave a sort of faint mournful smile.

"This separation is a trial, a severe one, and I knew you would feel
it," said Lady Montfort. "I feel it; I loved your sister, but she did
not love me. Nobody that I love ever does love me."

"Oh! do not say that, Lady Montfort."

"It is what I feel. I cannot console you. There is nothing I can do
for you. My friendship, if you value it, which I will not doubt you
do, you fully possessed before your sister was a Queen. So that goes
for nothing."

"I must say, I feel sometimes most miserable."

"Nonsense, Endymion; if anything could annoy your sister more than
another, it would be to hear of such feelings on your part. I must say
she has courage. She has found her fitting place. Her brother ought to
do the same. You have a great object in life, at least you had, but I
have no faith in sentimentalists. If I had been sentimental, I should
have gone into a convent long ago."

"If to feel is to be sentimental, I cannot help it."

"All feeling which has no object to attain is morbid and maudlin,"
said Lady Montfort. "You say you are very miserable, and at the same
time you do not know what you want. Would you have your sister
dethroned? And if you would, could you accomplish your purpose? Well,
then, what nonsense to think about her except to feel proud of her
elevation, and prouder still that she is equal to it!"

"You always have the best of every argument," said Endymion.

"Of course," said Lady Montfort. "What I want you to do is to exert
yourself. You have now a strong social position, for Sidney Wilton
tells me the Queen has relinquished to you her mansion and the whole
of her income, which is no mean one. You must collect your friends
about you. Our government is not too strong, I can tell you. We must
brush up in the recess. What with Mr. Bertie Tremaine and his friends
joining the Protectionists, and the ultra-Radicals wanting, as they
always do, something impossible, I see seeds of discomfiture unless
they are met with energy. You stand high, and are well spoken of even
by our opponents. Whether we stand or fall, it is a moment for you to
increase your personal influence. That is the element now to encourage
in your career, because you are not like the old fogies in the
cabinet, who, if they go out, will never enter another again. You have
a future, and though you may not be an emperor, you may be what I
esteem more, prime minister of this country."

"You are always so sanguine."

"Not more sanguine than your sister. Often we have talked of this. I
wish she were here to help us, but I will do my part. At present let
us go to luncheon."



                             CHAPTER XCIV

There was a splendid royal yacht, though not one belonging to our
gracious Sovereign, lying in one of Her Majesty's southern ports, and
the yacht was convoyed by a smart frigate. The crews were much ashore,
and were very popular, for they spent a great deal of money. Everybody
knew what was the purpose of their bright craft, and every one was
interested in it. A beautiful Englishwoman had been selected to fill a
foreign and brilliant throne occupied by a prince, who had been
educated in our own country, who ever avowed his sympathies with "the
inviolate island of the sage and free." So in fact there was some
basis for the enthusiasm which was felt on this occasion by the
inhabitants of Nethampton. What every one wanted to know was when she
would sail. Ah! that was a secret that could hardly be kept for the
eight-and-forty hours preceding her departure, and therefore, one day,
with no formal notice, all the inhabitants of Nethampton were in gala;
streets and ships dressed out with the flags of all nations; the
church bells ringing; and busy little girls running about with huge
bouquets.

At the very instant expected, the special train was signalled, and
drove into the crimson station amid the thunder of artillery, the
blare of trumpets, the beating of drums, and cheers from thousands
even louder and longer than the voices of the cannon. Leaning on the
arm of her brother, and attended by the Princess of Montserrat, and
the Honourable Adriana Neuchatel, Baron Sergius, the Duke of St.
Angelo, the Archbishop of Tyre, and Lord Waldershare, the daughter of
William Ferrars, gracious, yet looking as if she were born to empire,
received the congratulatory address of the mayor and corporation and
citizens of Nethampton, and permitted her hand to be kissed, not only
by his worship, but by at least two aldermen.

They were on the waters, and the shores of Albion, fast fading away,
had diminished to a speck. It is a melancholy and tender moment, and
Myra was in her ample and splendid cabin and alone. "It is a trial,"
she felt, "but all that I love and value in this world are in this
vessel," and she thought of Endymion and Adriana. The gentlemen were
on deck, chiefly smoking or reconnoitring their convoy through their
telescopes.

"I must say," said Waldershare, "it was a grand idea of our kings
making themselves sovereigns of the sea. The greater portion of this
planet is water; so we at once became a first-rate power. We owe our
navy entirely to the Stuarts. King James the Second was the true
founder and hero of the British navy. He was the worthy son of his
admirable father, that blessed martyr, the restorer at least, if not
the inventor, of ship money; the most patriotic and popular tax that
ever was devised by man. The Nonconformists thought themselves so wise
in resisting it, and they have got the naval estimates instead!"

The voyage was propitious, the weather delightful, and when they had
entered the southern waters Waldershare confessed that he felt the
deliciousness of life. If the scene and the impending events, and
their own fair thoughts, had not been adequate to interest them, there
were ample resources at their command; all the ladies were skilled
musicians, their concerts commenced at sunset, and the sweetness of
their voices long lingered over the moonlit waters.

Adriana, one evening, bending over the bulwarks of the yacht, was
watching the track of phosphoric light, struck into brilliancy from
the dark blue waters by the prow of their rapid vessel. "It is a
fascinating sight, Miss Neuchatel, and it seems one might gaze on it
for ever."

"Ah! Lord Waldershare, you caught me in a reverie."

"What more sweet?"

"Well, that depends on its subject. To tell the truth, I was thinking
that these lights resembled a little your conversation; all the
wondrous things you are always saying or telling us."

The archbishop was a man who never recurred to the past. One could
never suppose that Endymion and himself had been companions in their
early youth, or, so far as their intercourse was concerned, that there
was such a place in the world as Hurstley. One night, however, as they
were pacing the deck together, he took the arm of Endymion, and said,
"I trace the hand of Providence in every incident of your sister's
life. What we deemed misfortunes, sorrows, even calamities, were
forming a character originally endowed with supreme will, and destined
for the highest purposes. There was a moment at Hurstley when I myself
was crushed to the earth, and cared not to live; vain, short-sighted
mortal! Our great Master was at that moment shaping everything to His
ends, and preparing for the entrance into His Church of a woman who
may be, who will be, I believe, another St. Helena."

"We have not spoken of this subject before," said Endymion, "and I
should not have cared had our silence continued, but I must now tell
you frankly, the secession of my sister from the Church of her fathers
was to me by no means a matter of unmixed satisfaction."

"The time will come when you will recognise it as the consummation of
a Divine plan," said the archbishop.

"I feel great confidence that my sister will never be the slave of
superstition," said Endymion. "Her mind is too masculine for that; she
will remember that the throne she fills has been already once lost by
the fatal influence of the Jesuits."

"The influence of the Jesuits is the influence of Divine truth," said
his companion. "And how is it possible for such influence not to
prevail? What you treat as defeats, discomfitures, are events which
you do not comprehend. They are incidents all leading to one great end
--the triumph of the Church--that is, the triumph of God."

"I will not decide what are great ends; I am content to ascertain what
is wise conduct. And it would not be wise conduct, in my opinion, for
the King to rest upon the Jesuits."

"The Jesuits never fell except from conspiracy against them. It is
never the public voice that demands their expulsion or the public
effort that accomplishes it. It is always the affair of sovereigns and
statesmen, of politicians, of men, in short, who feel that there is a
power at work, and that power one not favourable to their schemes or
objects of government."

"Well, we shall see," said Endymion; "I candidly tell you, I hope the
Jesuits will have as little influence in my brother-in-law's kingdom
as in my own country."

"As little!" said Nigel, somewhat sarcastically; "I should be almost
content if the holy order in every country had as much influence as
they now have in England."

"I think your Grace exaggerates."

"Before two years are past," said the archbishop, speaking very
slowly, "I foresee that the Jesuits will be privileged in England, and
the hierarchy of our Church recognised."

It was a delicious afternoon; it had been sultry, but the sun had now
greatly declined, when the captain of the yacht came down to announce
to the Queen that they were in sight of her new country, and she
hastened on deck to behold the rapidly nearing shore. A squadron of
ships of war had stood out to meet her, and in due time the towers and
spires of a beautiful city appeared, which was the port of the
capital, and itself almost worthy of being one. A royal barge,
propelled by four-and-twenty rowers, and bearing the lord chamberlain,
awaited the queen, and the moment her Majesty and the Princess of
Montserrat had taken their seats, salutes thundered from every ship of
war, responded to by fort and battery ashore.

When they landed, they were conducted by chief officers of the court
to a pavilion which faced the western sky, now glowing like an opal
with every shade of the iris, and then becoming of a light green
colour varied only by some slight clouds burnished with gold. A troop
of maidens brought flowers as bright as themselves, and then a company
of pages advanced, and kneeling, offered to the Queen chocolate in a
crystal cup.

According to the programme drawn up by the heralds, and every tittle
of it founded on precedents, the King and the royal carriages were to
have met the travellers on their arrival at the metropolis; but there
are feelings which heralds do not comprehend, and which defy
precedents. Suddenly there was a shout, a loud cheer, and a louder
salute. Some one had arrived unexpectedly. A young man, stately but
pale, moved through the swiftly receding crowd, alone and unattended,
entered the pavilion, advanced to the Queen, kissed her hand, and then
both her cheeks, just murmuring, "My best beloved, this, this indeed
is joy."

The capital was fortified, and the station was without the walls; here
the royal carriages awaited them. The crowd was immense; the ramparts
on this occasion were covered with people. It was an almost sultry
night, with every star visible, and clear and warm and sweet. As the
royal carriage crossed the drawbridge and entered the chief gates, the
whole city was in an instant suddenly illuminated--in a flash. The
architectural lines of the city walls, and of every street, were
indicated, and along the ramparts at not distant intervals were
tripods, each crowned with a silver flame, which cast around the
radiance of day.

He held and pressed her hand as in silence she beheld the wondrous
scene. They had to make a progress of some miles; the way was kept
throughout by soldiery and civic guards, while beyond them was an
infinite population, all cheering and many of them waving torches.
They passed through many streets, and squares with marvellous
fountains, until they arrived at the chief and royal street, which has
no equal in the world. It is more than a mile long, never swerving
from a straight line, broad, yet the houses so elevated that they
generally furnish the shade this ardent clime requires. The
architecture of this street is so varied that it never becomes
monotonous, some beautiful church, or palace, or ministerial hotel
perpetually varying the effect. All the windows were full on this
occasion, and even the roofs were crowded. Every house was covered
with tapestry, and the line of every building was marked out by
artificial light. The moon rose, but she was not wanted; it was as
light as day.

They were considerate enough not to move too rapidly through this
heart of the metropolis, and even halted at some stations, where bands
of music and choirs of singers welcomed and celebrated them. They
moved on more quickly afterwards, made their way through a pretty
suburb, and then entered a park. At the termination of a long avenue
was the illumined and beautiful palace of the Prince of Montserrat,
where Myra was to reside and repose until the momentous morrow, when
King Florestan was publicly to place on the brow of his affianced
bride the crown which to his joy she had consented to share.



                             CHAPTER XCV

There are very few temperaments that can resist an universal and
unceasing festival in a vast and beautiful metropolis. It is
inebriating, and the most wonderful of all its accidents is how the
population can ever calm and recur to the monotony of ordinary life.
When all this happens, too, in a capital blessed with purple skies,
where the moonlight is equal to our sunshine, and where half the
population sleep in the open air and wish for no roof but the heavens,
existence is a dream of phantasy and perpetual loveliness, and one is
at last forced to believe that there is some miraculous and
supernatural agency that provides the ever-enduring excitement and
ceaseless incidents of grace and beauty.

After the great ceremony of the morrow in the cathedral, and when
Myra, kneeling at the altar with her husband, received, under a canopy
of silver brocade, the blessings of a cardinal and her people, day
followed day with court balls and municipal banquets, state visits to
operas, and reviews of sumptuous troops. At length the end of all this
pageantry and enthusiasm approached, and amid a blaze of fireworks,
the picturesque population of this fascinating city tried to return to
ordinary feeling and to common sense.

If amid this graceful hubbub and this glittering riot any one could
have found time to remark the carriage and conduct of an individual,
one might have observed, and perhaps been surprised at, the change in
those of Miss Neuchatel. That air of pensive resignation which
distinguished her seemed to have vanished. She never wore that doleful
look for which she was too remarkable in London saloons, and which
marred a countenance favoured by nature and a form intended for gaiety
and grace. Perhaps it was the influence of the climate, perhaps the
excitement of the scene, perhaps some rapture with the wondrous
fortunes of the friend whom she adored, but Adriana seemed suddenly to
sympathise with everybody and to appreciate everything; her face was
radiant, she was in every dance, and visited churches and museums, and
palaces and galleries, with keen delight. With many charms, the
intimate friend of their sovereign, and herself known to be noble and
immensely rich, Adriana became the fashion, and a crowd of princes
were ever watching her smiles, and sometimes offering her their sighs.

"I think you enjoy our visit more than any one of us," said Endymion
to her one day, with some feeling of surprise.

"Well, one cannot mope for ever," said Miss Neuchatel; "I have passed
my life in thinking of one subject, and I feel now it made me very
stupid."

Endymion felt embarrassed, and, though generally ready, had no
repartee at command. Lord Waldershare, however, came to his relief,
and claimed Adriana for the impending dance.

This wondrous marriage was a grand subject for "our own
correspondents," and they abounded. Among them were Jawett and St.
Barbe. St. Barbe hated Jawett, as indeed he did all his brethren, but
his appointment in this instance he denounced as an infamous job.
"Merely to allow him to travel in foreign parts, which he has never
done, without a single qualification for the office! However, it will
ruin his paper, that is some consolation. Fancy sending here a man who
has never used his pen except about those dismal statistics, and what
he calls first principles! I hate his style, so neat and frigid. No
colour, sir. I hate his short sentences, like a dog barking; we want a
word-painter here, sir. My description of the wedding sold one hundred
and fifty thousand, and it is selling now. If the proprietors were
gentlemen, they would have sent me an unlimited credit, instead of
their paltry fifty pounds a day and my expenses; but you never meet a
liberal man now,--no such animal known. What I want you to do for me,
Lord Waldershare, is to get me invited to the Villa Aurea when the
court moves there. It will be private life there, and that is the
article the British public want now. They are satiated with ceremonies
and festivals. They want to know what the royal pair have for dinner
when they are alone, how they pass their evenings, and whether the
queen drives ponies."

"So far as I am concerned," said Waldershare, "they shall remain state
secrets."

"I have received no special favours here," rejoined St. Barbe,
"though, with my claims, I might have counted on the uttermost.
However, it is always so. I must depend on my own resources. I have a
retainer, I can tell you, my lord, from the 'Rigdum Funidos,' in my
pocket, and it is in my power to keep up such a crackling of jokes and
sarcasms that a very different view would soon be entertained in
Europe of what is going on here than is now the fashion. The 'Rigdum
Funidos' is on the breakfast-table of all England, and sells thousands
in every capital of the world. You do not appreciate its power; you
will now feel it."

"I also am a subscriber to the 'Rigdum Funidos,'" said Waldershare,
"and tell you frankly, Mr. St. Barbe, that if I see in its columns the
slightest allusion to any persons or incident in this country, I will
take care that you be instantly consigned to the galleys; and, this
being a liberal government, I can do that without even the ceremony of
a primary inquiry."

"You do not mean that?" said St. Barbe; "of course, I was only
jesting. It is not likely that I should say or do anything
disagreeable to those whom I look upon as my patrons--I may say
friends--through life. It makes me almost weep when I remember my
early connection with Mr. Ferrars, now an under-secretary of state,
and who will mount higher. I never had a chance of being a minister,
though I suppose I am not more incapable than others who get the
silver spoon into their mouths. And then his divine sister! Quite an
heroic character! I never had a sister, and so I never had even a
chance of being nearly related to royalty. But so it has been
throughout my life. No luck, my lord; no luck. And then they say one
is misanthropical. Hang it! who can help being misanthropical when he
finds everybody getting on in life except himself?"

The court moved to their favourite summer residence, a Palladian
palace on a blue lake, its banks clothed with forests abounding with
every species of game, and beyond them loftier mountains. The king was
devoted to sport, and Endymion was always among his companions.
Waldershare rather attached himself to the ladies, who made gay
parties floating in gondolas, and refreshed themselves with picnics in
sylvan retreats. It was supposed Lord Waldershare was a great admirer
of the Princess of Montserrat, who in return referred to him as that
"lovable eccentricity." As the autumn advanced, parties of guests of
high distinction, carefully arranged, periodically arrived. Now, there
was more ceremony, and every evening the circle was formed, while the
king and queen exchanged words, and sometimes ideas, with those who
were so fortunate as to be under their roof. Frequently there were
dramatic performances, and sometimes a dance. The Princess of
Montserrat was invaluable in these scenes; vivacious, imaginative, a
consummate mimic, her countenance, though not beautiful, was full of
charm. What was strange, Adriana took a great fancy to her Highness,
and they were seldom separated. The only cloud for Endymion in this
happy life was, that every day the necessity of his return to England
was more urgent, and every day the days vanished more quickly. That
return to England, once counted by weeks, would soon be counted by
hours. He had conferred once or twice with Waldershare on the subject,
who always turned the conversation; at last Endymion reminded him that
the time of his departure was at hand, and that, originally, it had
been agreed they should return together.

"Yes, my dear Ferrars, we did so agree, but the agreement was
permissive, not compulsory. My views are changed. Perhaps I shall
never return to England again; I think of being naturalised here."

The queen was depressed at the prospect of being separated from her
brother. Sometimes she remonstrated with him for his devotion to sport
which deprived her of his society; frequently in a morning she sent
for him to her boudoir, that they might talk together as in old times.
"The king has invited Lord and Lady Beaumaris to pay us a visit, and
they are coming at once. I had hoped the dear Hainaults might have
visited us here. I think she would have liked it. However, they will
certainly pass the winter with us. It is some consolation to me not to
lose Adriana."

"The greatest," said Endymion, "and she seems so happy here. She seems
quite changed."

"I hope she is happier," said the queen, "but I trust she is not
changed. I think her nearly perfection. So pure, even so exalted a
mind, joined with so sweet a temper, I have never met. And she is very
much admired too, I can tell you. The Prince of Arragon would be on
his knees to her to-morrow, if she would only give a single smile. But
she smiles enough with the Princess of Montserrat. I heard her the
other day absolutely in uncontrollable laughter. That is a strange
friendship; it amuses me."

"The princess has immense resource."

The queen suddenly rose from her seat; her countenance was disturbed.

"Why do we talk of her, or of any other trifler of the court, when
there hangs over us so great a sorrow, Endymion, as our separation?
Endymion, my best beloved," and she threw her arms round his neck, "my
heart! my life! Is it possible that you can leave me, and so miserable
as I am?"

"Miserable!"

"Yes! miserable when I think of your position--and even my own. Mine
own has risen like a palace in a dream, and may vanish like one. But
that would not be a calamity if you were safe. If I quitted this world
to-morrow, where would you be? It gives me sleepless nights and
anxious days. If you really loved me as you say, you would save me
this. I am haunted with the perpetual thought that all this glittering
prosperity will vanish as it did with our father. God forbid that,
under any circumstances, it should lead to such an end--but who knows?
Fate is terribly stern; ironically just. O Endymion! if you really
love me, your twin, half of your blood and life, who have laboured for
you so much, and thought for you so much, and prayed for you so much--
and yet I sometimes feel have done so little--O Endymion! my adored,
my own Endymion, if you wish to preserve my life--if you wish me not
only to live, but really to be happy as I ought to be and could be,
but for one dark thought, help me, aid me, save me--you can, and by
one single act."

"One single act!"

"Yes! marry Adriana."

"Ah!" and he sighed.

"Yes, Adriana, to whom we both of us owe everything. Were it not for
Adriana, you would not be here, you would be nothing," and she
whispered some words which made him start, and alternately blush and
look pale.

"Is it possible?" he exclaimed. "My sister, my beloved sister, I have
tried to keep my brain cool in many trials. But I feel, as it were, as
if life were too much for me. You counsel me to that which we should
all repent."

"Yes, I know it; you may for a moment think it a sacrifice, but
believe me, that is all phantasy. I know you think your heart belongs
to another. I will grant everything, willingly grant everything you
could say of her. Yes, I admit, she is beautiful, she has many charms,
has been to you a faithful friend, you delight in her society; such
things have happened before to many men, to every man they say they
happen, but that has not prevented them from being wise, and very
happy too. Your present position, if you persist in it, is one most
perilous. You have no root in the country; but for an accident you
could not maintain the public position you have nobly gained. As for
the great crowning consummation of your life, which we dreamed over at
unhappy Hurstley, which I have sometimes dared to prophesy, that must
be surrendered. The country at the best will look upon you only as a
reputable adventurer to be endured, even trusted and supported, in
some secondary post, but nothing more. I touch on this, for I see it
is useless to speak of myself and my own fate and feelings; only
remember, Endymion, I have never deceived you. I cannot endure any
longer this state of affairs. When in a few days we part, we shall
never meet again. And all the devotion of Myra will end in your
destroying her."

"My own, my beloved Myra, do with me what you like. If ----"

At this moment there was a gentle tap at the door, and the king
entered.

"My angel," he said, "and you too, my dear Endymion. I have some news
from England which I fear may distress you. Lord Montfort is dead."



                             CHAPTER XCVI

There was ever, when separated, an uninterrupted correspondence
between Berengaria and Endymion. They wrote to each other every day,
so that when they met again there was no void in their lives and
mutual experience, and each was acquainted with almost every feeling
and incident that had been proved, or had occurred, since they parted.
The startling news, however, communicated by the king had not
previously reached Endymion, because he was on the eve of his return
to England, and his correspondents had been requested to direct their
future letters to his residence in London.

His voyage home was an agitated one, and not sanguine or inspiriting.
There was a terrible uncertainty in the future. What were the feelings
of Lady Montfort towards himself? Friendly, kind, affectionate, in a
certain sense, even devoted, no doubt; but all consistent with a deep
and determined friendship which sought and wished for no return more
ardent. But now she was free. Yes, but would she again forfeit her
freedom? And if she did, would it not be to attain some great end,
probably the great end of her life? Lady Montfort was a woman of far-
reaching ambition. In a certain degree, she had married to secure her
lofty aims; and yet it was only by her singular energy, and the
playfulness and high spirit of her temperament, that the sacrifice had
not proved a failure; her success, however, was limited, for the ally
on who she had counted rarely assisted and never sympathised with her.
It was true she admired and even loved her husband; her vanity, which
was not slight, was gratified by her conquest of one whom it had
seemed no one could subdue, and who apparently placed at her feet all
the power and magnificence which she appreciated.

Poor Endymion, who loved her passionately, over whom she exercised the
influence of a divinity, who would do nothing without consulting her,
and who was moulded, and who wished to be moulded, by her inspiring
will, was also a shrewd man of the world, and did not permit his
sentiment to cloud his perception of life and its doings. He felt that
Lady Montfort had fallen from a lofty position, and she was not of a
temperament that would quietly brook her fate. Instead of being the
mistress of castles and palaces, with princely means, and all the
splendid accidents of life at her command, she was now a dowager with
a jointure! Still young, with her charms unimpaired, heightened even
by the maturity of her fascinating qualities, would she endure this?
She might retain her friendship for one who, as his sister ever
impressed upon him, had no root in the land, and even that friendship,
he felt conscious, must yield much of its entireness and intimacy to
the influence of new ties; but for their lives ever being joined
together, as had sometimes been his wild dreams, his cheek, though
alone, burned with the consciousness of his folly and self-deception.

"He is one of our rising statesmen," whispered the captain of the
vessel to a passenger, as Endymion, silent, lonely, and absorbed,
walked, as was his daily custom, the quarterdeck. "I daresay he has a
good load on his mind. Do you know, I would sooner be a captain of a
ship than a minister of state?"

Poor Endymion! Yes, he bore his burthen, but it was not secrets of
state that overwhelmed him. If his mind for a moment quitted the
contemplation of Lady Montfort, it was only to encounter the
recollection of a heart-rending separation from his sister, and his
strange and now perplexing relations with Adriana.

Lord Montfort had passed the summer, as he had announced, at
Princedown, and alone; that is to say, without Lady Montfort. She
wrote to him frequently, and if she omitted doing so for a longer
interval than usual, he would indite to her a little note, always
courteous, sometimes even almost kind, reminding her that her letters
amused him, and that of late they had been rarer than he wished. Lady
Montfort herself made Montfort Castle her home, paying sometimes a
visit to her family in the neighbourhood, and sometimes receiving them
and other guests. Lord Montfort himself did not live in absolute
solitude. He had society always at command. He always had a court
about him; equerries, and secretaries, and doctors, and odd and
amusing men whom they found out for him, and who were well pleased to
find themselves in his beautiful and magnificent Princedown, wandering
in woods and parks and pleasaunces, devouring his choice /entrees/,
and quaffing his curious wines. Sometimes he dined with them,
sometimes a few dined with him, sometimes he was not seen for weeks;
but whether he were visible or not, he was the subject of constant
thought and conversation by all under his roof.

Lord Montfort, it may be remembered, was a great fisherman. It was the
only sport which retained a hold upon him. The solitude, the charming
scenery, and the requisite skill, combined to please him. He had a
love for nature, and he gratified it in this pursuit. His domain
abounded in those bright chalky streams which the trout love. He liked
to watch the moor-hens, too, and especially a kingfisher.

Lord Montfort came home late one day after much wading. It had been a
fine day for anglers, soft and not too bright, and he had been tempted
to remain long in the water. He drove home rapidly, but it was in an
open carriage, and when the sun set there was a cold autumnal breeze.
He complained at night, and said he had been chilled. There was always
a doctor under the roof, who felt his patient's pulse, ordered the
usual remedies, and encouraged him. Lord Montfort passed a bad night,
and his physician in the morning found fever, and feared there were
symptoms of pleurisy. He prescribed accordingly, but summoned from
town two great authorities. The great authorities did not arrive until
the next day. They approved of everything that had been done, but
shook their heads. "No immediate danger, but serious."

Four-and-twenty hours afterwards they inquired of Lord Montfort
whether they should send for his wife. "On no account whatever," he
replied. "My orders on this head are absolute." Nevertheless, they did
send for Lady Montfort, and as there was even then a telegraph to the
north, Berengaria, who departed from her castle instantly, and
travelled all night, arrived in eight-and-forty hours at Princedown.
The state of Lord Montfort then was critical.

It was broken to Lord Montfort that his wife had arrived.

"I perceive then," he replied, "that I am going to die, because I am
disobeyed."

These were the last words he uttered. He turned in his bed as it were
to conceal his countenance, and expired without a sigh or sound.

There was not a single person at Princedown in whom Lady Montfort
could confide. She had summoned the family solicitor, but he could not
arrive until the next day, and until he came she insisted that none of
her late lord's papers should be touched. She at first thought he had
made a will, because otherwise all his property would go to his
cousin, whom he particularly hated, and yet on reflection she could
hardly fancy his making a will. It was a trouble to him--a
disagreeable trouble; and there was nobody she knew whom he would care
to benefit. He was not a man who would leave anything to hospitals and
charities. Therefore, on the whole, she arrived at the conclusion he
had not made a will, though all the guests at Princedown were of a
different opinion, and each was calculating the amount of his own
legacy.

At last the lawyer arrived, and he brought the will with him. It was
very short, and not very recent. Everything he had in the world except
the settled estates, Montfort Castle and Montfort House, he bequeathed
to his wife. It was a vast inheritance; not only Princedown, but great
accumulations of personal property, for Lord Montfort was fond of
amassing, and admired the sweet simplicity of the three per cents.



                            CHAPTER XCVII

When Endymion arrived in London he found among his letters two brief
notes from Lady Montfort; one hurriedly written at Montfort Castle at
the moment of her departure, and another from Princedown, with these
words only, "All is over." More than a week had elapsed since the last
was written, and he had already learnt from the newspapers that the
funeral had taken place. It was a painful but still necessary duty to
fulfil, to write to her, which he did, but he received no answer to
his letter of sympathy, and to a certain degree, of condolence. Time
flew on, but he could not venture to write again, and without any
absolute cause for his discomfort, he felt harassed and unhappy. He
had been so accustomed all his life to exist under the genial
influence of women that his present days seemed lone and dark. His
sister and Berengaria, two of the most gifted and charming beings in
the world, had seemed to agree that their first duty had ever been to
sympathise with his fortunes and to aid them. Even his correspondence
with Myra was changed. There was a tone of constraint in their
communications; perhaps it was the great alteration in her position
that occasioned it? His heart assured him that such was not the case.
He felt deeply and acutely what was the cause. The subject most
interesting to both of them could not be touched on. And then he
thought of Adriana, and contrasted his dull and solitary home in Hill
Street with what it might have been, graced by her presence, animated
by her devotion, and softened by the sweetness of her temper.

Endymion began to feel that the run of his good fortune was dried. His
sister, when he had a trouble, would never hear of this; she always
held that the misery and calamities of their early years had exhausted
the influence of their evil stars, and apparently she had been right,
and perhaps she would have always been right had he not been perverse,
and thwarted her in the most important circumstances of his life.

In this state of mind, there was nothing for him to do but to plunge
into business; and affairs of state are a cure for many cares and
sorrows. What are our petty annoyances and griefs when we have to
guard the fortunes and the honour of a nation?

The November cabinets had commenced, and this brought all the chiefs
to town, Sidney Wilton among them; and his society was always a great
pleasure to Endymion; the only social pleasure now left to him was a
little dinner at Mr. Wilton's, and little dinners there abounded. Mr.
Wilton knew all the persons that he was always thinking about, but
whom, it might be noticed, they seemed to agree now rarely to mention.
As for the rest, there was nobody to call upon in the delightful hours
between official duties and dinner. No Lady Roehampton now, no
brilliant Berengaria, and not even the gentle Imogene with her welcome
smile. He looked in at the Coventry Club, a club of fashion, and also
much frequented by diplomatists. There were a good many persons there,
and a foreign minister immediately buttonholed the Under-Secretary of
State.

"I called at the Foreign Office to-day," said the foreign minister. "I
assure you it is very pressing."

"I had the American with me," said Endymion, "and he is very lengthy.
However, as to your business, I think we might talk it over here, and
perhaps settle it." And so they left the room together.

"I wonder what is going to happen to that gentleman," said Mr. Ormsby,
glancing at Endymion, and speaking to Mr. Cassilis.

"Why?" replied Mr. Cassilis, "is anything up?"

"Will he marry Lady Montfort?"

"Poh!" said Mr. Cassilis.

"You may poh!" said Mr. Ormsby, "but he was a great favourite."

"Lady Montfort will never marry. She had always a poodle, and always
will have. She was never so /liee/ with Ferrars as with the Count of
Ferroll, and half a dozen others. She must have a slave."

"A very good mistress with thirty thousand a year."

"She has not that," said Mr. Cassilis doubtingly.

"What do you put Princedown at?" said Mr. Ormsby.

"That I can tell you to a T," replied Mr. Cassilis, "for it was
offered to me when old Rambrooke died. You will never get twelve
thousand a year out of it."

"Well, I will answer for half a million consols," said Ormsby, "for my
lawyer, when he made a little investment for me the other day, saw the
entry himself in the bank-books; our names are very near, you know--M,
and O. Then there is her jointure, something like ten thousand a
year."

"No, no; not seven."

"Well, that would do."

"And what is the amount of your little investment in consols
altogether, Ormsby?"

"Well, I believe I top Montfort," said Mr. Ormsby with a complacent
smile, "but then you know, I am not a swell like you; I have no land."

"Lady Montfort, thirty thousand a year," said Mr. Cassilis musingly.
"She is only thirty. She is a woman who will set the Thames on fire,
but she will never marry. Do you dine to-day, by any chance, with
Sidney Wilton?"

When Endymion returned home this evening, he found a letter from Lady
Montfort. It was a month since he had written to her. He was so
nervous that he absolutely for a moment could not break the seal, and
the palpitation of his heart was almost overpowering.

Lady Montfort thanked him for his kind letter, which she ought to have
acknowledged before, but she had been very busy--indeed, quite
overwhelmed with affairs. She wished to see him, but was sorry she
could not ask him to come down to Princedown, as she was living in
complete retirement, only her aunt with her, Lady Gertrude, whom, she
believed, he knew. He was aware, probably, how good Lord Montfort had
been to her. Sincerely she could say, nothing could have been more
unexpected. If she could have seen her husband before the fatal
moment, it would have been a consolation to her. He had always been
kind to Endymion; she really believed sometimes that Lord Montfort was
even a little attached to him. She should like Endymion to have some
souvenir of her late husband. Would he choose something, or would he
leave it to her?

One would rather agree, from the tone of this letter, that Mr.
Cassilis knew what he was talking about. It fell rather odd on
Endymion's heart, and he passed a night of some disquietude; not one
of those nights, exactly, when we feel that the end of the world has
at length arrived, and that we are the first victim, but a night when
you slumber rather than sleep, and wake with the consciousness of some
indefinable chagrin.

This was a dull Christmas for Endymion Ferrars. He passed it, as he
had passed others, at Gaydene, but what a contrast to the old
assemblies there! Every source of excitement that could make existence
absolutely fascinating seemed then to unite in his happy fate.
Entrancing love and the very romance of domestic affection, and
friendships of honour and happiness, and all the charms of an
accomplished society, and the feeling of a noble future, and the
present and urgent interest in national affairs--all gone, except some
ambition which might tend to consequences not more successful than
those that had ultimately visited his house with irreparable calamity.

The meeting of parliament was a great relief to Endymion. Besides his
office, he had now the House of Commons to occupy him. He was never
absent from his place; no little runnings up to Montfort House or Hill
Street just to tell them the authentic news, or snatch a hasty repast
with furtive delight, with persons still more delightful, and
flattering one's self all the time that, so far as absence was
concerned, the fleetness of one's gifted brougham horse really made it
no difference between Mayfair and Bellamy's.

Endymion had replied, but not very quickly, to Lady Montfort's letter,
and he had heard from her again, but her letter requiring no reply,
the correspondence had dropped. It was the beginning of March when she
wrote to him to say, that she was obliged to come to town to see her
lawyer and transact some business; that she would be "at papa's in
Grosvenor Square," though the house was shut up, on a certain day,
that she much wished to see Endymion, and begged him to call on her.

It was a trying moment when about noon he lifted the knocker to
Grosvenor Square. The door was not opened rapidly, and the delay made
him more nervous. He almost wished the door would never open. He was
shown into a small back room on the ground floor in which was a
bookcase, and which chamber, in the language of Grosvenor Square, is
called a library.

"Her ladyship will see you presently," said the servant, who had come
up from Princedown.

Endymion was standing before the fire, and as nervous as a man could
well be. He sighed, and he sighed more than once. His breathing was
oppressed; he felt that life was too short to permit us to experience
such scenes and situations. He heard the lock of the door move, and it
required all his manliness to endure it.

She entered; she was in weeds, but they became her admirably; her
countenance was grave and apparently with an effort to command it. She
did not move hurriedly, but held out both her hands to Endymion and
retained his, and all without speaking. Her lips then seemed to move,
when, rather suddenly, withdrawing her right hand, and placing it on
his shoulder and burying her face in her arm, she wept.

He led her soothingly to a seat, and took a chair by her side. Not a
word had yet been spoken by either of them; only a murmur of sympathy
on the part of Endymion. Lady Montfort spoke first.

"I am weaker than I thought, but it is a great trial." And then she
said how sorry she was, that she could not receive him at Princedown;
but she thought it best that he should not go there. "I have a great
deal of business to transact--you would not believe how much. I do not
dislike it, it occupies me, it employs my mind. I have led so active a
life, that solitude is rather too much for me. Among other business, I
must buy a town house, and that is the most difficult of all affairs.
There never was so great a city with such small houses. I shall feel
the loss of Montfort House, though I never used it half so much as I
wished. I want a mansion; I should think you could help me in this.
When I return to society, I mean to receive. There must be therefore
good reception rooms; if possible, more than good. And now let us talk
about our friends. Tell me all about your royal sister, and this new
marriage; it rather surprised me, but I think it excellent. Ah! you
can keep a secret, but you see it is no use having a secret with me.
Even in solitude everything reaches me."

"I assure you most seriously, that I can annex no meaning to what you
are saying."

"Then I can hardly think it true; and yet it came from high authority,
and it was not told me as a real secret."

"A marriage, and whose?"

"Miss Neuchatel's,--Adriana."

"And to whom?" inquired Endymion, changing colour.

"To Lord Waldershare."

"To Lord Waldershare!"

"And has not your sister mentioned it to you?"

"Not a word; it cannot be true."

"I will give to you my authority," said Lady Montfort. "Though I came
here in the twilight of a hired brougham, and with a veil, I was
caught before I could enter the house by, of all people in the world,
Mrs. Rodney. And she told me this in what she called 'real
confidence,' and it was announced to her in a letter from her sister,
Lady Beaumaris. They seem all delighted with the match."



                            CHAPTER XCVIII

The marriage of Adriana was not an event calculated to calm the uneasy
and dissatisfied temperament of Endymion. The past rendered it
impossible that this announcement should not in some degree affect
him. Then the silence of his sister on such a subject was too
significant; the silence even of Waldershare. Somehow or other, it
seemed that all these once dear and devoted friends stood in different
relations to him and to each other from what they once filled. They
had become more near and intimate together, but he seemed without the
pale; he, that Endymion, who once seemed the prime object, if not the
centre, of all their thoughts and sentiment. And why was this? What
was the influence that had swayed him to a line contrary to what was
once their hopes and affections? Had he an evil genius? And was it
she? Horrible thought!

The interview with Lady Montfort had been deeply interesting--had for
a moment restored him to himself. Had it not been for this news, he
might have returned home, soothed, gratified, even again indulging in
dreams. But this news had made him ponder; had made him feel what he
had lost, and forced him to ask himself what he had gained.

There was one thing he had gained, and that was the privilege of
calling on Lady Montfort the next day. That was a fact that sometimes
dissipated all the shadows. Under the immediate influence of her
presence, he became spell-bound as of yore, and in the intoxication of
her beauty, the brightness of her mind, and her ineffable attraction,
he felt he would be content with any lot, provided he might retain her
kind thoughts and pass much of his life in her society.

She was only staying three or four days in town, and was much engaged
in the mornings; but Endymion called on her every afternoon, and sate
talking with her till dinner-time, and they both dined very late. As
he really on personal and domestic affairs never could have any
reserve with her, he told her, in that complete confidence in which
they always indulged, of the extraordinary revelation which his sister
had made to him about the parliamentary qualification. Lady Montfort
was deeply interested in this; she was even agitated, and looked very
grave.

"I am sorry," she said, "we know this. Things cannot remain now as
they are. You cannot return the money, that would be churlish;
besides, you cannot return all the advantages which it gained for you,
and they must certainly be considered part of the gift, and the most
precious; and then, too, it would betray what your sister rightly
called a 'sacred confidence.' And yet something must be done--you must
let me think. Do not mention it again." And then they talked a little
of public affairs. Lady Montfort saw no one, and heard from no one
now; but judging from the journals, she thought the position of the
government feeble. "There cannot be a Protectionist government," she
said; "and yet that is the only parliamentary party of importance.
Things will go on till some blow, and perhaps a slight one, will upset
you all. And then who is to succeed? I think some queer /melange/ got
up perhaps by Mr. Bertie Tremaine."

The last day came. She parted from Endymion with kindness, but not
with tenderness. He was choking with emotion, and tried to imitate her
calmness.

"Am I to write to you?" he asked in a faltering voice.

"Of course you are," she said, "every day, and tell me all the news."

The Hainaults, and the Beaumaris, and Waldershare, did not return to
England until some time after Easter. The marriage was to take place
in June--Endymion was to be Waldershare's best man. There were many
festivities, and he was looked upon as an indispensable guest in all.
Adriana received his congratulations with animation, but with
affection. She thanked him for a bracelet which he had presented to
her; "I value it more," she said, "than all my other presents
together, except what dear Waldershare has given to me." Even with
that exception, the estimate was high, for never a bride in any land
ever received the number of splendid offerings which crowded the
tables of Lord Hainault's new palace, which he had just built in Park
Lane. There was not a Neuchatel in existence, and they flourished in
every community, who did not send her, at least, a riviere of
brilliants. King Florestan and his queen sent offerings worthy of
their resplendent throne and their invaluable friendship. But nothing
surpassed, nothing approached, the contents of a casket, which, a day
before the wedding, arrived at Hainault House. It came from a foreign
land, and Waldershare superintended the opening of the case, and the
appearance of a casket of crimson velvet, with genuine excitement. But
when it was opened! There was a coronet of brilliants; a necklace of
brilliants and emeralds, and all the stones more than precious; gems
of Golconda no longer obtainable, and lustrous companions which only
could have been created in the hot earth of Asia. From whom? Not a
glimpse of meaning. All that was written, in a foreign handwriting on
a sheet of notepaper, was, "For the Lady Viscountess Waldershare."

"When the revolution comes," said Lord Hainault, "Lord Waldershare and
my daughter must turn jewellers. Their stock in trade is ready."

The correspondence between Lady Montfort and Endymion had resumed its
ancient habit. They wrote to each other every day, and one day she
told him that she had purchased a house, and that she must come up to
town to examine and to furnish it. She probably should be a month in
London, and remaining there until the end of the season, in whose
amusements and business, of course, she could not share. She should
"be at papa's," though he and his family were in town; but that was no
reason why Endymion should not call on her. And he came, and called
every day. Lady Montfort was full of her new house; it was in Carlton
Gardens, the house she always wished, always intended to have. There
is nothing like will; everybody can do exactly what they like in this
world, provided they really like it. Sometimes they think they do, but
in general, it is a mistake. Lady Montfort, it seemed, was a woman who
always could do what she liked. She could do what she liked with
Endymion Ferrars; that was quite certain. Supposed by men to have a
strong will and a calm judgment, he was a nose of wax with this woman.
He was fascinated by her, and he had been fascinated now for nearly
ten years. What would be the result of this irresistible influence
upon him? Would it make or mar those fortunes that once seemed so
promising? The philosophers of White's and the Coventry were generally
of opinion that he had no chance.

Lady Montfort was busy every morning with her new house, but she never
asked Endymion to accompany her, though it seemed natural to do so.
But he saw her every day, and "papa," who was a most kind and courtly
gentleman, would often ask him, "if he had nothing better to do," to
dine there, and he dined there frequently; and if he were engaged, he
was always of opinion that he had nothing better to do.

At last, however, the season was over; the world had gone to Goodwood,
and Lady Montfort was about to depart to Princedown. It was a dreary
prospect for Endymion, and he could not conceal his feelings. He could
not help saying one day, "Do you know, now that you are going I almost
wish to die."

Alas! she only laughed. But he looked grave. "I am very unhappy," he
sighed rather than uttered.

She looked at him with seriousness. "I do not think our separation
need be very long. Papa and all my family are coming to me in
September to pay me a very long visit. I really do not see why you
should not come too."

Endymion's countenance mantled with rapture. "If I might come, I think
I should be the happiest of men!"

The month that was to elapse before his visit, Endymion was really, as
he said, the happiest of men; at least, the world thought him so. He
seemed to walk upon tip-toe. Parliament was prorogued, office was
consigned to permanent secretaries, and our youthful statesman seemed
only to live to enjoy, and add to, the revelry of existence. Now at
Cowes, now stalking in the Highlands, dancing at balls in the
wilderness, and running races of fantastic feats, full of health, and
frolic, and charm; he was the delight of society, while, the whole
time, he had only one thought, and that was the sacred day when he
should again see the being whom he adored, and that in her beautiful
home, which her presence made more lovely.

Yes! he was again at Princedown, in the bosom of her family; none
others there; treated like one of themselves. The courtly father
pressed his hand; the amiable and refined mother smiled upon him; the
daughters, pretty, and natural as the air, treated him as if they were
sisters, and even the eldest son, who generally hates you, after a
little stiffness, announced in a tone never questioned under the
family roof, that "Ferrars was a first-rate shot."

And so a month rolled on; immensely happy, as any man who has loved,
and loved in a beautiful scene, alone can understand. One morning Lady
Montfort said to him, "I must go up to London about my house. I want
to go and return the same day. Do you know, I think you had better
come with me? You shall give me a luncheon in Hill Street, and we
shall be back by the last train. It will be late, but we shall wake in
the morning in the country, and that I always think a great thing."

And so it happened; they rose early and arrived in town in time to
give them a tolerably long morning. She took him to her house in
Carlton Gardens, and showed to him exactly how it was all she wanted;
accommodation for a first-rate establishment; and then the reception
rooms, few houses in London could compare with them; a gallery and
three saloons. Then they descended to the dining-room. "It is a
dining-room, not a banqueting hall," she said, "which we had at
Montfort House, but still it is much larger than most dining-rooms in
London. But, I think this room, at least I hope you do, quite
charming," and she took him to a room almost as large as the dining-
room, and looking into the garden. It was fitted up with exquisite
taste; calm subdued colouring, with choice marble busts of statesmen,
ancient and of our times, but the shelves were empty.

"They are empty," she said, "but the volumes to fill them are already
collected. Yes," she added in a tremulous voice, and slightly pressing
the arm on which she leant. "If you will deign to accept it, this is
the chamber I have prepared for you."

"Dearest of women!" and he took her hand.

"Yes," she murmured, "help me to realise the dream of my life;" and
she touched his forehead with her lips.



                             CHAPTER XCIX

The marriage of Mr. Ferrars with Lady Montfort surprised some, but, on
the whole, pleased everybody. They were both of them popular, and no
one seemed to envy them their happiness and prosperity. The union took
place at a season of the year when there was no London world to
observe and to criticise. It was a quiet ceremony; they went down to
Northumberland to Lady Montfort's father, and they were married in his
private chapel. After that they went off immediately to pay a visit to
King Florestan and his queen; Myra had sent her a loving letter.

"Perhaps it will be the first time that your sister ever saw me with
satisfaction," remarked Lady Montfort, "but I think she will love me
now! I always loved her; perhaps because she is so like you."

It was a happy meeting and a delightful visit. They did not talk much
of the past. The enormous change in the position of their host and
hostess since the first days of their acquaintance, and, on their own
part, some indefinite feeling of delicate reserve, combined to make
them rather dwell on a present which was full of novelty so attractive
and so absorbing. In his manner, the king was unchanged; he was never
a demonstrative person, but simple, unaffected, rather silent; with a
sweet temper and a tender manner, he seemed to be gratified that he
had the power of conferring happiness on those around him. His feeling
to his queen was one of idolatry, and she received Berengaria as a
sister and a much-loved one. Their presence and the season of the year
made their life a festival, and when they parted, there were
entreaties and promises that the visit should be often repeated.

"Adieu! my Endymion," said Myra at the last moment they were alone.
"All has happened for you beyond my hopes; all now is safe. I might
wish we were in the same land, but not if I lost my husband, whom I
adore."

The reason that forced them to curtail their royal visit was the state
of politics at home, which had suddenly become critical. There were
symptoms, and considerable ones, of disturbance and danger when they
departed for their wedding tour, but they could not prevail on
themselves to sacrifice a visit on which they had counted so much, and
which could not be fulfilled on another occasion under the same
interesting circumstances. Besides, the position of Mr. Ferrars,
though an important, was a subordinate one, and though cabinet
ministers were not justified in leaving the country, an
under-secretary of state and a bridegroom might, it would seem, depart
on his irresponsible holiday. Mr. Sidney Wilton, however, shook his
head; "I do not like the state of affairs," he said, "I think you will
have to come back sooner than you imagine."

"You are not going to be so foolish as to have an early session?"
inquired Lady Montfort.

He only shrugged his shoulders, and said, "We are in a mess."

What mess? and what was the state of affairs?

This had happened. At the end of the autumn, his Holiness the Pope had
made half a dozen new cardinals, and to the surprise of the world, and
the murmurs of the Italians, there appeared among them the name of an
Englishman, Nigel Penruddock, archbishop /in partibus/. Shortly after
this, a papal bull, "given at St. Peter's, Rome, under the seal of the
fisherman," was issued, establishing a Romish hierarchy in England.
This was soon followed by a pastoral letter by the new cardinal "given
out of the Appian Gate," announcing that "Catholic England had been
restored to its orbit in the ecclesiastical firmament."

The country at first was more stupefied than alarmed. It was conscious
that something extraordinary had happened, and some great action taken
by an ecclesiastical power, which from tradition it was ever inclined
to view with suspicion and some fear. But it held its breath for a
while. It so happened that the prime minister was a member of a great
house which had become illustrious by its profession of Protestant
principles, and even by its sufferings in a cause which England had
once looked on as sacred. The prime minister, a man of distinguished
ability, not devoid even of genius, was also a wily politician, and of
almost unrivalled experience in the management of political parties.
The ministry was weak and nearly worn out, and its chief, influenced
partly by noble and historical sentiments, partly by a conviction that
he had a fine occasion to rally the confidence of the country round
himself and his friends, and to restore the repute of his political
connection, thought fit, without consulting his colleagues, to publish
a manifesto denouncing the aggression of the Pope upon our
Protestantism as insolent and insidious, and as expressing a
pretension of supremacy over the realm of England which made the
minister indignant.

A confused public wanted to be led, and now they were led. They sprang
to their feet like an armed man. The corporation of London, the
universities of Oxford and Cambridge had audiences of the Queen; the
counties met, the municipalities memorialised; before the first of
January there had been held nearly seven thousand public meetings,
asserting the supremacy of the Queen and calling on Her Majesty's
Government to vindicate it by stringent measures.

Unfortunately, it was soon discovered by the minister that there had
been nothing illegal in the conduct of the Pope or the Cardinal, and a
considerable portion of the Liberal party began to express the
inconvenient opinion, that the manifesto of their chief was opposed to
those principles of civil and religious liberty of which he was the
hereditary champion. Some influential members of his own cabinet did
not conceal their disapprobation of a step on which they had not been
consulted.

Immediately after Christmas, Endymion and Lady Montfort settled in
London. She was anxious to open her new mansion as soon as parliament
met, and to organise continuous receptions. She looked upon the
ministry as in a critical state, and thought it was an occasion when
social influences might not inconsiderably assist them.

But though she exhibited for this object her wonted energy and high
spirit, a fine observer--Mr. Sidney Wilton, for example--might have
detected a change in the manner of Berengaria. Though the strength of
her character was unaltered, there was an absence of that
restlessness, it might be said, that somewhat feverish excitement,
from which formerly she was not always free. The truth is, her heart
was satisfied, and that brought repose. Feelings of affection, long
mortified and pent up, were now lavished and concentrated on a husband
of her heart and adoration, and she was proud that his success and
greatness might be avowed as the objects of her life.

The campaign, however, for which such preparations were made, ended
almost before it began. The ministry, on the meeting of parliament,
found themselves with a discontented House of Commons, and discordant
counsels among themselves. The anti-papal manifesto was the secret
cause of this evil state, but the prime minister, to avoid such a
mortifying admission, took advantage of two unfavourable divisions on
other matters, and resigned.

Here was a crisis--another crisis! Could the untried Protectionists,
without men, form an administration? It was whispered that Lord Derby
had been sent for, and declined the attempt. Then there was another
rumour, that he was going to try. Mr. Bertie Tremaine looked
mysterious. The time for the third party had clearly arrived. It was
known that he had the list of the next ministry in his breast-pocket,
but it was only shown to Mr. Tremaine Bertie, who confided in secrecy
to the initiated that it was the strongest government since "All the
Talents."

Notwithstanding this great opportunity, "All the Talents" were not
summoned. The leader of the Protectionists renounced the attempt in
despair, and the author of the anti-papal manifesto was again sent
for, and obliged to introduce the measure which had already destroyed
a government and disorganised a party.

"Sidney Wilton," said Lady Montfort to her husband, "says that they
are in the mud, and he for one will not go back--but he will go. I
know him. He is too soft-hearted to stand an appeal from colleagues in
distress. But were I you, Endymion, I would not return. I think you
want a little rest, or you have got a great deal of private business
to attend to, or something of that kind. Nobody notices the withdrawal
of an under-secretary except those in office. There is no necessity
why you should be in the mud. I will continue to receive, and do
everything that is possible for our friends, but I think my husband
has been an under-secretary long enough."

Endymion quite agreed with his wife. The minister offered him
preferment and the Privy Council, but Lady Montfort said it was really
not so important as the office he had resigned. She was resolved that
he should not return to them, and she had her way. Ferrars himself now
occupied a rather peculiar position, being the master of a great
fortune and of an establishment which was the headquarters of the
party of which he was now only a private member; but, calm and
collected, he did not lose his head; always said and did the right
thing, and never forgot his early acquaintances. Trenchard was his
bosom political friend. Seymour Hicks, who, through Endymion's
kindness, had now got into the Treasury, and was quite fashionable,
had the run of the House, and made himself marvellously useful, while
St. Barbe, who had become by mistake a member of the Conservative
Club, drank his frequent claret cup every Saturday evening at Lady
Montfort's receptions with many pledges to the welfare of the Liberal
administration.

The flag of the Tory party waved over the magnificent mansion of which
Imogene Beaumaris was the graceful life. As parties were nearly equal,
and the ministry was supposed to be in decay, the rival reception was
as well attended as that of Berengaria. The two great leaders were
friends, intimate, but not perhaps quite so intimate as a few years
before. "Lady Montfort is very kind to me," Imogene would say, "but I
do not think she now quite remembers we are cousins." Both Lord and
Lady Waldershare seemed equally devoted to Lady Beaumaris. "I do not
think," he would say, "that I shall ever get Adriana to receive. It is
an organic gift, and very rare. What I mean to do is to have a first-
rate villa and give the party strawberries. I always say Adriana is
like Nell Gwyn, and she shall go about with a pottle. One never sees a
pottle of strawberries now. I believe they went out, like all good
things, with the Stuarts."

And so, after all these considerable events, the season rolled on and
closed tranquilly. Lord and Lady Hainault continued to give banquets,
over which the hostess sighed; Sir Peter Vigo had the wisdom to retain
his millions, which few manage to do, as it is admitted that it is
easier to make a fortune than to keep one. Mrs. Rodney, supremely
habited, still drove her ponies, looking younger and prettier than
ever, and getting more fashionable every day, and Mr. Ferrars and
Berengaria, Countess of Montfort, retired in the summer to their
beautiful and beloved Princedown.



                              CHAPTER C

Although the past life of Endymion had, on the whole, been a happy
life, and although he was destined also to a happy future, perhaps the
four years which elapsed from the time he quitted office, certainly in
his experience had never been exceeded, and it was difficult to
imagine could be exceeded, in felicity. He had a great interest, and
even growing influence in public life without any of its cares; he was
united to a woman whom he had long passionately loved, and who had
every quality and a fortune which secured him all those advantages
which are appreciated by men of taste and generosity. He became a
father, and a family name which had been originally borne by a
courtier of the elder Stuarts was now bestowed on the future lord of
Princedown.

Lady Montfort herself had no thought but her husband. His happiness,
his enjoyment of existence, his success and power in life, entirely
absorbed her. The anxiety which she felt that in everything he should
be master was touching. Once looked upon as the most imperious of
women, she would not give a direction on any matter without his
opinion and sanction. One would have supposed from what might be
observed under their roof, that she was some beautiful but portionless
maiden whom Endymion had raised to wealth and power.

All this time, however, Lady Montfort sedulously maintained that
commanding position in social politics for which she was singularly
fitted. Indeed, in that respect, she had no rival. She received the
world with the same constancy and splendour, as if she were the wife
of a minister. Animated by Waldershare, Lady Beaumaris maintained in
this respect a certain degree of rivalry. She was the only hope and
refuge of the Tories, and rich, attractive, and popular, her
competition could not be disregarded. But Lord Beaumaris was a little
freakish. Sometimes he would sail in his yacht to odd places, and was
at Algiers or in Egypt when, according to Tadpole, he ought to have
been at Piccadilly Terrace. Then he occasionally got crusty about his
hunting. He would hunt, whatever were the political consequences, but
whether he were in Africa or Leicestershire, Imogene must be with him.
He could not exist without her constant presence. There was something
in her gentleness, combined with her quick and ready sympathy and
playfulness of mind and manner, which alike pleased and soothed his
life.

The Whigs tottered on for a year after the rude assault of Cardinal
Penruddock, but they were doomed, and the Protectionists were called
upon to form an administration. As they had no one in their ranks who
had ever been in office except their chief, who was in the House of
Lords, the affair seemed impossible. The attempt, however, could not
be avoided. A dozen men, without the slightest experience of official
life, had to be sworn in as privy councillors, before even they could
receive the seals and insignia of their intended offices. On their
knees, according to the constitutional custom, a dozen men, all in the
act of genuflexion at the same moment, and headed, too, by one of the
most powerful peers in the country, the Lord of Alnwick Castle
himself, humbled themselves before a female Sovereign, who looked
serene and imperturbable before a spectacle never seen before, and
which, in all probability, will never be seen again.

One of this band, a gentleman without any official experience
whatever, was not only placed in the cabinet, but was absolutely
required to become the leader of the House of Commons, which had never
occurred before, except in the instance of Mr. Pitt in 1782. It has
been said that it was unwise in the Protectionists assuming office
when, on this occasion and on subsequent ones, they were far from
being certain of a majority in the House of Commons. It should,
however, be remembered, that unless they had dared these ventures,
they never could have formed a body of men competent, from their
official experience and their practice in debate, to form a ministry.
The result has rather proved that they were right. Had they continued
to refrain from incurring responsibility, they must have broken up and
merged in different connections, which, for a party numerically so
strong as the Protectionists, would have been a sorry business, and
probably have led to disastrous results.

Mr. Bertie Tremaine having been requested to call on the Protectionist
prime minister, accordingly repaired to headquarters with the list of
his colleagues in his pocket. He was offered for himself a post of
little real importance, but which secured to him the dignity of the
privy council. Mr. Tremaine Bertie and several of his friends had
assembled at his house, awaiting with anxiety his return. He had to
communicate to them that he had been offered a privy councillor's
post, and to break to them that it was not proposed to provide for any
other member of his party. Their indignation was extreme; but they
naturally supposed that he had rejected the offer to himself with
becoming scorn. Their leader, however, informed them that he had not
felt it his duty to be so peremptory. They should remember that the
recognition of their political status by such an offer to their chief
was a considerable event. For his part, he had for some time been
painfully aware that the influence of the House of Commons in the
constitutional scheme was fast waning, and that the plan of Sir
William Temple for the reorganisation of the privy council, and
depositing in it the real authority of the State, was that to which we
should be obliged to have recourse. This offer to him of a seat in the
council was, perhaps, the beginning of the end. It was a crisis; they
must look to seats in the privy council, which, under Sir William
Temple's plan, would be accompanied with ministerial duties and
salaries. What they had all, at one time, wished, had not exactly been
accomplished, but he had felt it his duty to his friends not to shrink
from responsibility. So he had accepted the minister's offer.

Mr. Bertie Tremaine was not long in the busy enjoyment of his easy
post. Then the country was governed for two years by all its ablest
men, who, by the end of that term, had succeeded, by their coalesced
genius, in reducing that country to a state of desolation and despair.
"I did not think it would have lasted even so long," said Lady
Montfort; "but then I was acquainted with their mutual hatreds and
their characteristic weaknesses. What is to happen now? Somebody must
be found of commanding private character and position, and with as
little damaged a public one as in this wreck of reputations is
possible. I see nobody but Sidney Wilton. Everybody likes him, and he
is the only man who could bring people together."

And everybody seemed to be saying the same thing at the same time. The
name of Sidney Wilton was in everybody's mouth. It was unfortunate
that he had been a member of a defunct ministry, but then it had
always been understood that he had always disapproved of all their
measures. There was not the slightest evidence of this, but everybody
chose to believe it.

Sidney Wilton was chagrined with life, and had become a martyr to the
gout, which that chagrin had aggravated; but he was a great gentleman,
and too chivalric to refuse a royal command when the Sovereign was in
distress. Sidney Wilton became Premier, and the first colleague he
recommended to fill the most important post after his own, the
Secretaryship of State for Foreign Affairs, was Mr. Ferrars.

"It ought to last ten years," said Lady Montfort. "I see no danger
except his health. I never knew a man so changed. At his time of life
five years ought to make no difference in a man. I cannot believe he
is the person who used to give us those charming parties at Gaydene.
Whatever you may say, Endymion, I feel convinced that something must
have passed between your sister and him. Neither of them ever gave me
a hint of such a matter, or of the possibility of its ever happening,
but feminine instinct assures me that something took place. He always
had the gout, and his ancestors have had the gout for a couple of
centuries; and all prime ministers have the gout. I dare say you will
not escape, darling, but I hope it will never make you look as if you
had just lost paradise, or, what would be worst, become the last man."

Lady Montfort was right. The ministry was strong and it was popular.
There were no jealousies in it; every member was devoted to his chief,
and felt that he was rightly the chief, whereas, as Lady Montfort
said, the Whigs never had a ministry before in which there were not at
least a couple of men who had been prime ministers, and as many more
who thought they ought to be.

There were years of war, and of vast and critical negotiations.
Ferrars was equal to the duties, for he had much experience, and more
thought, and he was greatly aided by the knowledge of affairs, and the
clear and tranquil judgment of the chief minister. There was only one
subject on which there was not between them that complete and cordial
unanimity which was so agreeable and satisfactory. And even in this
case, there was no difference of opinion, but rather of sentiment and
feeling. It was when Prince Florestan expressed his desire to join the
grand alliance, and become our active military ally. It was perhaps
impossible, under any circumstances, for the Powers to refuse such an
offer, but Endymion was strongly in favour of accepting it. It
consolidated our interests in a part of Europe where we required
sympathy and support, and it secured for us the aid and influence of
the great Liberal party of the continent as distinguished from the
secret societies and the socialist republicans. The Count of Ferroll,
also, whose opinion weighed much with Her Majesty's Government, was
decidedly in favour of the combination. The English prime minister
listened to their representations frigidly; it was difficult to refute
the arguments which were adverse to his own feelings, and to resist
the unanimous opinion not only of his colleagues, but of our allies.
But he was cold and silent, or made discouraging remarks.

"Can you trust him?" he would say. "Remember he himself has been, and
still is, a member of the very secret societies whose baneful
influence we are now told he will neutralise or subdue. Whatever the
cabinet decides, and I fear that with this strong expression of
opinion on the part of our allies we have little option left, remember
I gave you my warning. I know the gentleman, and I do not trust him."

After this, the prime minister had a most severe attack of the gout,
remained for weeks at Gaydene, and saw no one on business except
Endymion and Baron Sergius.

While the time is elapsing which can alone decide whether the distrust
of Mr. Wilton were well-founded or the reverse, let us see how the
world is treating the rest of our friends.

Lord Waldershare did not make such a pattern husband as Endymion, but
he made a much better one than the world ever supposed he would. Had
he married Berengaria, the failure would have been great; but he was
united to a being capable of deep affection and very sensitive, yet
grateful for kindness from a husband to a degree not easily
imaginable. And Waldershare had really a good heart, though a bad
temper, and he was a gentleman. Besides, he had a great admiration and
some awe of his father-in-law, and Lord Hainault, with his good-
natured irony, and consummate knowledge of men and things, quite
controlled him. With Lady Hainault he was a favourite. He invented
plausible theories and brilliant paradoxes for her, which left her
always in a state of charmed wonder, and when she met him again, and
adopted or refuted them, for her intellectual power was considerable,
he furnished her with fresh dogmas and tenets, which immediately
interested her intelligence, though she generally forgot to observe
that they were contrary to the views and principles of the last visit.
Between Adriana and Imogene there was a close alliance, and Lady
Beaumaris did everything in her power to develop Lady Waldershare
advantageously before her husband; and so, not forgetting that
Waldershare, with his romance, and imagination, and fancy, and taste,
and caprice, had a considerable element of worldliness in his
character, and that he liked to feel that, from living in lodgings, he
had become a Monte Cristo, his union with Adriana may be said to be a
happy and successful one.

The friendship between Sir Peter Vigo and his brother M.P., Mr.
Rodney, never diminished, and Mr. Rodney became richer every year. He
experienced considerable remorse at sitting in opposition to the son
of his right honourable friend, the late William Pitt Ferrars, and
frequently consulted Sir Peter on his embarrassment and difficulty.
Sir Peter, who never declined arranging any difficulty, told his
friend to be easy, and that he, Sir Peter, saw his way. It became
gradually understood, that if ever the government was in difficulties,
Mr. Rodney's vote might be counted on. He was peculiarly situated,
for, in a certain sense, his friend the Right Honourable William Pitt
Ferrars had entrusted the guardianship of his child to his care. But
whenever the ministry was not in danger, the ministry must not depend
upon his vote.

Trenchard had become Secretary of the Treasury in the Wilton
administration, had established his reputation, and was looked upon as
a future minister. Jawett, without forfeiting his post and promotion
at Somerset House, had become the editor of a new periodical magazine,
called the "Privy Council." It was established and maintained by Mr.
Bertie Tremaine, and was chiefly written by that gentleman himself. It
was full of Greek quotations, to show that it was not Grub Street, and
written in a style as like that of Sir William Temple, as a paper in
"Rejected Addresses" might resemble the classic lucubrations of the
statesman-sage who, it is hoped, will be always remembered by a
grateful country for having introduced into these islands the Moor
Park apricot. What the pages of the "Privy Council" meant no human
being had the slightest conception except Mr. Tremaine Bertie.

Mr. Thornberry remained a respected member of the cabinet. It was
thought his presence there secured the sympathies of advanced
Liberalism throughout the country; but that was a tradition rather
than a fact. Statesmen in high places are not always so well
acquainted with the changes and gradations of opinion in political
parties at home as they are with those abroad. We hardly mark the
growth of the tree we see every day. Mr. Thornberry had long ceased to
be popular with his former friends, and the fact that he had become a
minister was one of the causes of this change of feeling. That was
unreasonable, but in politics unreasonable circumstances are elements
of the problem to be solved. It was generally understood that, on the
next election, Mr. Thornberry would have to look out for another seat;
his chief constituents, those who are locally styled the leaders of
the party, were still faithful to him, for they were proud of having a
cabinet minister for their member, to be presented by him at court,
and occasionally to dine with him; but the "masses," who do not go to
court, and are never asked to dinner, required a member who would
represent their whims, and it was quite understood that, on the very
first occasion, this enlightened community had resolved to send up to
Westminster--Mr. Enoch Craggs.

It is difficult to say, whether in his private life Job found affairs
altogether more satisfactory than in his public. His wife had joined
the Roman Communion. An ingrained perverseness which prevented his son
from ever willingly following the advice or example of his parents,
had preserved John Hampden in the Anglican faith, but he had portraits
of Laud and Strafford over his mantelpiece, and embossed in golden
letters on a purple ground the magical word "THOROUGH." His library
chiefly consisted of the "Tracts for the Times," and a colossal
edition of the Fathers gorgeously bound. He was a very clever fellow,
this young Thornberry, a natural orator, and was leader of the High
Church party in the Oxford Union. He brought home his friends
occasionally to Hurstley, and Job had the opportunity of becoming
acquainted with a class and school of humanity--with which,
notwithstanding his considerable experience of life, he had no
previous knowledge--young gentlemen, apparently half-starved and
dressed like priests, and sometimes an enthusiastic young noble, in
much better physical condition, and in costume becoming a cavalier,
ready to raise the royal standard at Edgehill. What a little annoyed
Job was that his son always addressed him as "Squire," a habit even
pedantically followed by his companions. He was, however, justly
entitled to this ancient and reputable honour, for Job had been
persuaded to purchase Hurstley, was a lord of several thousand acres,
and had the boar's head carried in procession at Christmas in his
ancient hall. It is strange, but he was rather perplexed than annoyed
by all these marvellous metamorphoses in his life and family. His
intelligence was as clear as ever, and his views on all subjects
unchanged; but he was, like many other men, governed at home by his
affections. He preferred the new arrangement, if his wife and family
were happy and contented, to a domestic system founded on his own
principles, accompanied by a sullen or shrewish partner of his own
life and rebellious offspring.

What really vexed him, among comparatively lesser matters, was the
extraordinary passion which in time his son exhibited for game-
preserving. He did at last interfere on this matter, but in vain. John
Hampden announced that he did not value land if he was only to look at
it, and that sport was the patriotic pastime of an English gentleman.
"You used in old days never to be satisfied with what I got out of the
land," said the old grandfather to Job, with a little amiable malice;
"there is enough, at any rate now for the hares and rabbits, but I
doubt for anybody else."

We must not forget our old friend St. Barbe. Whether he had written
himself out or had become lazy in the luxurious life in which he now
indulged, he rarely appealed to the literary public, which still
admired him. He was, by way of intimating that he was engaged in a
great work, which, though written in his taking prose, was to be
really the epogee of social life in this country. Dining out every
day, and ever arriving, however late, at those "small and earlies,"
which he once despised; he gave to his friends frequent intimations
that he was not there for pleasure, but rather following his
profession; he was in his studio, observing and reflecting on all the
passions and manners of mankind, and gathering materials for the great
work which was eventually to enchant and instruct society, and
immortalise his name.

"The fact is, I wrote too early," he would say. "I blush when I read
my own books, though compared with those of the brethren, they might
still be looked on as classics. They say no artist can draw a camel,
and I say no author ever drew a gentleman. How can they, with no
opportunity of ever seeing one? And so with a little caricature of
manners, which they catch second-hand, they are obliged to have
recourse to outrageous nonsense, as if polished life consisted only of
bigamists, and that ladies of fashion were in the habit of paying
black mail to returned convicts. However, I shall put an end to all
this. I have now got the materials, or am accumulating them daily. You
hint that I give myself up too much to society. You are talking of
things you do not understand. A dinner party is a chapter. I catch the
Cynthia of the minute, sir, at a /soiree/. If I only served a grateful
country, I should be in the proudest position of any of its sons; if I
had been born in any country but this, I should have been decorated,
and perhaps made secretary of state like Addison, who did not write as
well as I do, though his style somewhat resembles mine."

Notwithstanding these great plans, it came in time to Endymion's ear,
that poor St. Barbe was in terrible straits. Endymion delicately
helped him and then obtained for him a pension, and not an
inconsiderable one. Relieved from anxiety, St. Barbe resumed his
ancient and natural vein. He passed his days in decrying his friend
and patron, and comparing his miserable pension with the salary of a
secretary of state, who, so far as his experience went, was generally
a second-rate man. Endymion, though he knew St. Barbe was always
decrying him, only smiled, and looked upon it all as the necessary
consequence of his organisation, which involved a singular combination
of vanity and envy in the highest degree. St. Barbe was not less a
guest in Carlton Terrace than heretofore, and was even kindly invited
to Princedown to profit by the distant sea-breeze. Lady Montfort,
whose ears some of his pranks had reached, was not so tolerant as her
husband. She gave him one day her views of his conduct. St. Barbe was
always a little afraid of her, and on this occasion entirely lost
himself; vented the most solemn affirmations that there was not a
grain of truth in these charges; that he was the victim, as he had
been all his life, of slander and calumny--the sheer creatures of
envy, and then began to fawn upon his hostess, and declared that he
had ever thought there was something godlike in the character of her
husband.

"And what is there in yours, Mr. St. Barbe?" asked Lady Montfort.

The ministry had lasted several years; its foreign policy had been
successful; it had triumphed in war and secured peace. The military
conduct of the troops of King Florestan had contributed to these
results, and the popularity of that sovereign in England was for a
foreigner unexampled. During this agitated interval, Endymion and
Myra had met more than once through the providential medium of those
favoured spots of nature--German baths.

There had arisen a public feeling, that the ally who had served us so
well should be invited to visit again a country wherein he had so long
sojourned, and where he was so much appreciated. The only evidence
that the Prime Minister gave that he was conscious of this feeling was
an attack of gout. Endymion himself, though in a difficult and rather
painful position in this matter, did everything to shield and protect
his chief, but the general sentiment became so strong, sanctioned too,
as it was understood, in the highest quarter, that it could no longer
be passed by unnoticed; and, in due time, to the great delight and
satisfaction of the nation, an impending visit from our faithful ally
King Florestan and his beautiful wife, Queen Myra, was authoritatively
announced.

Every preparation was made to show them honour. They were the guests
of our Sovereign; but from the palace which they were to inhabit, to
the humblest tenement in the meanest back street, there was only one
feeling of gratitude, and regard, and admiration. The English people
are the most enthusiastic people in the world; there are other
populations which are more excitable, but there is no nation, when it
feels, where the sentiment is so profound and irresistible.

The hour arrived. The season and the weather were favourable. From the
port where they landed to their arrival at the metropolis, the whole
country seemed poured out into the open air; triumphal arches, a way
of flags and banners, and bits of bunting on every hovel. The King and
Queen were received at the metropolitan station by Princes of the
blood, and accompanied to the palace, where the great officers of
state and the assembled ministry were gathered together to do them
honour. A great strain was thrown upon Endymion throughout these
proceedings, as the Prime Minister, who had been suffering the whole
season, and rarely present in his seat in parliament, was, at this
moment, in his worst paroxysm. He could not therefore be present at
the series of balls and banquets, and brilliant public functions,
which greeted the royal guests. Their visit to the City, when they
dined with the Lord Mayor, and to which they drove in royal carriages
through a sea of population tumultuous with devotion, was the most
gratifying of all these splendid receptions, partly from the
associations of mysterious power and magnificence connected with the
title and character of LORD MAYOR. The Duke of St. Angelo, the Marquis
of Vallombrosa, and the Prince of Montserrat, quite lost their
presence of mind. Even the Princess of Montserrat, with more
quarterings on her own side than any house in Europe, confessed that
she trembled when Her Serene Highness courtesied before the Lady
Mayoress. Perhaps, however, the most brilliant, the most fanciful,
infinitely the most costly entertainment that was given on this
memorable occasion, was the festival at Hainault. The whole route from
town to the forest was lined with thousands, perhaps hundreds of
thousands, of spectators; a thousand guests were received at the
banquet, and twelve palaces were raised by that true magician, Mr.
Benjamin Edgington, in the park, for the countless visitors in the
evening. At night the forest was illuminated. Everybody was glad
except Lady Hainault, who sighed, and said, "I have no doubt the Queen
would have preferred her own room, and that we should have had a quiet
dinner, as in old days, in the little Venetian parlour."

When Endymion returned home at night, he found a summons to Gaydene;
the Prime Minister being, it was feared, in a dangerous state.

The next day, late in the afternoon, there was a rumour that the Prime
Minister had resigned. Then it was authoritatively contradicted, and
then at night another rumour rose that the minister had resigned, but
that the resignation would not be accepted until after the termination
of the royal visit. The King and Queen had yet to remain a short week.

The fact is, the resignation had taken place, but it was known only to
those who then could not have imparted the intelligence. The public
often conjectures the truth, though it clothes its impression or
information in the vague shape of a rumour. In four-and-twenty hours
the great fact was authoritatively announced in all the journals, with
leading articles speculating on the successor to the able and
accomplished minister of whose services the Sovereign and the country
were so unhappily deprived. Would his successor be found in his own
cabinet? And then several names were mentioned; Rawchester, to Lady
Montfort's disgust. Rawchester was a safe man, and had had much
experience, which, as with most safe men, probably left him as wise
and able as before he imbibed it. Would there be altogether a change
of parties? Would the Protectionists try again? They were very strong,
but always in a minority, like some great continental powers, who have
the finest army in the world, and yet get always beaten. Would that
band of self-admiring geniuses, who had upset every cabinet with whom
they were ever connected, return on the shoulders of the people, as
they always dreamed, though they were always the persons of whom the
people never seemed to think?

Lady Montfort was in a state of passive excitement. She was quite
pale, and she remained quite pale for hours. She would see no one. She
sat in Endymion's room, and never spoke, while he continued writing
and transacting his affairs. She thought she was reading the "Morning
Post," but really could not distinguish the advertisements from
leading articles.

There was a knock at the library door, and the groom of the chambers
brought in a note for Endymion. He glanced at the handwriting of the
address, and then opened it, as pale as his wife. Then he read it
again, and then he gave it to her. She threw her eyes over it, and
then her arms around his neck.

"Order my brougham at three o'clock."



                              CHAPTER CI

Endymion was with his sister.

"How dear of you to come to me," she said, "when you cannot have a
moment to yourself."

"Well, you know," he replied, "it is not like forming a government.
That is an affair. I have reason to think all my colleagues will
remain with me. I shall summon them for this afternoon, and if we
agree, affairs will go on as before. I should like to get down to
Gaydene to-night."

"To-night!" said the queen musingly. "We have only one day left, and I
wanted you to do something for me."

"It shall be done, if possible; I need not say that."

"It is not difficult to do, if we have time--if we have to-morrow
morning, and early. But if you go to Gaydene you will hardly return
to-night, and I shall lose my chance,--and yet it is to me a business
most precious."

"It shall be managed; tell me then."

"I learnt that Hill Street is not occupied at this moment. I want to
visit the old house with you, before I leave England, probably for
ever. I have only got the early morn to-morrow, but with a veil and
your brougham, I think we might depart unobserved, before the crowd
begins to assemble. Do you think you could be here at nine o'clock?"

So it was settled, and being hurried, he departed.

And next morning he was at the palace before nine o'clock; and the
queen, veiled, entered his brougham. There were already some
loiterers, but the brother and sister passed through the gates
unobserved.

They reached Hill Street. The queen visited all the principal rooms,
and made many remarks appropriate to many memories. "But," she said,
"it was not to see these rooms I came, though I was glad to do so, and
the corridor on the second story whence I called out to you when you
returned, and for ever, from Eton, and told you there was bad news.
What I came for was to see our old nursery, where we lived so long
together, and so fondly! Here it is; here we are. All I have desired,
all I have dreamed, have come to pass. Darling, beloved of my soul, by
all our sorrows, by all our joys, in this scene of our childhood and
bygone days, let me give you my last embrace."




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