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Title: The contrast, Volume 3 (of 3)

Author: Marquess of Constantine Henry Phipps Normanby

Release date: May 15, 2026 [eBook #78690]

Language: English

Original publication: London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, 1832

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78690

Credits: Carol Brown, MWS and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CONTRAST, VOLUME 3 (OF 3) ***

THE

CONTRAST,

BY THE AUTHOR OF “MATILDA,” “YES AND NO,”

&c. &c.

Take but degree away—untune that string,

And hark! what discord follows.

SHAKSPEARE.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. III.

LONDON:

HENRY COLBURN AND RICHARD BENTLEY,

NEW BURLINGTON STREET,

1832.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER VI.

CHAPTER VII.

CHAPTER VIII.

CHAPTER IX.

CHAPTER X.

CHAPTER XI.

CHAPTER XII.

CHAPTER XIII.

CHAPTER XIV.

CHAPTER XV.

CHAPTER XVI.

CHAPTER XVII.

Transcriber’s Note

THE CONTRAST.

CHAPTER I.

Thou art in London, in that pleasant place

Where every kind of mischief’s daily brewing,

Which can await warm youth in its wild race.

BYRON.

She gazed upon a world she scarcely knew,

As seeking not to know it.

SILENT LOVE.

IS there one—the veriest citizen of the world though he may be—who has not felt a sudden chill seize upon his energies, a blight fall as it were upon his faculties, when in the varied changes of his chequered life, he has found himself amid scenes to which he alone is strange, whilst all around are, as it were, “to the manner born?” The sense of inferiority can take no more painful shape than the impossibility of entering into sources of enjoyment, which seem open to every one else. This impression can only occasionally and incidentally afflict the man of the world, its repetition is evaded by shunning the unusual society which caused it, or quitting those foreign sojourning places where it was found. He therefore could have no idea of the oppressive sensation of hopeless solitude which overpowered Lucy when she first found herself dropped in the midst of the ever busy crowds of London. Your true cockney is apt to speculate, with no little self satisfaction, upon the first impression that the largest city in the world must make upon that foreigner who has only seen Paris or Petersburgh, or that countryman who has only visited Bath or York; but how could he estimate the bewilderment of her who had never, till within a short time, strayed from the solitary shores of Morden Bay? Country girls have no doubt constantly before come up to London, without any previous preparation; but then their impressions have been limited by their own straitened circumstances, and their individual cares for the coming day have much confined the effects produced on them by the surrounding grandeur; and the smallness of their own share of the comforts which they beheld, has limited their admiration of the marvellous variety which was to be divided among others. On the other hand, the strange conviction on Lucy’s mind, that she would now have as large an individual command as any one, of all the varied luxuries which on all sides bewildered her sight, gave her a painful consciousness of her own littleness.

For nearly seven miles of suburb, she had been expecting to stop at every door she passed, thinking it quite impossible the town could extend any farther. A curious inquiry it would be, and probably puzzling to more experienced investigators than Lucy, who live in those houses, which are perpetually building in most out-of-the way districts? Are the houses built for the inhabitants, or the inhabitants fitted to the houses?

The carriage at length stopped at Lord Castleton’s door, which was in one of the soi-disant fashionable squares in the west end of London. It was still very early in a London spring morning, that is, it was not above two hours after noon, and Castleton determined to go out, to collect new gossip from old acquaintance at the clubs, and Lucy was left alone; and she felt as if she was the first person in the world who had ever known the most extended signification of that word alone.

The soignée salon in which she had been left, opened, behind its muslin draperies, upon a balcony and veranda, filled with rare and sweet plants, and from thence she looked forth upon the scene beyond, having first stepped out merely to catch the last glimpse of Castleton as he turned the corner. By one used to the more busy parts of the metropolis, it would have been styled a quiet situation; but to Lucy it appeared as if some great event must have collected an unusual crowd. And there they all hurry on, she thought, whether on business or pleasure, sent by one person seeking another. And I, perhaps, of all this moving crowd, am the only creature who knows no one, and for whom no one cares. Castleton has gone forth, and however surprised, there is no one of whom I can ask a question; however pleased, no one to whom I can express my admiration: and whatever may be the destination of all these ever-moving busy ants below, the only thing certain is, that their pursuits have no connexion whatever with me. She envied even the dustman, who through the iron rail of the area, shook the hand that declined his call. She thought even the old clothesman looked with an eye of interest on all he passed. She would have liked to have participated in the anxious care of the nervous nursery maid, in convoying her unruly six sail over a dangerous crossing. As the day advanced, she marked with equal certainty that she could have no interest in their motions; the thundering notification of the stately coach, which all ended in depositing an empty card, and the stealthy approach of the gliding cab, which neared the flags, and dropped a more interesting billet, just where a fair expectant hand awaited it, either for herself or mistress.—Each succeeding incident, of which she was an unobserved spectator, only increased her sense of loneliness. Her attention was, at length, particularly attracted to a gay cavalcade of ladies and gentlemen who were making the circuit from the other side of the square. There were in all three ladies, and a superabundant attendance of cavaliers. But Lucy’s eye was fixed on the lady who rode first, between two gentlemen, her horse indicating that sort of becoming impatience which excites fear for a bad horse-woman, and admiration of a good one. But to Lucy it looked very tremendous, till, upon nearer approach, she observed that so far from being alarmed, she was talking gaily, and laughing merrily. Her head was turned towards the gentleman nearest Lucy, whilst her other companion was anxiously appearing to be amused with what she was saying.

As they came under the balcony, Lucy clapped her hands with delight, saying to herself, “O, dear, I’m so happy there is somebody I do know; that’s the kind lady of Hornscliff Abbey.”

It was impossible, indeed, for any one who had once seen Lady Gayland to be mistaken. Though the expression of her countenance was now as different from that which, when Lucy had last beheld her, beamed with sympathy on her distresses, as the costume which she now wore, or the occasion on which she was seen. In passing, even whilst continuing the conversation, without elevating her head, she raised her eyes to the balcony on which Lucy was standing. Lucy conceived she must have heard her, but, perhaps, entirely unconnected with her, Lady Gayland had her own motives for casting one transient glance unobserved in that direction. Lucy, though, thought otherwise, and hastily withdrew, imagining that the only impression which her presence there could cause, on the lady’s mind must be, “What can Lucy Darnell be doing in that fine house?”

Lucy would hardly have been able to account for her never having mentioned to Castleton her interview with the Lady of Hornscliff Abbey; but, perhaps, one reason was, that not till some time after that event did she see him again. And though she would not have thought of premeditated concealment from him of any important point, they had never been upon those terms of easy equality which could have induced her to volunteer confidence. Latterly, too, she had observed so much uneasiness and impatience on his part, at any casual mention of circumstances connected either with the trial or smuggling transactions, that the fear of annoying him, coupled with her ignorance of the lady’s name, which left her indeed little to tell, prevented her, upon his return, from making any mention of the person she had observed from the window.

Castleton came home in high spirits; he had been much pleased with the cordial manner in which his re-appearance had been greeted by all his old acquaintances. It is a pleasing illusion which, on such an occasion, makes a man appropriate, as indicating a clear sense of his own merits, those manifestations of delight at his re-appearance, which have oftener no other foundation than the ebullitions of selfish satisfaction, at any break or change in the wearisome monotony of a life of pleasure.

But Castleton was too popular a man for him not to be justified in attributing to more flattering motives much of the warmth of his welcome. It was astonishing the deference that was paid to his opinion upon all matters connected with the arts, literature, or politics, considering that he had never exerted his own talents directly in any of these different departments. But perhaps for this very reason, as he never even drew except that once at Morden Bay, which was certainly not with a view to extended fame, or wrote, or spoke himself at all, and was equally devoid of any pretensions of his own, as either artist, author, or orator, he was the more readily allowed to decide upon those of others; more particularly as his manner of conveying his opinions was as mild as the opinions themselves were valuable. And having established amongst his acquaintance universally, a character as arbiter of taste, he was not a little anxious how far that character might be confirmed by the estimate of his conduct in so important a point as the choice of a wife; about which he had his own misgivings. The fact is, that in no point had Castleton more deceived himself than in not perceiving that that very over refinement in scrutinizing the motives and opinions of others, which had made him suspect interested inconsistencies in all women in his own rank in life, would, taking only another shape, make him even more conscious than another would have been of the inevitable incongruities of his present partner with that rank of life to which he had raised her. One of a less morbidly critical taste, less disposed to analyze below the surface, would have been satisfied with that favourable impression which beauty and grace in perfection could not fail to make in the first instance. But he already began to fear that those mental deficiencies, which he had, indeed, but lately discovered himself, must at first sight be obvious to every one else. Still, uncomfortable, indeed, must have been the forebodings which could not have been chased away, at least for the time, by the look of confiding devotion with which she received him upon his return. His first care was to make her, as far as he could, comfortable in her new habitation. But a sense of comfort is not a feeling which can at once be transfused, with the will of him who wishes it. Comfort is so closely connected with habit, that many things which to others would have contributed to confer it, were to Lucy, from their strangeness, only additional sources of embarrassment.

His next anxiety was as to her first introduction into society, or what is called the world. He was right in thinking that upon this occasion much depended upon that first impression; but he was wrong in doubting that in Lucy’s case, the probabilities were much in favour of that being advantageous. In London, provided a person is positively pretty and new, their other qualities may be negative; and as long as they are not obtrusively either awkward or silly, they may pass muster very well, at least for a time. People have not either the leisure or the inclination to pick out peccadilloes in deportment, which they have in a country neighbourhood. If the same persons were not exposed one half the year to the really severe ordeal of the one, they would not be so very sensitive in the other. In the London season, all the little social rubs to which all are in turn subject, arise much more from an over estimate of their own importance, than from any intentional depreciation of it on the part of their associates. It is to the failure of attempts to be what they are not, rather than to any dispute as to conceding what they are, that self-inflicted mortifications may be traced. Those who keep one foot within reach of firm ground, will never get much of a tumble, in climbing the ladder of fashion.

CHAPTER II.

Then dress, then dinner, then awakes the world!

Then glare the lamps, then whirl the wheels, then roar

Through street and square fast flashing chariots hurl’d

Like harnessed meteors; then along the floor

Chalk mimics painting; then festoons are twirled;

Then roll the brazen thunders of the door,

Which opens to a thousand happy few,

An earthly paradise of “Or Molu.”

BYRON.

LORD CASTLETON changed his mind very often as to the best preparatory introduction for Lucy to a few select friends. He was convinced that before she was launched into the great world, he ought to provide her with some female companion, under whose auspices she might then make her appearance. For though it might look merely loving and interesting for a bride to appear leaning on her husband’s arm, in that society to which they had both been previously known; yet where she was a stranger, like needlessly backing a bill, it might excite a suspicion as to her being able to stand alone, without his name being thus attached, or his hand thus put to insure her not being discredited. His first intention was to have invited a small party to dinner at his own house. But though this would have insured him the absolute selection of all the individuals to whom Lucy was, in the first instance, to have been introduced; on the other hand, the active duties of a hostess, perhaps in her idea so much more active than he would have thought necessary, were more than he wished to entail upon her in her probationary trial. Then, as to the lady to whom he was to apply as a sort of chaperon for his inexperienced bride, his thoughts first turned to Lady Gayland; a direction in which, as I am afraid it must be acknowledged, they did turn oftener than he would have chosen to admit. Yet he had a great disinclination to exposing at once to her acute perception any little foibles or deficiencies on Lucy’s part, though he knew that the mere circumstance of any one requiring her assistance, would have disposed her to view them in the most favourable light. Yet there were many little traits of ignorance on Lucy’s part which he was labouring hard to correct, and which he hoped might yet be completely removed, without Lady Gayland’s ever being conscious of them. There were also circumstances of misconception, if not of misunderstanding, connected with his last parting with that lady at Naples, which prevented his feeling authorized in abruptly asking of her a favour.

The difficulties, both with respect to when the introductory dinner was to be given, and the person by whom Lucy was to be chaperoned, were removed at the same time, by his accidentally meeting a cousin of his, Mrs. Tudor, who at once occurred to him as admirably suited to both purposes. She was indeed an excellent woman—Mrs. Tudor. Every one admitted it, no one could deny it. Faultless as she was herself, faultless was her society—faultless were her dinners.

Now why is it, that in this wicked world every one of my readers have associated an idea of insipidity with the description I have just given? There were no words used which seemed at all to make such an interpretation necessary, yet in this particular instance it is certainly the right one. Every thing connected with Mrs. Tudor was essentially insipid. Perhaps when an excellent woman is married to a good kind of man, and such was Tudor, it is too much. It gives one the fidgets at once. But excellent women, particularly if they happen to have house and fortune in proportion to their good qualities, are very apt to have very extensive and very eligible acquaintance; and Castleton could not possibly have made a happier choice of the person who was to smooth the first entrance of Lucy into her new career.

Mrs. Tudor was pleased at the extent of the confidence reposed in her, which Castleton limited to informing her, that his bride was a young person who had been educated in retirement, and consequently was not at all prepared for all the ways of the great world. And though activity was not any part of Mrs. Tudor’s excellence, yet this was just the sort of quiet exertion which only made her fancy herself occupied. She immediately fixed an early day for the Castleton’s to dine with her. Do not let the reader be alarmed with the idea, that that day is going to be made the subject of minute description. Suffice it to say, that good nature had, in this instance, its own reward, in pleasing those whom it was intended to gratify. Faultless was the dinner, faultless were the guests invited, and faultless, with pleasure let us add, was Lucy’s deportment during the whole of that day. Anxious as she had already become as to the impression which her conduct in these different circumstances should make upon Castleton, she was on this occasion re-assured by the kind consideration with which she was treated by all, and therefore bore her part without discredit or remark on those ordinary topics from which the conversation never soared.

From Castleton’s lavish praises of her as they returned home in the carriage, she felt as if she must have done wonders, and therefore looked forward without much dread, to the engagement she had made with Mrs. Tudor, to accompany her the following night to Lady Delacour’s ball.

That style of beauty which is defined as the beauty of innocence, is sometimes supposed to be but little improved by dress; but such was not the opinion portrayed in the gratified expression of Lord Castleton’s countenance, when he witnessed the successful result of his wife’s toilet on the succeeding evening: for he thought he never saw her look one half so well—which judgment she read at once in his looks, and felt repaid for all she had gone through. The whole affair had been to her a most painful infliction. She had been in turns a victim in the hands of the milliner, the hair-dresser, and her own maid, each of whose successive operations she had at the time thought to be never ending. She bore the sufferings of a martyr with the patience of a saint. But as Castleton, having first sent the landau for the Tudors, that they might go together, in handing her into it, cast one more approving glance by the hall lamp, and pressed her hand encouragingly, she felt as if she was utterly indifferent as to what any one else thought of her. And though her diffidence so far returned, upon hearing her name shouted from hall to landing-place, and doorway to doorway, as to make an “O pray don’t” half pass her lips, addressed in a supplicatory tone to a peculiarly stentorian callman; yet upon entering the rooms, her admiration at the brilliancy of a scene so much beyond what she had previously conceived possible, gave to her countenance a subdued expression of enjoyment struggling with embarrassment, which to her style of beauty was peculiarly becoming.

As she proceeded, under Mrs. Tudor’s arm, Castleton soon got separated from her by the crowd of acquaintances, who at that moment seemed to have no other object there than to welcome him back to London. After this had a little subsided, whilst jostled by that most fidgetting, unquiet, unaccommodating of all mobs, the hat-tugging, gown-tearing mob of fashion, he was of course subject occasionally to hear remarks which were not meant to meet his ear, but none as yet, which were not on the whole rather flattering than not. “Who is that pretty new girl with Mrs. Tudor?” “Where’s the new beauty—have you seen her?” “Who is that new woman every body is raving about?” It is true, in all these encomiums, the emphasis was on the word new, as if that was the great attraction; but at the same time, this, which seemed to imply most in itself, was always coupled with some favourable adjuncts.

After a little, when it became more generally known who she was, he observed that his vicinity often caused some half-vented exclamation or inquiry to be checked by the nudge of a neighbouring elbow; but even then this appeared to be more from the opinion being rather free and familiar in its expression, than unfavourable in its nature. He thought it as well to avoid as much as possible the running any more risks of this kind, and therefore, making his way out of that apartment where the crowd was thickest, he came unexpectedly in the next upon a select circle of admiring listeners, of which Lady Gayland was the centre of attraction. Their eyes met at the same instant; one moment she paused, though in the very agony of a half-finished bon mot. She hesitated one moment more, then stretched out her hand to him, saying, “How is Lady Castleton? Is she here?”

Mumbling his reply to this, from her, unexpected question, he passed on. She renewed her sentence, but somehow omitted its point. Her hearers were much disappointed thereat, though some who listened were not aware of the fact. Amongst them was a foreign nobleman, to whom our old acquaintance, Peter Spencer, much to her annoyance, was showing off Lady Gayland, as a sort of literary lioness. The Count Finale was a gentlemanlike, inoffensive man, who had been much puzzled, upon first coming to this country, which of the two alternatives, offered to every foreigner, he had better select,—the could and would speak English line, or not. This is a very awkward choice to make, and there are so many disadvantages both ways, that it is really difficult to know which to recommend. All foreigners now, after a manner, speak English, and few like to do it, but they must profess both or neither, in the first case they are much more generally well received, but get much less separate attention. They have more acquaintance but less society; for it is impossible that they can for some time make out the clipped, slovenly colloquy, in which so much the greater part of common conversation passes current. But the Count Finale had at length taken upon himself the alternative of assumed knowledge, the consequence of which was, that he was at the present moment in the most disagreeable situation for a gallant man, that of appearing to be more amused than he really was with a beautiful woman; for Lady Gayland’s thoughts flowed in much too rapid sketches for him to be able to follow them.

“You are not aware, my dear Count,” said Peter Spencer, “that Lady Gayland is a dweller on Parnassus—that she makes up an even half score with the Nine; indeed, there’s hardly a muse whose department she might not double with advantage, upon occasion.”

The habitual inattention which she always extended to every saying of Peter Spencer’s, might account for her taking no notice whatever of this pretty speech, without its being necessary to suppose that her thoughts were just then straying after that mental will-o’-the-wisp, the memory of by-gone visions. But Sir North Saunders, who was standing by, was determined not to let the conversation drop, therefore continued—

“Seen Lady Gayland’s last little work—eh! Count?”

“O pray, Sir North, don’t talk of one’s work, it sounds so mechanical—savours much more of the tambour frame than the printing press. Besides, work was a very appropriate description, when the brain was distilled by midnight oil in a lonely garret. But now the stud of letters is as light as the lives of the authors, who first amuse themselves, as the best way of amusing their readers. Formerly even plays were works, but now any work is but play. Besides, from the days of Byron downwards, if an author has passions he puts them into poetry—if foibles, he owns them with only the additional lackering of some imaginary merit, confesses himself grand but faulty—doubly gratifies his vanity, by being himself his own theme—puts but a little gilt paper upon the blackest parts of his character, and, in this May day finery, presents himself to an admiring world.”

Lord Castleton, who had been hovering near, again approached, time enough to catch most of the last speech, and said more to the speaker herself, than those whom she had been addressing,

“Heaven forefend that I should ever take pen in hand; but if I did, it would be to use myself as a warning, not a model. It would be from the reverse of my own sentiments I should expect sympathy—from a contrast to my own conduct I should promise happiness.”

Lady Gayland cast one penetrating glance upon him, as if wishing to detect whether there was any particular meaning attached to so extraordinary an avowal; and then saying, “And this from a newly married man too, che vergogna,” she passed on.

CHAPTER III.

Methinks I play as I have seen them

In Whitsun past’rals: sure this robe of mine

Does change my disposition.

We are come to this great stage of fools—

Wilt stay and see the revellers?

SHAKSPEARE.

Lucy had been very much admired by all to whom Mrs. Tudor had introduced her. A sweet smile, gentle manners, and the absence of any kind of pretension, are quite enough to be supposed agreeable, as well as attractive, by new acquaintances, in a mixed crowd. She was quite equal to reciprocating comments upon the merits of the fête, with those who, after presentation, hazarded two or three commonplace sentences; and if she did use an out-of-the-way phrase upon such an occasion, it was only reckoned original. Whilst thus occupied, she observed her kind friend of Hornscliff Abbey intently gazing on her, who, as soon as she saw that she was remarked, advanced towards Mrs. Tudor, and begged to be presented to Lady Castleton. Lucy was first puzzled at her former friend thinking it necessary to go through that ceremony, and to treat her as a stranger; but when Mrs. Tudor turned away to speak to some one, Lady Gayland said in somewhat an under tone, “Forgive me, dear Lady Castleton, if I suggest to you that, considering the circumstances under which we last met, it should not be known that we ever did meet before. It sounds odd advice; but I should particularly recommend that Lord Castleton should not know it. He is so very old an acquaintance of mine, that I think he will be better pleased in not knowing that I am also an old acquaintance of yours. But to prove to you that I consider myself as such, will you take a turn with me whilst Mrs. Tudor there is curing the cholera? You will see much more, by changing the pair of eyes by which you are shown all this phantasmagoria.” So saying, she linked her arm in Lucy’s, and they paraded through the suite of rooms.

As they passed along, the flattering admiration of the surrounding throng was equally lost on both, though the sensations which produced that disregard were widely dissimilar. In one it arose from simple unconsciousness of the effect she produced, in the other from mere dislike at the open demonstration of that which she felt nevertheless to be her due.

“My dear Lady Castleton,” said her companion; “I have no doubt you feel very strange in this unknown crowd.”

“O I do indeed! and if you only knew how delightful it is to find myself talking with one, who I know, from experience, would on occasion be so kind to me:” and she clung more closely to Lady Gayland’s arm as she said it.

“Yes, but I am afraid that if here no one was to talk, except with those whom they knew, if occasion served, would be kind to them, that it would rather resemble the Temple of Silence, than the Babel it now is. If I could only label these moving figures for your instruction, you would be astonished how soon you would get to know as much of them, as many who have for years what is called lived in their set. From a little observation, you would be able to detect whether they had neglected their dentist, enriched their milliner, or cashiered their coiffeur; and that is about the whole knowledge which their friends, called intimate, have collected concerning them. This is called by some a mere marriage mart; that is, however, only one department in the bazaar of fashion; but the whole is, after all, but a sort of face-fair—a show of bipeds; and the stock know about as much of each other, as bullocks would from standing next stall.”

“But surely you, Lady Gayland, are an exception; ever since I have been with you, you have spoken to so many people as if you knew them so well; and not one but has seemed to long to linger with you, had you not passed on.”

“Why I, to be sure, upon the principle that lookers on see most of the game—I, who, having no husband, have not either to watch or be watched, and have, likewise, no daughter to mind, or mother to mind me, I am let a little behind the scenes, which only lets me a thousand times more into the secret of the advantages of your present position, as an unseen debutante. Why any mother in the room would think her daughter’s fortune certain, and would begin to criticise incumbrances in any offer beneath a dukedom, who had had half the pretty things said of her, that have this night been said of you; but that could only be the first night. No one knows so well as chaperon chapwomen the converse of the French proverb, Marchandise que plait, est à moitié vendue. But I forget; perhaps you do not understand French,” added she kindly.

“No, indeed! I do not at all,” said Lucy, “though Castleton don’t like me to say so.” Adding this domestic explanation in a tone which perfectly conveyed to her auditress, “Though I have volunteered the confession, do not betray me to him.”

“It is my fault for expressing myself in speckled language. It is a great fault, I own. A foreign phrase, like a piebald horse, has nothing to excuse the oddity of its use, but its being faultless and perfect in its form, and peculiarly adapted to the purpose to which it is applied. But see! here comes an old acquaintance of yours, Sir North Saunders; never mind, do not fear his recognizing you, for he moves about in a perpetual halo of selfishness, which prevents his clearly distinguishing what does not concern himself.”

As she finished this piece of advice to Lucy, Sir North approached Lady Gayland, and addressed her.

“Permit—in offering, as usual, adoration at my accustomed shrine,—may be allowed to add farther offerings at the side altar that now distracts my devotion. Will you present me to our friend’s beautiful bride, Lady Castleton?”

“Sir North Saunders, as the most gallant of men, is naturally anxious to make the acquaintance of his friend’s beautiful bride. Lord Castleton is his friend—you are the beautiful bride. Lady Castleton—Sir North Saunders! Sir North Saunders—Lady Castleton. There, that’s quite in order, is not it? And now permit the neglected shrine to move itself out of the renegade’s way.” And she took Lady Castleton’s other arm, which brought Lucy next to Sir North, who addressed her,

“Never more thoroughly convinced of the pre-eminence of Castleton’s universally acknowledged taste.”

A formal curvature of his short fat figure was meant to complete the compliment inferred in this half finished sentence; but Lucy only looked confused and uneasy, as she could not yet persuade herself that those little grey eyes, which she had last seen fixed on her, with all the assumed appearance of intense scrutiny, could so soon have ceased to reflect any trace of her identity. Sir North therefore continued—

“Earliest friend—flatter myself, of Castleton.—Came of age as Horncliffe—arrived at years of discretion—rather volage in those days. You ladies never like your husbands the worse for that, in the preterpluperfect time. Hope to have the pleasure of seeing you at Hornscliff Abbey. Your friend, Lady Gayland, behaved very shabbily,—actually run away—second day—mus’n’t do that.”

“My dear Sir North, you know I was obliged, and couldn’t help myself; but I assure you, Lady Castleton, you’ll find Sir North sometimes tyrannical in the extent to which he pushes hospitality. Do you know, now, if he thought there was any chance of your making your escape, I shouldn’t wonder if he was actually to lock you up. Only think of that—lock you up,—yes, positively keep you under lock and key!”

“Really, my dear Lady, that is rather a worn-out attack upon me. However, it is, to be sure, perfectly new to Lady Castleton. You don’t know, perhaps, that this joke originated in Lady Gayland’s having taken a prodigious fancy to the society of a pretty vagrant, brought up before me as a disorderly person. Poz—believe she left Hornscliff, because I wouldn’t ask the fair tramper to my table.”

“Come, Sir North, you had better say no more on that subject,” said Lady Gayland, seeing it distressed Lucy. “I can assure you Lady Castleton won’t think the better of you for it.”

“Scrupulously avoid any unfavourable impression in such a quarter.—Hope to be able to convince you that Hornscliff is not such a dungeon. Not much used, apparently, to the hardships of rural routine. No fear of being exposed to the fatigues of sight-seeing at Hornscliff,—never be required to pound along in clogs. Confine yourself, if you like, to the thirty-yard terrace, along which Mrs. Macangle used once, before dusk, to glide, in green satin slippers, to match its velvety surface.”

“I’ll tell you what, though, Sir North,” said Lady Gayland, “if I had staid at Hornscliff Abbey, I should have voted your terrace flat as well as level. A country morning ought to be as varied as a London evening; though the monotony of the first half of the day here, and the latter there, is unavoidable.

“Always ready to adapt myself to the taste of my guests. Once,—years ago, when your husband was a very young man, Lady Castleton, I remember we did make a most extraordinary expedition to a strange out-of-the-way place, called Morden Bay. But if Castleton ever mentioned the circumstance, I dare say his recollection was not of the distance being so formidable, for he was in love then.”

“In love!” thought Lucy. “Was his early partiality for me, then, already suspected?”

“Don’t be alarmed, Lady Castleton. She of whom I speak,” continued Sir North, “could never have been your rival, even if she had been your contemporary; but hers was the reign of another generation. Poor Lady Madelina Manfred! Castleton was her last conquest—certainly made the most of him while it lasted. Ah, Castleton, just in time to prevent the exposure of your past peccadilloes to your wife.”

Castleton gave him an inquiring stare, which seemed to say, “I do think you very impertinent, but I won’t tell you so for fear of provoking a continuance of the same:” and then turning to Lady Gayland, said earnestly, “I cannot tell you how kind I think it of you to have taken such care of my inexperienced debutante.”

There was a slight emphasis on the words “of you,” which might imply that it was what he had no reason to expect of her in particular; but if such was its signification, Lady Gayland took no notice of it, only replying, “I have been endeavouring to persuade Lady Castleton to accompany me to my box at the opera tomorrow night; she says she has never been there.”

Castleton would have found it difficult to separate the notions, or to analyze the feelings, which induced him so readily to accept this offer of Lady Gayland’s. And it was thus they separated the first night of their renewed acquaintance, after a long interval, and under much altered circumstances. Castleton was in spirits during the return homewards; and as soon as they had deposited the Tudors, and he was left alone with Lucy, delighted her with his praises of her deportment during the whole evening, saying, “I am sure you must have been all I could have wished, to have pleased Lady Gayland.”

“Well, I am sure,” said Lucy, “she is the person next to yourself whose good opinion I should most wish to gain.”

But in spite of this, which was indeed the utterance of her real feelings towards that lady, Lucy was not quite contented with herself, or with that society which had produced such a feeling of self-dissatisfaction on her part. It would have been inconvenient, considering Castleton’s dislike to such a discovery, to have been recognized by Sir North; but it is never very welcome to a young and pretty woman to have been so soon and so completely forgotten, even by Sir North Saunders, particularly as the terms in which alone her other self had been mentioned were so little flattering. She could not but remember that she was still the same person; that it was no difference either in her character or identity, but merely the act of another, which caused her to be now so differently considered in that society to which he had raised her.

But the part which hurt her most was the new version which had that night been given by Sir North, to the attraction which rendered interesting to Castleton his former visit to Morden Bay.

Lucy’s diffidence as to her own merits and unlimited sense of Castleton’s superiority, had often made her wonder why, courted as she saw he still was, admired as she believed he must always have been, he should nevertheless have diverged from his natural sphere of triumph on purpose to win her from her remote seclusion. Yet with all her modest astonishment that such should have been the case, she still clung to the idea that at dear Morden Bay, at least, she was supreme, that there “her reign there was none to dispute;” and of all the splendid gifts with which he had presented her since their marriage, there was none in her eyes which had half the value of the little French watch given on the occasion of that first visit to Morden Bay, and to which she always referred with pleasure, as proving the consistency and permanence of his attachment, whenever a painful sensation of inferiority made her almost question its possibility.

The idea, therefore, started by Sir North, that at that time it was the company of another which alone made the expedition to Morden Bay tolerable to him, was most annoying to Lucy. She longed to question her husband on the subject, but dared not.

This was an unfortunate effect of the timidity which rather increased towards him, the longer they continued to live together, without establishing any habits of confidence between them, which, though most indulgent to her in every other respect, Castleton never encouraged, from feeling a growing distrust of the power of her intellect to reciprocate confidential communications. Had she happily ventured to mention what Sir North had hinted to her, of the companion he had had tacked to him at the time of that expedition, Lucy would have found with pleasure, that nothing had so much contributed to the cure of the sickly delusion under which Castleton was then labouring, as the first sight of herself on the shore of Morden Bay.

CHAPTER IV.

She, ’midst the gay world’s hum,

Was the queen-bee—the glass of all that’s fair;

Whose charms made all men speak, and women dumb—

The last’s a miracle.

BYRON.

That strain again—It had a dying fall;

O it came o’er my ear like the sweet south

That breathes upon a bank of violets,

Stealing and giving odour. Enough—no more—

’Tis not so sweet now as it was before.

SHAKSPEARE.

IT so happened that the Italian Opera was the first scenic exhibition of any description at which Lucy had ever been present. If such amusements had been of easier attainment from Bankside Farm, Mrs. Darnell would have thought a play-bill only a synonymous term for a sure pass to perdition. Alice Darnell, it is true, through all her sorrows, had always retained a lingering partiality for a “metior,” in which she had during her short career been so eminently successful; and she often took pleasure in attempting to explain to her little niece, whilst reading parts of Shakspeare, the effect that might be produced by the impersonation of the characters by different actors; but still, no previous description can give to a person who has never witnessed it, any adequate idea of the power of perfect dramatic representation. Lucy would have been much astonished if taken for the first time to one of our great national theatres, where she would at least have understood the language, and made out the intentions of the performers. But Castleton was, except upon extraordinary occasions, a creature of habit. Winter was past—spring was already advanced. As Covent Garden market comes into season, Covent Garden Theatre goes out, and Lucy was taken for the first time, to the Italian Opera; and to the effect of novelty which any thing of the kind would have produced on her, were added the perfectly unintelligible incongruities of that style of performance.

Perhaps when given in perfection, there is no description of scenic representation which opens a more varied source of enjoyment to an habitual frequenter of theatres. But then the rudiments of dramatic representation must have been first understood. The merits of an accurate imitation of nature must not only first have been tasted, but the pleasure derived from that pure source, must in some measure have been exhausted, before the graft of song upon incident and character, could be relished.

There is, perhaps, nothing yet produced by the progress of civilization, so thoroughly artificial as an Italian opera; and to a child of nature like Lucy, it may be imagined, that much that night was perfectly incomprehensible. As long as deadly defiance is hurled in the most perfect concord—voices ringing in harmony, whilst swords are brandishing in enmity—the crisis of fate consumed in repeating, some hundred times, some Italian paraphrase of “I cannot stay, I must away,” which practical performance of an alleged impossibility, is probably encored—the most confidential communications of the most disordered despair given over the lamps in the most elaborate roulades, whilst four-and-twenty old maids all in a row, repeat together at stated intervals “Poor thing! Poor thing—how very much we all pity you!”—whilst thus upon every occasion sense is sacrificed to sound, it would appear that assumption of character must be a mere mockery. Yet this is far from being the case. In losing the verisimility of nature, the unity of effect as a whole is of course destroyed; yet so powerful is the additional impulse given to the excited senses, by the aid of appropriate music adapted to the action portrayed, that perhaps much the most brilliant movements of the mimic art have been of late years on the Italian boards. And the night in question was rich in examples of that description, for the opera was Semiramide, and the finest living actress of the world, the splendid Pasta, was the heroine.

Lady Gayland’s box was upon the pit tier, more upon the stage than over the orchestra. Lady Gayland, passionately fond of music as she was, had already arrived when Castleton and his wife entered. Lady Castleton sat in front next the stage, Lady Gayland on the opposite side, with her back to the audience, and Castleton beside her. Partly from the earliness of the hour, and partly from the interest of the performance of that opera, then new to this country, they remained long without any additional visitors. Every thing was a matter of bewilderment to Lucy, from the very first crash of the overture, which, except the war of the winter waves, was the loudest sound she had ever heard.

As subjects of astonishment and admiration accumulated in the opera, she became confused with their multitude, and ashamed to show the extent to which she was puzzled, by asking any questions. Lady Gayland’s good-natured attempt to explain the story as it proceeded, was not very successful, as Lucy could not retain either the real or assumed names of the persons described, so as to be able to identify them again; and the nature of the (to her) strange costumes, puzzled her even as to which were meant for men, and which for women. The choruses she could not at all understand. She longed to ask how so many people could think of singing exactly the same words all together, unless it had been a psalm. The finely executed elongation of a high note, to her ignorant simplicity, seemed only an unmeaning squall.

In the mean time, Castleton and Lady Gayland were in a state of ecstasy only known to the true “Fanatici,” an enjoyment certainly much enhanced to both of them by their being able mutually to communicate their sensations. It has been remarked, that the peculiar character of Castleton was the refinement of his taste, which was on some occasions much too fastidious for his happiness; but in nothing was his taste more perfect than in music, though he was often too much of an enthusiast to be a very captious critic.

Castleton and Lady Gayland had often together heard and admired Pasta in the same opera in Italy; and whilst they therefore anticipated the brilliancy of each well-known passage, or subsequently discussed its comparative merit, now and the last time they had heard it, Lucy could not conceive how it was possible for any one to remember sounds so long.

Perhaps that sympathy which depends on sound is, of all others, the most independent of events, the most survives change, or despises distance. It may be, that when any similarity occurs, the points of difference are not so distinguishable by the ear as by the eye; but certainly in foreign lands the tone of a bell, or even the whistling of the wind, will sometimes recall a distant home more strongly than any likeness in the outline of the landscape. And amongst individuals the recollection of a loved and a lost one is sometimes casually revived by a well-known intonation, or even emphasis, in the mouth of an indifferent relative, when no family resemblance of feature would have been admitted. Be this as it may, the impression now made on Castleton and Lady Gayland, as the opera proceeded, and each well-remembered cadence recurred was, that here again were the same syren sounds which they had together heard, together admired. Even so had they then sat, side by side; yet how changed in every respect now was their relative position!

“I remember,” said Castleton, in answer to some remark of Lady Gayland’s, “you made a similar observation to me last time we heard it—it was the night before I left Naples.”

“Yes,” said Lady Gayland, “and Frank Melmoth was sitting, as it might be, where Lady Castleton now is—I have never seen him either, since that night.”

“You have never seen him since that night?”

“No; the pennyless treasurer passed on to his appropriate post in one of the colonies.”

“And after that night you never saw him?” eagerly asked Castleton.

“Never,” replied Lady Gayland calmly, clearing her “longnettes,” and directing them towards the stage with a “sang froid” that seemed to convey the idea that the fact was one which neither had then made any impression on her, nor did she wish that its recital should now make any on her auditor.

It will not be necessary to inflict on the reader any speculation upon the nature of those mixed reflections which, during the next few minutes of silence, whilst they were apparently absorbed in attention to the performance, distracted the attention of the two musical amateurs. It will be sufficient to explain that this Frank Melmoth was rather a popular character, though what is commonly called a cool hand. It was impossible to deny that he was amusing; though not witty, he was funny,—a characteristic acquired by a mixture of impudence and humour, which forms a sort of chemical compound, often substituted for the real attic salt. There were moments when it rather suited Lady Gayland’s humour to be amused than interested, and of these Frank Melmoth availed himself during his stay at Naples, on his way to the distant sinecure which his necessities had obliged him to accept. A widow is said to be the reverse of a sinecure, but he thought that a jointure, even with its lively accompaniment, was better than being buried alive with a pension; and therefore did his best to win her favour: in which attempt he soon detected Castleton to be a formidable rival; and in his endeavours to overcome that obstacle, Frank Melmoth was up to a certain point successful. He had certainly most powerful weapons with which to work, in Lady Gayland’s keen relish for ridicule, and Castleton’s morbid sense of its slightest application to himself. Not only did he sometimes succeed in amusing Lady Gayland at Castleton’s expense, but in causing her demonstration of that amusement to be offensive to Castleton’s taste, as well as hurtful to his feelings. Lady Gayland was afraid that she had already shown herself too sensible of the partiality of her sensitive admirer, to render these playful ebullitions on her part of more than momentary impression; but Castleton, whose feelings were too irritable on this subject for his judgment to be very sound, thought that he perceived in her readiness, when in a merry mood, to seek amusement from the society of Frank Melmoth, another proof that (like the young lady whom he mentioned in his letter to his friend St. Clair,) if she hesitated between them, it was only the adventitious advantages of his position in the world which rendered her choice doubtful, otherwise her preference would have been decidedly accorded to the needy Frank Melmoth.

This was an opinion which Frank did every thing in his power to confirm. He had, indeed, induced Castleton by this means to hasten his departure from Naples, and as he was obliged himself to proceed soon, if not successful in his then pursuit, he had succeeded in driving Castleton from the box at San Carlo that night, in dispetto with himself, and fancying that he was leaving behind a triumphant rival, who five minutes afterwards brought upon himself the sudden termination of all his hopes by an abrupt proposal, which was summarily and concisely rejected, and the next morning, which saw Castleton flying with foaming steeds in imaginary discomfiture over the Pontine Marshes, saw Frank Melmoth thoroughly defeated, paddling in a sulky steam-boat out of the bay of Naples. It may therefore be seen, that if in the reflections which the same opera, seen again together, mutually aroused, there was any food for regret—that regret could on neither side be entirely unmingled with self-reproach. Thoughtlessness had made Lady Gayland assume the appearance of what she was far from being—a coquette; and in Castleton’s case, distrust of himself had made him most unjust to another whom he had then no right to doubt.

Towards the conclusion of the opera, these reflections were interrupted by the dropping in, in succession, of many “a young man about town,” habitués of Lady Gayland’s box, whose nightly visit had this time a double motive, as they were all anxious to have a nearer view of the “new woman,” whom they had been admiring from a distance.

At the conclusion of the opera, this rotation proceeded rapidly; and Lucy was presented to an undistinguishable succession of young gentlemen, with black heads and neckcloths, who had each hardly time to mutter, “how divine Pasta had been!” when another and another still succeeded.

Through all this Castleton had kept his station by the side of Lady Gayland, by a sort of brevet rank, which the presence of his bride gave him. Latterly, the society had again become more stationary. Next to Castleton was his friend St. Clair, with whom he was soon engaged in an interesting conversation. Opposite to them was Lord Stayinmore, who had never more than a certain set of phrases to address to a lady. Having exhausted these to Lucy, he suffered himself to be engrossed by Sir North, on his other side, in a political discussion.

Lady Gayland, therefore, took the opportunity of inquiring of Lucy, “how the opera had amused her?” There was that unmistakable air of real interest in Lady Gayland’s manner, whenever she addressed Lucy, which made her always reply in a tone of confidence, different from that which she felt towards any other member of the society in which she moved.

“Why, to tell the honest truth,” said she, leaning forward towards her questioner, “I can’t say that I could the least understand what it all meant. It’s not likely that people should sing when they’re in such sorrow; and then I can’t guess why that young man should kill the queen that was so kind to him all along.”

“I don’t wonder that that should surprise you, my dear; but he was not aware of what he was doing. It was in the dark.”

“In the dark! But I could see very well who it was, though I did not know her so well as he did, and was so much farther off.”

“I am afraid you are in the dark, too, a little as yet,” said Lady Gayland, (tapping her gently with her fan.) “But, tell me, did you not admire the singing, though you could not understand the story?”

“Why, I should, perhaps, if I had known the language; but even then they seemed to me more like birds, than men and women singing words. I like a song that I can make out every word that’s said, just as cousin George used to sing.”

She rather dropped her voice at the last half sentence, but not so much as for it to escape the quick ear of Castleton, who turned sharply round, even before Lady Gayland asked, “And who, pray, is cousin George, my dear?”

“A relative of Lady Castleton’s, who is in the navy,” answered Castleton for her; and then turned round to St. Clair again, as if, though having heard it he had answered it, it was nevertheless a question of no moment.

The overture to the ballet, just then commencing with a crash, Lady Gayland took advantage of that moment to beckon Lucy towards her, and whisper, “At Hornscliff that day, was he not?” and on her assenting, Lady Gayland raised her finger to her lip in token of silence on the subject.

The curtain then rose for the ballet; at first, Lucy was delighted with the scenery and pageantry, for the spectacle was grand and imposing. But at length the resounding plaudits announced the entrée of the perfect Taglioni. Lucy was a little astonished at her costume upon her first appearance. She was attired as a goddess, and goddesses’ gowns are somewhat of the shortest, and their legs rather au naturel; but when she came to elicit universal admiration by pointing her toe, and revolving in the slow pirouette, Lucy, from the situation in which she sat, was overpowered with shame at the effect; and whilst Lady Gayland, with her longnette fixed on the stage, ejaculated, “Beautiful! inimitable!” the unpractised Lucy could not help exclaiming, “O that is too bad! I cannot stay to see that!” and she turned her head away, blushing deeply.

“Is your ladyship ill?” exclaimed Lord Stayinmore. “Castleton, I am afraid Lady Castleton feels herself indisposed.”

“Would you like to go?” kindly inquired Castleton.

“O so much!” she answered.

“Are you ill, my dear?” asked Lady Gayland.

“O no!” she said.

“Then you had better stay, it is so beautiful.”

“Thank you, Lord Castleton is kind enough to let me go.”

Which he did, still imagining that she had been suddenly taken ill. Therefore St. Clair volunteered to call her carriage—Lord Stayinmore bowed his lowest as she passed—Sir North reached his highest to help her on with her cloak—Lady Gayland took leave of her most kindly—and Castleton attending her with the greatest care, she was safely conveyed to the carriage; and it was not till then that he entreated an explanation of what had really been the cause of her sudden departure.

CHAPTER V.

Oh, brave new world,

That hath such people in it!

SHAKSPEARE.

Those that are good manners at the court, are as ridiculous in the country.

SHAKSPEARE.

“AND how do you find yourself now, my dear Lucy?” tenderly inquired Castleton, as the carriage drove off.

“O I am quite well, thank you.”

“Quite well! are you? What was it, then, that was the matter with you?”

“There was nothing the matter with me; it was that woman.”

“What woman? what can you mean? Did you not say that you were ill; and was not that the reason that we hurried away?”

“No! YOU said I was ill; and I did not contradict you, because you tell me that in the world, as you call it, it is not always right to give the real reason for what we do; and therefore I thought, perhaps, that though of course you wished me to come away, you liked to put it upon my being ill.”

“Of course I wished you to come away! I was never more unwilling to move in all my life; and nothing but consideration for your health would have induced me to stir. Why should I have wished you to come away?”

“Why, the naked woman,” stammered Lucy.

“What can you mean?”

“You couldn’t surely wish me to sit by the side of those people, to see such a thing as that?”

“As to being by the side of those people, I must remind you, that it was Lady Gayland’s box in which you were; and that whatever she, with her acknowledged taste and refinement, sanctions with her presence, can only be objected to by ignorance or prejudice. You have still a great deal to learn, my dear Lucy,” added he, more kindly; “and nothing can be so fatal to your progress in that respect, as your attempting to lead, or to find fault, with what you do not understand.”

“But surely I can understand that it is not right to do what I saw that woman do,” interrupted Lucy, presuming a little more doggedly than she usually ventured to do on any subject with her husband; for this time she had been really shocked by what she had seen.

“Wrong it certainly is not, if you mean moral wrong. As to such an exhibition being becoming or not in point of manners, that depends entirely upon custom. Many things at your father’s might strike me as coarsenesses, which made no impression upon you from habit, though much worse in my opinion than this presumed indecorum. Those things probably arose from ignorance on your parts, which might be corrected. This, on the other hand, from conventional indifference, consequent on custom, which it is not in you to correct. Depend upon it you will only get yourself laughed at, and me too, if you preach about dancers’ petticoats.”

“I don’t want to preach to any body; and you know how much it fashes me to contend with you.”

“Don’t say FASHES, say distresses, or annoys, not fashes, for heaven’s sake, my dear Lucy.”

“O dear, it was very stupid of me to forget it. That was one of the first things you taught me, and it is a many days since I said it last; but it is so strange to me to venture to differ with you, that I get confused, and don’t say any thing as right as I could do. Even now I should like to ask, if modesty is a merit, whether nakedness ought to be a show; but I’ll say no more, for I dare say you won’t make me go there again.”

“No, that will be the best way to settle it. Certainly, if it is no enjoyment to you, it would be much better that you should not go at all, than make yourself particular by imagining evil where there is none. One thing more I must remark to you, and I may as well do it at once, as I had always rather get over any thing that assumes the odious shape of a lecture, and have done with it.”

“I know what you are going to say, I’m sure,” said Lucy, feeling rather bolder than usual, from her present position. The obscurity, easy motion, and rumbling accompaniment of a London chariot, have often promoted confidences which no other relative situations have elicited. “I know what you are going to say. I ought not to have thought about cousin George.”

“Thought about him! no! It was not that I meant. I was going to say, that no person in good society talks about COUSIN George. Call him George, if you must mention him; though his accomplishments cannot be a very interesting topic to any one you are likely to see here. I am sure if he had been known to them, the idea of your boasting of his singing must have seemed still more absurd. Stentorian lungs, and uproarious merriment, must have been his principal qualifications.”

“Indeed, he could sing with great feeling sometimes,” Lucy could not help adding; and then checking herself, “but I ought certainly to have recollected, that you have no reason to like him; and though in his case you returned good for evil, you are not like to fancy much hearing him praised by me.”

This was not exactly the footing upon which Castleton would have wished to have left the subject, but just then the carriage stopped at home, and Lucy, when he handed her out said,

“I am so very sorry that I have annoyed you; that’s the right word, is not it? And I’m sure it’s the right feeling.”

After this he could not but think that any renewal of any of the topics in dispute, would be unkind and harsh on his part.

“I wish to ask a great favour, my dear Lord,” said Lucy, anxiously, as they were seated the next morning at breakfast.

“Speak on, my dear,” said he, rather fearing some unsuitable request.

“I wish you would be good enough to tell me how I could make myself most like Lady Gayland.”

“Make yourself like Lady Gayland! why should you wish it?” inquired he, at once struck with the impossibility of her succeeding in such an attempt.

“Because I feel that I admire her even more than I love her, and that is difficult.—So easy in her cleverness as she is, and so kind to others—so good as she was to me once!”

“Once! when?”

“I should have said always, for she is always kind to me.”

“My dear Lucy, I will not pretend to be otherwise than much pleased at the desire you have expressed; which shows that you must have taste to appreciate what you desire to imitate. But at the same time, believe me, there would be nothing more impossible to imitate than that ease, or rather absence of effect in cleverness, which struck even you so much in Lady Gayland. You have a thousand other charms of your own equally estimable, but perhaps the greatest is that perfect nature which is incompatible with imitation. One thing, however, I can recommend, as you introduced the subject, and think not in alluding to it I am reviving, with any unpleasant feeling, the occurrences of yesterday evening. But if my pretty little Lucy need not attempt to be like, as little need she endeavour to be unlike, Lady Gayland; and if you do not emulate as necessary, as little need you avoid as wrong, any thing you observe in that accomplished person.”

“At any rate if it is only to direct me thus far, I hope at least you think that the more I see of Lady Gayland the better.”

And to this Lucy received no negative from Castleton.

Lady Gayland probably deceived herself in the nature of the motives and feelings which induced her to acquiesce in the desire, equally obvious on the part both of Castleton and Lucy, that their intercourse with her should ripen into intimacy. She certainly thought that the interest with which Lucy had inspired her, did not depend at all upon the person she had married, but that, on the contrary, had Castleton married any one else, past recollection would have induced her rather to avoid him. The singular nature of her first meeting with Lucy, combined with the strange coincidence of her again crossing her path in so different a rank in life, and the mystery in which that elevation was involved, would in her imaginative brain have given a romantic charm to the acquaintance, independent of the fact, that the precise fate which must have been so unexpectedly thrust on her, whom she had known so forlorn and lonely, was what, till lately, she had herself considered as one which was hers either to accept or refuse.

Lady Gayland’s proud spirit, and conscious elevation of intellect, would certainly prevent her from long pining after one who had appeared to slight her preference; and the manner of Castleton’s departure from Naples had undoubtedly exposed him to such an imputation. But during their mutual residence in Italy, Castleton had certainly made a serious impression on one whose heart was as sensitive as her fancy was volatile. Sympathy of feeling is by no means inconsistent with contrast in character. Her exuberant spirits animated his more placid sense of enjoyment; and a smile of approbation from him conferred more pleasure on her, than the noisy applause of others. Her brilliant wit excited his dormant fancy into more active exertion, which the fastidiousness of his taste might otherwise have checked; and the acknowledged correctness of that taste confined the soaring flights of her fancy within the limits of approval. Thus the very variety of their genius only elicited, in greater perfection, that cultivation of intellect which was equally remarkable in both; and whilst rivalry was thus avoided, admiration was reciprocal.

CHAPTER VI.

And looking stedfastly at her, she sighed,

As if she pitied her for being there,

A pretty stranger without friend or guide,

And all abash’d, too, at the general stare.

BYRON.

“I HAVE invited a few friends to dine with us,” said Castleton, some little time after the incidents of the last chapter. “I suppose you will wish Lady Gayland to be one.”

“O by all means,” readily answered Lucy. “I always feel so much more at my ease when she is by; not only she is always so kind to me; but wherever she is, every one must be occupied with her, so that if I am awkward or not, no one has leisure to mark it.”

Castleton, whose dinners had always been “recherché,” as a batchelor, had hitherto felt nervous as to Lucy’s being able to pass the critical examination of a long London dinner, but at last having for some time not detected any glaring impropriety in her deportment, he became again desirous to collect his friends around him at his own table.

It has been remarked before, that neither politics nor any of the graver avocations of life had ever had much charm for Castleton. Society, which to men of more active pursuits is but a relaxation, was to him an occupation. It was the field in which must be maintained his position as a critic, connoisseur, and man of unrivalled taste. And where society is a métier, the man who gives dinners differs as much from one who does not, as the ins from the outs in politics,—one may earn some empty fame, but the other has the real following.

On the evening of Castleton’s first dinner, Lucy had finished her toilet early. Anxious to gratify her husband with a change, she had for the first time adopted a novelty in her costume—abandoning her usual ringlets, she had had her fine hair simply parted across her forehead, adopting this mode, though not so much in the fashion, in imitation of Lady Gayland, on whom she had often admired its effect.

Perhaps, generally speaking, it would be as safe to ape oddity of conversation without the wit which excites it, as to imitate any peculiarity in dress, which might only be becoming to its inventor. But in this instance, Lucy’s attempt was successful, for the same chaste classical setting which added elevation to the thought-thronged brow of her gifted prototype, suited admirably the simplicity of her own pure and innocent countenance.

Lucy’s first glance at the mirror as she entered the drawing-room, convinced her that the effect was favourable, and she waited with the impatience of agreeable expectation for Castleton’s opinion, which she had no doubt he would express at once upon seeing her. It was, therefore, a matter of disappointment to her, that when he entered, it was in one of those absent and pre-occupied moods in which a man looks at all things without seeing any.

Many little harmless artifices did poor Lucy play off to endeavour to attract his attention before any of the company should arrive, and thus prevent his expressing that approbation which she hoped she had earned. She could not help thinking that the more she looked at him, the more he must look at her, and therefore with a gaze that seemed to require reciprocity, kept her eyes fixed on him, through all his fidgetty and evidently uneasy movements.

The cause of this strange deportment on his part, arose from a note he had found, upon his return home, from Sir North Saunders, containing an acceptance of a verbal invitation he had given him somewhat late to dine with him that day.

The party which he had invited was not a large one, though somewhat mixed. The only ladies were Lady Gayland and Mrs. Tudor. He had carefully avoided any practised scoffers, lest a manque des convenances, on Lucy’s part, should unhappily furnish them with a ready subject for ridicule on the morrow. But the sight of Sir North addressing Lucy, without the slightest suspicion, as a person he had never seen before, always gave him comfort, as reassuring him as to the impossibility of her ever being recognized as having been connected with the trial at ——. He had, therefore, on meeting Sir North, pressed him to dine with him, and on Sir North regretting that his having asked a friend himself, rendered it impossible, Castleton had rather imprudently extended the invitation to the said friend, to which Sir North demurred at the time, but had since wrote to say—“Proud to present to your more special notice—rising young man—particular friend,—Peter Spencer.”

Now not only did Castleton, from all he had heard, as well as the little he had seen of Peter Spencer, dislike him particularly, but he was also aware, that if ever the identity of Lady Castleton with the Lucy Darnell of the assizes was to be detected, it was most likely to be effected by the prying Peter Spencer, who was also one of the very few people who could recollect her in the former situation. He had, therefore, as much as he could, avoided that individual, which, as Spencer now affected professional practice, and therefore made but rare apparitions in general society, was not difficult. The prospect of having brought upon himself such an intrusion into his own house, was therefore not agreeable, and he was still puzzling himself whether he could with advantage caution Lucy particularly, as to her deportment towards that person, when the opportunity was lost by the first knock at the door, which sound roused him from his abstraction. He looked at Lucy for the first time attentively, and kissed her kindly, saying, “How very much that becomes you! You look so very well, and yet so unlike your usual self, that I should think some might find it difficult to know you again.”

The door opened as he said this, thoroughly expected to see shut in the pompous little person of Peter Spencer; but it was only a punctual artist, a protégé of Castleton’s, who was much struck with the appearance of his patron’s bride, and enchanted with the idea of so fine a subject as a sitter.

The long twilight of a London summer evening had almost ceased to struggle against the artificial darkness of the drawing-room; the company had collected, and the shades of night had gathered round them, before Sir North and Peter Spencer arrived, and attempted to guess their way through an obscure mass of friends and fauteuils to make their obeisance in the direction which Castleton’s voice marked as that where was seated their indistinguishable hostess.

When dinner was announced, and Castleton and Lady Gayland of course headed the downward procession, there ensued a pause in those who were to follow, either arising from the darkness or doubtful precedence, or the want of some one to marshall the order of march: a point in which, of course Lucy was profoundly ignorant.

“How absurd!” said Lady Gayland, “the minute point to which this mummery is studied in England. Men will sometimes draw back in horror from an almost offered arm, and avoid the propinquity which can alone make the party agreeable to him, for fear it should be supposed that he had forgotten that his ancestors only fought at Agincourt, whilst there was another man in the room whose name was connected with Cressy. In that land, where social liberty has survived political restraint, where we have so often met, it is the most recent preference, not the most ancient patent, which places people.”

“I, at least, have no right to complain,” said Castleton, “who have obtained by one system what I should have sought by the other.”

“Meaning me: of course you could not help saying as much, considering how easily such things are said.”

“Mr. Spencer, will you sit next to Lady Gayland?” said Castleton to him, catching him en passant, anxious to fix him at a distance from Lucy.

“O no!” said Lady Gayland, “Mr. Mastic, I won’t hear of your deserting me. Mr. Mastic here, is very anxious to study my profile, which Lord Castleton has promised to give him an opportunity of doing by being very agreeable on the other side; so Mr. Spencer, that your presence is impossible—I am in despair;”—and Peter Spencer proceeded upwards, where he found a vacant chair at the other side, within two of Lucy—the party, it was stated, not being a very large one, and the table circular.

“What had I done to deserve that?” asked Lady Gayland; “if you had provided yourself with a silent pendant, come questo,” in a lower tone, and glancing at Mr. Mastic, “I might have believed your previous pretty speech; but to fix upon me so active a bore, you must have determined to devote yourself entirely to Mrs. Tudor.”

Castleton could not give his real reason, and therefore merely said, “I always thought Spencer had been rather protected by you.”

“Protected! never; sometimes attacked, but there is no luxury one wears out so soon, as one’s butt. Like a glove, it ought never to be used twice, it becomes so easy.”

Peter Spencer, in the mean time, from his new position, had every opportunity of observing the fair hostess. The first impression was rendered more striking, from the blaze of light by which she was now surrounded, so immediately succeeding the obscurity out of which they had groped their way. He had not even seen her at a distance among the crowd at Lady Delacour’s ball; the only place to which he had been since she came to town. At first view he merely retained some indistinct recollection of its being a face he had somewhere before seen; and it was only when she spoke that a confused idea of the truth broke upon him. She was sitting next Lord Stayinmore, who, to those who did not know him, and could not venture to treat him as Lady Gayland did, was rather a formidable person. In answering his pompous questions, Lucy got rather nervous, and there was something in the tone of her reply, which recalled to Spencer’s mind the young girl at the Assize town, under the examination of his senior, old Mr. Bailey.

Turning to his next neighbour, he addressed him, with

“I can e-spy a most extra-ordinary res-em-blance in our f-acin-ating hostess to an unfortunate fe-emale implicated in a nef-arious transaction in the course of my prof-ess-ional career.”

“Hum,” said his neighbour, whom the communication did not all interest.

Finding no encouragement in this quarter, with the strange coincidence running in his head, though, as yet, without suspecting the identity, he vociferated to Sir North, who sat just opposite to him.

“Sir North, was not Lord Castleton in court at that most extra-ordinary trial of a case, whose loc-ality was in the neighbourhood of H-ornscliff A-bb-ey?”

Castleton, even in the midst of one of Lady Gayland’s most brilliant sallies, caught the drawling intonation of Spencer making this mal-apropos inquiry; and before Sir North could even finish his reply, “that he was himself not in court,” he had interposed with, “Mr. Spencer, a glass of wine—champagne?” But this only procured a respite, through the assent, the order, its execution, the bow, and the swallow, which completed the social libation. Peter Spencer then continued, and Castleton could catch just enough of what followed to make him uneasy, without enabling him to ascertain the moment when he could interpose, and yet not bring about the very discovery he wished to avoid.

Who has not sometimes suffered under that worst of conversational penances, the feeling obliged to appear to listen to your next neighbour, when you cannot help catching from a distance disjointed words of some topic your peculiar favourite, on which you are most anxious either to listen or amuse. But Castleton’s position was even worse than this; for it was Lady Gayland, in her most winning mood, who was his next neighbour, and it was her he was obliged to neglect, in attempting to catch indistinctly the most unwelcome tones of Mr. Spencer’s disagreeable voice.

“But, Sir North, though s-atisfactory proof could not be then el-icited, I o-pine we shall have the h-anging yet of that fellow. Darnell was his name; I have no doubt he made away with the u-nkn-own. A blood-thirsty cut-throat from his birth.”

“O no, that he was not!” exclaimed Lucy vehemently, “he was the kindest boy that ever breathed, and I have no doubt he will still live to do honour to those who are kind to him.”

“Your ladyship, then, was personally acquainted with him?” inquired Spencer.

“No, not I—Lord Castleton. Yes—why should I deny it? No! how should I know? I was only joking—Ha! ha! ha! O dear, I’m very ill,” cried she, again relapsing into a sort of hysterical laugh.

Her nerves being very much excited by her attempt to suppress any appearance of interest in the conversation she had overheard; and then having been incautiously betrayed into an imprudent speech, by her desire to defend George from so harsh a sentence, she at last got completely bewildered between her innate desire to speak the truth when asked, and her horror at having unintentionally committed herself, in a manner which she knew would, of all others, be most displeasing to her husband.

Castleton, to whose painfully excited attention all this last scene had been but too audible, was hardly withheld, even by the imminent danger of an esclandre, which such a proceeding might entail, from starting up, and, under the plea of illness, which Lucy’s own expression had rendered plausible, inducing her at once to retire. Yet he was afraid that sufficient clue had already been given to the pettifogging intellect of Peter Spencer to enable him to connect that sudden illness, which would of course become the subject of conversation, with his own acute suspicion. Whilst Castleton was still hesitating, Lucy not yet attempting to recover herself,—general attention concentrating upon her, and wonderment spreading, as to the cause of her strange state,—Lady Gayland stretched her beautiful arm towards one of those tall, rickety, pagoda-like bonbonnieres, which were here, as elsewhere, dotted about the circle of the table at certain intervals, and lightly touching it with her finger, the top-heavy machine tipped over with exactly the impetus she intended, and both its circular and globular contents rolled far and near, and scattered themselves all over the table, and from the direction in which they were slily propelled, they particularly abounded in the neighbourhood of Peter Spencer.

“If that had been done on purpose, the mischief could not have been more complete. Lord Castleton can you pardon my awkwardness?” said Lady Gayland, who had watched the progress of Lucy’s dilemma, knew much more of its origin than any of the principal parties believed, and had on the spur of the moment devised this expedient to divert attention, and relieve Lucy’s difficulties.

“Good comes of evil though,” said she; “I am rewarded for my clumsiness by a full view of Mr. Spencer, who was hitherto under an eclipse to me, and now does he not rise upon me in all his grandeur! Since Marius, in the ruins of Carthage, there never was anything so stern or sublime, as he looks amongst the debris of scattered sugar-plums, and broken bon-bons.”

That is a happy expression of the French saisir la ridicule. But no one knew so well as she did exactly the moment to bring into play that faculty which must be innate, for no art can teach saisir la ridicule.

She had, in this instance, both a motive for exertion and an object on which to exercise it, and she certainly did not spare Peter Spencer. The consequence of which was, that not only Lucy had time to recover herself, but that her previous confusion was forgotten by the company in the impression of the amusement furnished by Lady Gayland; and even Spencer himself departed with, to the full, as distinct an idea that he had made himself ridiculous, as that he had made Lady Castleton uncomfortable.

CHAPTER VII.

For now my love is thawed,

Which, like a waxen image ’gainst a fire,

Bears no impression of the thing it was.

SHAKSPEARE.

The English winter ending in July

To recommence in August, now was done;

’Tis the postillion’s paradise; wheels fly

On roads east, south, north, west.

BYRON.

CASTLETON was much vexed at the danger which Lucy had incurred, of discovering all that he most wished to conceal; but she seemed to have suffered so much herself, from her imprudence, that he could not find it in his heart to upbraid her on the subject. Taking courage from this forbearance on his part, she ventured the next morning to ask him, “Would it not be better, my dear lord, that it should at least be known from how low a station your kindness raised me: when, perhaps, people would be too good-natured (or well-bred, as you call the same thing) to talk to me on such subjects, since even in attempting to conceal it, such risks are run as my imprudence is always bringing about.”

“It is too late to think of that now, Lucy; if all were to do over again, I know not how much might remain undone. However, if there had not been that unlucky adventure blended with our early connexion, it might perhaps have been better to have owned more; though I then thought your manners, which still appear to me wonderful, prevented the necessity of such an avowal. But that ill-starred cousin of yours, who has given the character of a nest of smugglers to your whole set, rendered any other course than concealment of your origin impossible. Above all, now, you have no idea of the avidity with which an awkward story about any one that is known is communicated. ‘Have you heard the strange story about Lord Castleton?’ would spread like wildfire; and I should be the laughing-stock of every one who spells a Sunday paper, from the Land’s end to John o’ Groat’s House.”

Lucy, though she would not dispute what she did not understand, felt hurt at the slighting mention of the home of her youth as a “nest of smugglers.” She might indeed have replied, that she was sure no one who knew her dear father at Mayton or elsewhere, would believe that he could ever have any thing to say to such doings.

But Castleton, fearing nothing but anxiety from prolonging his stay in London, continued, “We have now been above two months in London, Lucy; would you dislike the idea of returning into the country?”

“O I should like it so much! One thing I should wish: do you think you could persuade Lady Gayland to come and see us there? I feel so fond of her, and I often think she is in many respects a more suitable companion for you than I am. You both understand the same things to talk about. And then, perhaps, if I wished just to go to Morden Bay, you could better spare me a little while.”

“No, my dear Lucy,” said Castleton smiling, “that would not render it at all less difficult to spare you. But about the rest do as you like; you shall have the pleasure of asking Lady Gayland herself: if she comes at all, it will be for you.”

It is not of course to be supposed but that a person of Lucy’s natural quickness, though unpractised in observation, should have made some progress during the time she was in town towards understanding the requisite qualifications for her new situation; but unfortunately this very quickness made her only more conscious of her manifold deficiencies. A little application, when she gave her attention to any one point, like a magnifying glass, made its particular form and bearing perfectly distinct to her comprehension; but that very circumstance only rendered her more thoroughly aware how vague and undefined were to her all other objects on that varied horizon, which she indistinctly surveyed from her isolated elevation, and the shape in which this consciousness of her situation most disagreeably occurred to her, was that whilst Castleton wandered freely through all these scenes to him so familiar, she was herself merely a sort of landmark of the affections, to which he returned at stated intervals, rather than his constant companion through all the mazes of society, or his active associate in the pursuits of literature.

This painful sensation of her own unfitness, which feeling increased with her efforts to diminish it, was expressed by her with much candour to her friend Lady Gayland, while persuading that lady to take up her abode with her as soon as possible at Somersby Park.

“There’s no study, dear Lady Gayland, which does me, I am sure, half so much good as hearing you talk. What I attempt to teach myself, seems only to show me how much more I have to learn. What you tell me, seems as if it ought to be as easy to me, as it plainly is to you. And yet I am afraid that you are just what I should find it most difficult to imitate: at least, so Castleton thinks.”

“Perhaps his wish is father to that thought; there may be nothing he would so little like you to resemble.”

“On the contrary, no one admires you more than he does—that I am sure of; and then, too, you are old friends.”

“For that very reason, perhaps, a little contrast—”

“How can you say so? You can’t think it. But you are always so kind, that I am sure you will let me speak a little seriously to you.”

“What about, my dear?” asked Lady Gayland, with apparently little surprise, and perhaps some uneasiness.

“About myself. I want to consult you on a point on which your advice would be of the greatest service to me. I need not say that it is my only desire, as well as my first duty, to please Castleton. Nobody so well as you could tell me how I ought to try for that,” she added, with perfect simplicity.

“Go on—that’s somewhat difficult,” answered Lady Gayland abstractedly.

“Now, when I hear any subject talked of in conversation about which I know nothing, I never show my ignorance, because that Castleton told me to avoid; but I treasure up the recollection of it, and endeavour to work out the knowledge of it for myself against another time. But there are some things I cannot learn from books. Now if you would let me come to you about them——”

“But why not ask your husband, my dear?”

“So I do sometimes, but I don’t think he much likes it. Only the other day I heard people say that one of their friends was very lucky, for that he got ten thousand pounds for his wife. I could not conceive how a man could do that. I never heard of such a thing. And I asked Castleton to explain, and he said that as I knew nothing at all about it, he should be obliged to make a very long story—that he was in a hurry, hadn’t time, and it didn’t signify. And yet, though he had not time for that, when I said just afterwards that I should like to have a little black parrot, such as I had seen, he rode a long way on purpose to try to get one, at the gardens with a long name.”

“Zoological?”

“Yes; for he is very kind to me, and I hardly can form a wish that he does not try to gratify, and yet——”

“Yet what!”

“Why, when I have taken pains to inform myself on any subject, if he is not there, I quite long for an opportunity to bring it out, and watch the conversation for that purpose only, and then every one else seems to take it quite natural from me. But if I attempt this to Castleton I feel quite awkward; and then he says, ‘Where did you pick that up, my dear Lucy?’ and that makes me worse. And though at first he used to seem surprised if I did not know what others did, now it is quite the contrary: he is just as much surprised if I do. That change is not a good sign, I am afraid. Is it?”

“It is impossible to answer these questions directly,” said Lady Gayland; “difficult to answer them any how satisfactorily—delicate for any one to attempt it—perhaps most delicate for me. But yours is a singular—a lonely situation. You ask for advice and assistance from the only person who you think can be of service to you, and with the interest I feel in you, I am unwilling to refuse. I have known Lord Castleton long and well—how long and how well it is unnecessary for the present purpose to recollect. But circumstances made an observer like myself thoroughly acquainted with his character. His misfortune is not a common one. His means have always been in exaggerated proportion to his ends. Faculties, which ought to have extended their influence over society in its more extended sense of the community, he has confined to its more limited definition—company; and he would have been more perfect in all relations as a companion, had he also been a statesman, a soldier, a philosopher, or even a poet. The human mind does not, like the baser metal, accumulate in store; but like the physical organs of our frame, from empty craving it takes to feed upon itself. In the limited sphere he had chosen, as Lord Castleton could not dread defeat, he learnt to despise success, and thence to cavil at its causes. Let me see—what is there I can compare him to, that has come within your observation: we went together the other night to the pantomime.”

“Yes, thank you,” said Lucy, smiling even through the interest of this discussion, at the amusement she had then experienced.

“Well, then, his mind is something like the magic of harlequin’s wand amongst the chairs and tables, a superior power misapplied to petty purposes, and therefore as often perverting and confounding, as improving. This, however, could not apply to the exercise of the affections, except so far as his experience of women as members of the social system has filled his head with general, and in some particular instances most unwarrantable, suspicions. O if a woman could with honest pride feel herself the only object of devotion to such——But what of this? it is not to the present purpose. Disgusted with every thing he had seen and imagined of us poor women of the world, he naturally sought the reverse of that which the past had taught him. And in seeking an extreme, of the extent of which he was by no means aware, I have no doubt that the entire novelty of the attempt was originally its chief recommendation. How singularly fortunate I think he was, when, in embarking in such an undertaking, he met with you, I will not now say. I am not satisfied that you should so far exceed all that he had a right to anticipate, but wish that you should, if possible, realize his most unreasonable expectations. Purity and perfect devotion, those sterling merits whose spontaneous growth he sought in the wilderness, he has found in you in the highest perfection. Those other qualities, of which he had not previously supposed the want, because all he had hitherto seen had uniformly possessed them, are produced by cultivation, and may be engrafted. London is the place where their absence is most felt, their acquirement is most difficult. In the country, where you will have him entirely to yourself, you will soon find him again what you wish; for Castleton, though clear-sighted, is also considerate to the faults of those who interest him.”

“But, my dear Lady Gayland, I shall never be able to do any thing without your assistance. When you are by, I always feel so much bolder. I own I am at all times rather afraid of Castleton—that is, afraid more of my own feeling than of his showing that I have not pleased him. You say that I should have Castleton all to myself; and certainly I should be glad to have him without the perpetual interruptions of our present mode of life, but not without you. No; your presence gives me comfort and courage, as well as pleasure.”

There was a pause of lengthened hesitation on Lady Gayland’s part, before she replied to this appeal; but at last, to Lady Castleton’s reiterated and anxious entreaty of “Now, pray don’t refuse me—do come,” she answered,

“Well, my dear, then come I will. That is, I will stop and see you when I leave town, on my way to the watering place, where I mean to spend the autumn.”

CHAPTER VIII.

Downward flies my lord,

Nodding beside my lady in his carriage;

Away! away! fresh horses are the word,

And changed as quickly as hearts after marriage.

BYRON.

IT was with feelings of satisfaction, utterly unmixed with regret, that Lucy found herself once more cutting her way through that dense mass, which is made up of strings of carriages, and clouds of smoke, towards those suburbs which upon her entrance had struck her as interminable. She only felt that she had Castleton once more by her side—a pleasure which had daily become more rare, as their stay in London had been protracted. The impression uppermost in his mind, if not so pure and unmixed, was upon the whole of a pleasurable nature.

The same train of thought recurred to him as had produced so much effect upon his then unsettled opinions some years back, when upon leaving town at that season he had first sought Morden Bay, and had for the first time beheld the present partner of his fate; and as these feelings returned in almost their original freshness, they chased away all the more unworthy causes of repining, which the frivolous habits of the world had fostered; and for the time all anxieties dependent upon a false sense of shame at her former position no longer interfered with well-merited admiration of her excellent virtues, and transcendent beauty, and grateful confidence in her unbounded devotion to himself. He even looked back with something like contempt at the perpetual uneasiness under which he had laboured, lest the extreme lowness of her origin should be discovered, and was now ashamed of having been so much ashamed of some of her unpractised mistakes.

One littleness, though, he could not help clinging to. It was still a great satisfaction to him, that the dreaded discovery had not been gossipped amongst his servants. He would of all things have disliked that the daily talk of those from whom he looked for habitual respect, should turn upon the fact of their mistress having been, what they would call, “no better than themselves.” As for the world, he knew enough of it to be aware that there his principal difficulties and dangers were past. The world had been peculiarly disposed to criticise the first debût of a new denizen nearly connected with one to whose taste that world had long yielded a forced allegiance. Another season, and detraction would find some more stirring game than one so inoffensive as Lucy.

Amidst these topics for satisfaction, almost for self-gratulation, one unpleasant doubt did obtrude itself. Though the care of the world would no longer molest his enjoyment, was he quite certain that he should himself continue perfectly contented with the success of his experiment? Was she the companion he required? He started in anger at himself as this hitherto fleeting and shapeless suspicion assumed the form of a substantial doubt, and, as chasing it impatiently away, he cast upon her a look of affection and encouragement, she best answered the appeal, and removed for the time all traces of painful impression, by discussing with ease and spirit the pleasure she should derive from again beholding Somersby, and recalling with accuracy the favourite spots within his domain which they had together frequented, during their last residence there. As these were the outward images then uppermost in his mind, he gladly obliterated, in this fortunate reciprocity, those ideas which had before intruded themselves.

The circumstances of the first few days at Somersby, seemed to continue the illusion, (if illusion it was,) that the qualifications of his partner for life left him nothing to desire. The weather was beautiful, and with elastic step and cheerful countenance she accompanied him every where, participating in all his plans and entering into all his improvements. But persons, however strong, cannot stroll through the whole day; and Lucy before she left London had, with good reason, been recommended not to over fatigue herself; so a pony-phaeton was put in requisition, and this enabled them to extend their excursions, and protract their enjoyment; but our fickle climate will sometimes frown on pony-phaetons even in August. There came a wet week, and they were confined to the house, and immured in the library. This was an unlucky locale for Lucy; but it had always been used as the common morning-room, and she felt lonely if she did not see Castleton, even though his eyes were fixed on his book.

Had Castleton been alone, his study would have been all-sufficient to him; but being, as it were, thus continually in company, there was hardly any thing he read, by which some train of thought was not awakened in his ever active imagination, which he longed at once to communicate. It was not that he was anxious captiously to criticise, or to find fault, but he was often eager to illustrate and to impart the beauties that struck him; and as, with this desire, he looked upon his uninformed companion, he felt the hopelessness of such an attempt. If it was a book of science, in vain would he comment upon the extension of that, of which she neither knew the rudiments nor the terms—if of fiction, equally beyond her reach were the least soaring flights of fancy—if of satire, she was equally little cognizant of the persons portrayed, or aware of the foibles for which they were ridiculed. He had once before indulged in the social custom of blending conversation with his reading; the precedent was an ominous one. It had been at Rome. When persons familiarly known to each other live under the same roof in a foreign hotel, their intercourse is naturally on an easy footing, and much time will sometimes be spent together by that facility of gliding, unasked, in and out of apartments, which never could have been demanded under the well-drilled form of “a knock-and-ring” London visit. When the intimacy of friendship thus confirms the interest of a warmer feeling, it is a delightful, but a dangerous habit.

Castleton had in this manner spent the most of many mornings in Lady Gayland’s. They did not then think it necessary, under these circumstances, always to talk, to the exclusion of books; but they often found it agreeable to mix up reciprocal remarks on their reading. And some of these most animated and interesting discussions had arisen out of casual observations excited by some passage which had forcibly struck them in the perusal; and whether these conversations took the turn of excited enthusiasm, or refined criticism, their uniform effect was, that the parties engaged in them separated mutually better pleased with each other. In the course of the last week, Castleton had frequently ventured, in some of the lighter works with which he had been engaged, to read short extracts to Lucy, explaining and recommending the whole book to her perusal. This desire she always immediately complied with; but her attention was ever fixed, and her memory exerted in the discovery of these particular passages, which he happened accidentally to have cited; and, in this pursuit, her eye would wander over whole lines of print, as a traveller would over lines of hedge and ditch by the road side, noting nothing by the way, in search of one only object.

The fact was, as has been stated before, that her mother had always, at that age when the taste is acquired, discouraged reading as unprofitable. And her aunt, not feeling herself at liberty to interfere directly with the system of her mother, had rather selected passages adapted to her capacity, and facilitated even these by her explanations, than encouraged her in any independent course of reading. Alice Darnell’s plan had had the effect upon her niece’s mind, of a sort of intellectual “swimming in corks.” Now deprived of this artificial aid, she felt more than ever, the utter helplessness of her ignorance. She had been enabled by these means to dabble gracefully in shallows; but was utterly incapable of venturing unassisted on the wide ocean of knowledge.

A week had passed in this way; the mornings and most of the evenings devoted to study on the part of Castleton, and the same time consumed by Lucy, in vain attempts to toil after him in the few books, which, on reading himself, he thought it possible to recommend to her. She had, in making the effort, no other object in view, but endeavouring to please him, by appearing to understand his remarks; and in this she had too often failed; for, though gratified, at first, by thinking that she had remarked the same points which had struck him, he was again disappointed, when he went on to ask her opinion upon other parts, which perhaps had made as strong an impression upon himself, though, from the consciousness that she was unacquainted with the book, he had not communicated that impression. He sometimes found, that except those passages to which he had directed her attention, all the rest of the work, connected with which these isolated passages acquired a redoubled value, had produced no more effect upon her, than if her eyes had never glanced over its pages.

One afternoon, he had accidentally taken up the “Promessi Sposi” of Manzoni, (that only child of the old age of Italian literature.) The copy in his hand was the original one, which he had not seen since he had first read it with delight in Italy. The marks that had either been made by himself, or another, of admiration of the most sterling, though, perhaps, not the most palpable beauties of this work of true genius, were still visible upon the pages before him, and recalled the scene, and the occasions on which they were made; and when the thought recurred, but for his own over-fastidious feeling, and perverted imagination, what might now have been his lot, he turned on Lucy a look, in which disappointment was perhaps too legibly written; for she interpreted it at once into a desire for some change; and imagining such to be his wish, she asked him if he did not think “it was now fine enough to take a stroll out of doors?”

The weather had certainly shown symptoms of settling; the clouds had first lightened, then dispersed; and now the sun, successfully struggling through the dappled sky, already played on the sparkling drops, which the gentle breeze began to shake from the dripping leaves.

Castleton rose from his chair, glad to snap the chain of thought which bound his spirit to no good purpose; and throwing up the window, the enjoyment of all external sources of pleasure seemed suddenly restored.

Every inducement combined to tempt them forth. The mingled odour of the freshened herbage, and of the grateful flower-garden beneath, breathed through the atmosphere one varied fragrance. The cheerful song of the feathered tribe sounded as an irresistible invitation to all living things, to share with them in rejoicing at the restored reign of nature.

“Yes, dear Lucy,” said Castleton, encircling her waist, “get on your bonnet, and we shall have a delightful walk.”

As he said this, the grinding of carriage-wheels through the rain-soaked gravel was heard, and a well-packed travelling equipage appeared in sight.

“O, I do believe that is Lady Gayland,” said Lucy, clapping her hands with delight, “and now you won’t want for amusement.”

And Lady Gayland it certainly was. She had been expected shortly, but the precise day was not known; and as she had paid another visit since she left town—and no lady was ever expected to comprehend the irregularities of a cross-country post—her arrival before her own announcement of herself was very pardonable.

CHAPTER IX.

The mellow Autumn came,

And with it came the promised guest.

There’s not an hour

Of day or dreaming night, but I am with thee;

There’s not a wind but whispers of thy name;

And not a flower that sleeps beneath the moon,

But in its hues or fragrance tells a tale

Of thee.

Thou canst not teach me to forget.

HOW slight and almost imperceptible a change of position, how small and almost unintentional a step in advance, will sometimes suddenly open our eyes to the inevitable tendency of a course of conduct which we have been, up to that point, pursuing in blind security! Lady Gayland, acute and clear-sighted as she was for others, was in her own case often the creature of impulse, acting without consideration, upon the first generous feeling, and reasoning upon its collateral bearings when too late to retract.

The carriage had been checked a moment for admission, at the spot where the lodge leading to Somersby-park was situated, on the great road. “Ah! nous voila donc, Miladi,” exclaimed Angelique to her mistress, thus breaking the confused reverie in which that lady had long been indulging.

“Nous voila donc, indeed,” thought Lady Gayland, as the iron gates opened to receive them; “and strange indeed that it should be so:” and for the first time all those reasons which rendered it so peculiarly strange, that she should, under such circumstances, be Castleton’s guest, forced themselves upon her attention the more irresistibly, that they had been so long suppressed or avoided. True, the ostensible motives of her visit were plausible enough. Her early acquaintance with Lucy, and subsequent renewal of it, under circumstances which had entailed a continuance of that protection of her, which, in the first instant, she had beneficially extended, the exclusive confidence which Lucy had reposed in her, the helpless dependence which she had expressed upon her advice and assistance; the anxiety with which she clung to her companionship as her best hope of happiness,—all these would have rendered her presence of the utmost service to any but the wife of Castleton.

Castleton’s manner to her in London had never been such as necessarily to excite suspicion that his feelings were not subdued. The two strongest exceptions to the general discipline of his deportment have been given—the one, their first meeting at Lady Delacour’s ball—the other, his anxious inquiry at the opera after a certain gentleman whom he had left at Naples. But his usual manner towards her was calm, apparently unconstrained, and even common-place.

Lady Gayland, as she never occupied herself much with the concerns of others, was not perfectly aware of the rapidity with which the heartless and the fickle can sometimes, in the sunshine of society, force the artificial growth of indifference; yet she had heard instances, when, without explanation, hands that had last been pressed to throbbing hearts, had next met in the lifeless contact of common courtesy, and lips which had last tremblingly faltered forth a passionate farewell, when next seen had without emotion been compressed into a cold and simpering greeting.

But though Lady Gayland knew that such things had been—though there was nothing obtrusively obvious in Castleton’s manner to herself, to contradict, and every thing in the mere act of his subsequent marriage to confirm, the idea that he furnished another instance of the easy forgetfulness of man, yet had she no internal conviction of that kind by which to regulate her conduct.

To those gifted individuals who unite acute sensibility with keen observation, and have ever brought those rarely united powers of the mind and heart to bear upon the conduct and character of a beloved object, there are open many hidden sources utterly unmarked by the million, from which the most infallible impressions are derived. It may be the accent of a casual word, dropped in common conversation, or the character of a stolen glance, darted through mingling crowds; which in spite of intervening years, and altered circumstances—opportunities apparently neglected, and other engagements since contracted, in defiance of all probability, and in opposition to almost undeniable evidence,—will vibrate to the inmost recesses of the heart, the certain consciousness that all is not forgotten. And such a consciousness had Lady Gayland sometimes, in spite of herself, felt that Castleton had not even yet become indifferent to her. All the scattered indications from which she collected this conviction, and which she had hitherto as much as possible driven from her mind, now presented themselves one after another to her recollection, as her carriage whirled rapidly towards the front of the house.

“And why, then, am I here?” she asked herself, now the question came too late. Half the debates in the secret conclave of the human mind are conducted after the question has been put and carried; and reason often returns after the event, in company with repentance, instead of sticking (to speak parliamentarily) to his, proper pair, decision.

In this instance, Lady Gayland’s somewhat tardy self-inquiry, “Why am I here,” was answered by Lucy, who, as the door of the carriage opened, rushed down the steps to greet her with—

“O how delighted I am to see you! how good it is of you to come, and even sooner than we expected you!”

Castleton’s reception of Lady Gayland was exactly what might be expected from a practised man of the world, who had had time, since seeing her carriage from the window, to prepare for appearing as glad to see her as became him, without betraying how much more than that quantum of satisfaction he might feel.

As Lucy, at his desire, conducted Lady Gayland to her own apartment, she repeated, as she clung fondly to her arm,—

“I’m so very glad you are come; and so, I can assure you, is Castleton also, though, perhaps, you don’t think he shows it enough; but he has been rather dull, poring over books morning and evening, for we have had sad wet weather: but now you are come, you can talk to him as he likes, and he will soon be gay again.”

When Lucy was returning, having left Lady Gayland in her own room, an accident occurred which led to much conversation in one part of the house, though its effect was not immediately known in the drawing-room. In passing through the gallery she met Lady Gayland’s maid, Ma’amselle Angelique, whom she had not seen since their drive from Hornscliff to Mayton. In the good-natured impulse of the moment, Lucy, only recollecting that the person before her had once been kind to her, when she needed kindness, seized her hand with warmth, saying,

“How do you do; I am very glad to see you again.”

At first Angelique drew back confused, thinking there must be some mistake.

“Pardon, Miladi, ce n’est que moi.—Mon Dieu! mais est il possible! la petite de poni chaise. Ah! milles pardons, miladi, si j’ose un instant me rappeller de vous.” And with her best curtsey she passed on, leaving Lucy, with the returning consciousness that she had betrayed herself in a manner that would not be pleasing to Castleton.

Angelique began at once to touch upon her discovery to her mistress, but there she found her garrulity more suddenly checked than it usually was on indifferent subjects. At the same time, as Lady Gayland knew that, by making a mystery, she would only increase the desire to communicate, she laid no injunctions of silence upon her attendant, who, accordingly, as soon as dismissed, went down into the housekeeper’s room, with—

“De ting if the world the most astonish! Je suis petrifie. I was made a stone. Je n’en reviens plus—and I never come back from it more.”

This of course led to much further cross-questioning and gossipping, and Castleton had first the happiness of finding how generally the story was known, when, some little time afterward, he found fault with his housekeeper for some deficiency in her duty, she excused herself under the pretence of having meant to please “my lady.” And when Castleton rather pettishly replied, that he desired she would not think of consulting my lady on that sort of subject, he was punished by her impudently adding,

“To be sure, my Lord, I don’t suppose my Lady is like to know what’s what.”

When, upon this, he indignantly asked what she meant by such impertinence, to get herself out of the scrape, the blame was, naturally enough, laid on Mamselle Angelique, both as a strange servant and a foreigner, and the whole story thus came out.

During the social intercourse of the succeeding days, the effort was equally made by Castleton and Lady Gayland, so to conduct the course of their conversation, that Lucy might be enabled to bear them company. But it evidently, to all parties, was an effort; and not always a successful one. Sometimes irresistibly borne along by the current of old recollections, Castleton and his guest were launched into the wide sea of imagination—an element into which Lucy was not fitted to follow them; she, therefore, was soon stranded by the way, and sat watching them in silent security.

But there was one casual circumstance that contributed to throw Lady Gayland more exclusively into the society of her former friend. Whilst they were in the house, of course wherever she was, there Lucy was likewise. But, as has been before observed, Lady Gayland was passionately fond of riding: Lucy, on the contrary, never much used to it, and always timid on horseback, was at present prevented from attempting to mount, by reasons which are understood in all families. But Castleton had upon their marriage provided her with a delightful horse, and this she now pressed Lady Gayland to use. This, to one who had all her life been an inveterate horse-woman, was too tempting an offer to be refused, and accompanied by Castleton, she made the trial of the new horse, which seemed to have been attended with great success, for from that time their promenades were repeated daily,—the weather continuing as propitious, as it had been unfavourable before the arrival of the visitor.

What shall we call that state of sympathy, which, while it seems too serious to settle into a mere flirtation, is as yet by no means systematized into a liaison? But call it what we may, that is the peculiar stage, when there is nothing so dangerous as a tête-a-tête on horseback. Whilst every advance is still attended with doubt and incertitude, the attempt is encouraged by apparent facilities of retreat; in a room, the moment, which must come sooner or later, when the door will have to be opened and closed behind one of the parties, is always a matter of dread, and in anticipation, checks many a hasty move; but here there is no such awkward epoch to come. All is every instant changing around. An affected stumble on the part of the horse, may conceal a real false step of his rider; and an ill received hint, may be obliterated in a canter.

But to speak seriously, there is something in a tête-a-tête ride through a fine country, which, when a predisposition to confidence between man and woman has existed, considerably tends to ripen it. As to Castleton and his guest, their relative situation was such, as to leave them nothing to confide. They had neither of them any designs to advance, but if they could not thus avail themselves of the advantages of the present, it was unfortunate that they should have so apt an occasion to regret the past, for it was thus they had wandered in other days, beneath southern skies, with brighter prospects, and with better hopes.

CHAPTER X.

For it so falls out

That what we have we prize not to the worth,

Whiles we enjoy it; but, being lacked and lost,

Why then we rack the value.

SHAKSPEARE.

Whilst I remember

Her and her virtues, I cannot forget

My blemishes in them, and so still think of

The wrong I did myself.

THIS mode of life had continued for many more days than either of them would retrospectively have imagined to have elapsed since its commencement. And in the course of it many topics which should have been altogether avoided, had every day imperceptibly been approached more nearly, and with greater effort evaded.

One day Lady Gayland, principally from a desire to fix her attention upon some extraneous and indifferent subject, had requested to be allowed in their next ride to mount Castleton’s own horse, instead of the more docile creature procured for Lucy, which she pronounced too sluggish. Castleton was at first rather afraid to assent, as his beautiful animal, though perfectly tractable under his skilful management, had only lately exchanged the turf for the road. But as the groom reported that the essay of the petticoat had been perfectly satisfactory, and as Lady Gayland was a most fearless horse-woman, the exchange, at her repeated request, was made on their next excursion.

They had, in consequence of the novelty of the experiment, started with the intention, at Castleton’s desire, of riding more quietly and carefully; and as they strolled slowly onwards, insensibly their attention had been transferred from the horse to their discourse, which was much the more animated of the two, as no animal is more sleepy than a spirited horse will sometimes be, when left to himself, with the reins upon his neck.

The origin of this, as of many other interesting conversations, was common place. We need not, perhaps, travel even so far back as when, in reply to some disclaimer on Lady Gayland’s part, Castleton said, “You know what Byron sings—

‘No friend like to a woman earth discovers.’”

“Ay, but remember,” interrupted Lady Gayland, “the proviso he adds:

‘So that they have not been, nor will be——’

what?—what is the word whose indispensable presence at the point of the stanza alone, excuses such a botching rhyme as discovers?”

“Lovers,” answered Castleton. “To be sure he says they should never have been, but then I think it was his own negative experience, limiting his opinion of the social qualities of poor human nature which warped his judgment. In introducing my quotation I should have said even Byron sings—for I think he never had, nor I think was it in his nature to have, a female friend.”

“His sister—”

“He was a kind and a grateful brother to a fond and an indulgent sister, that was all.”

“Poor Byron! who so philosophic a guide for others? who so practical a blunderer for himself in search of the sources of happiness?”

“Others without his talent to commemorate their wayward inconsistencies, may have thought as deeply and mistaken as thoroughly,” answered Castleton, in a tone of bitterness.

“A female friend! ’tis almost an impossibility,” continued Lady Gayland, still generalizing the conversation; “at what stage of our existence could such a feeling take its date? As a girl? No! You men generally treat girls either as flirts or fools, and wilfully shut your eyes to the study of that character of which a special licence is to be the diploma. So mankind to girls are divided into the marrying and non-marrying classes. With the first, friendship would appear forward; with the latter, lost time. As a wife?—Possibly some men might. But I think you, for instance, would not like your wife to maintain a perfect and unreserved friendship with another man? No; in neither case would it do.”

“But yourself,” interrupted Castleton, “you need not be restrained by any of the embarrassments of either of the stations you mention?”

“No; and at fifty perhaps I may think about it; but let us if possible avoid to speak individually. There is only one relation in life in which a woman may be peerless and perfect, and luckily that is as a wife. A mistress’s present career is made up of regret for the past and fear for the future; a female friend content to be no more, is an anomaly rarely found. A wife may unite all that is most estimable in friendship, with so much more than that cold feeling can ever know, that it would be the veriest bathos to degrade a wife to the title of friend.”

“Yet some wives can never be friends, and now, alas! some friends can never become wives.”

“A woman’s part in courtship is, you must recollect, a passive one; we must ever wait till we are asked.”

“Yet who but a fool or a coxcomb would ever venture a proposal unless pretty certain that his suit would not be displeasing; and does not that render it equivalent to a refusal, when a woman tortures by indications of indifference? What would I now give that you had never misled me!”

“Lord Castleton, I will not say how much I regret that you should have introduced a subject which may interrupt our intercourse. For that your society is agreeable to me, I wonder you should ever have doubted; but it does not now become me to make either professions or disclaimers on that subject. It is only to excuse, not to revive, the past, that I now speak. This is the last time that former days must ever be mentioned between us. How did I then mislead you?”

“I know that I ought not to have recurred to this topic, nor, believe me, had I any previous intention of doing so; but now it is as well that I should explain, in doing which I own there may be more to excuse in myself than to blame in you. But you knew me thoroughly—my over sensitive fastidious nature; why then did you torture me with an apparent preference of Frank Melmoth? I knew that he was every way unworthy of you, but I construed your whole conduct into an internal struggle between your judgment, which still held out on my side, and your heart, which had already yielded to him.”

“Would any man but yourself have so interpreted it? Do you believe even Frank Melmoth, with all his coxcombry, so read it?”

“Perhaps not; but still he was indefatigable in persuading me that such was the construction all parties must put upon your conduct. Trifles light as air are, you know, sometimes—I need not particularize—the earliest violets which I had promised, and procured for you, were boastfully displayed in his button-hole at the ball, the same evening. Eager for an explanation, you refused the request I therefore made to be set down at home by you, yet afterwards you consented to convey him. The next night at the opera was my last, and served to convince me, that your preference upon all indifferent points was decidedly his, and that if there was still a doubt upon your mind, it was my position, not my personal merits, which maintained it.”

“And if the first part of your supposition had been well founded, think not your position would have maintained that doubt a moment. But, first, to answer your last instance; had I conveyed you home, who had a carriage of your own in attendance, it would have been a measure—and how much I might be aware that you were anxious for an explanation—it was not my business so pointedly to facilitate it. When afterwards the poor, needy, half-drowned creature begged for a lift, it would have been positive cruelty to have sent him under the spouts in such a deluge as was then pouring down. Besides, do you not know, with us women there is no such universal patentee of exclusive privileges as indifference. As to your other accusation, the transfer of your flowers, in that, too, I was perfectly innocent. They were left by you upon my table. You know how easy the entrance into apartments at an hotel abroad always is. Frank Melmoth volunteered a visit—I was in my own room. My spirits, so far as society is concerned, seldom fail me; but I own I did then feel quite unequal to receive him. A long time has elapsed, and too many changes occurred since then, for it to be expected that I should recollect exactly what the reflections were which then overpowered me; but as if it were but yesterday, the feelings which then so unnerved me, are even now as then fresh before me—but I have strength to drive them hence. One word in concluding my explanation: I sent an excuse to Melmoth, declining to see him: in revenge, he carried off my violets, leaving me instead a few doggrel couplets, which I own I do not recollect so well as the other parts of the transaction; but,” added she, forcing a smile, “I know there was a string of rhymes, something about flowers—hours—powers.—I have done——

‘The very head and front of my offending

Hath this extent. No more.’”—

“Fool! dolt! idiot that I am!” exclaimed Castleton. “For this, then, and no more, have I, with all my boasted superior discrimination, cast aside my happiness for ever.”

“Nay,” said Lady Gayland, “I must not even now permit you to speak thus: nor ever allow myself to touch on these topics again. And now let us turn our own and our horses’ heads homewards. You have a home, and to that ’tis time we bend both our thoughts and our course.”

So saying, and anxious at once to close the conversation, her impatience as a woman got the better of her usual discretion as an equestrian. Turning her horse round, she at the same time struck him smartly with her whip. Thus unexpectedly roused from that torpor, in which perhaps he had been indulging visions of former triumphs on the turf, and fancying that the same exertions were required of him, the fiery animal started eagerly forward. She checked him firmly with the curb; but, unused to the severity of that bit, this only made him plunge so violently, as to require all her presence of mind and skill in riding to maintain her seat.

“For heaven’s sake let me take hold of his head, and change with me again!” anxiously exclaimed Castleton, jumping off for that purpose. But in violently shaking his head, in impatience at the sharpness of the bit, Lady Gayland’s horse had detached the curb-chain from the hook: this dangling loose, only maddened him the more; he became perfectly unmanageable, and after plunging three or four times, more furiously than ever, though without unseating, or even agitating her, whose courage rose with the emergency, he at length brought down his head, and bearing upon the now powerless bit with a dead, determined pull, he bounded irresistibly onwards at full speed over the echoing turf.

What state of mental suspense could equal, in agony, that of Castleton during these dreadful moments? What, compared to his feelings, are those of the patient whilst the surgeon is sharpening his knife? or of the self-conscious criminal, when the death-bearing verdict is about to be pronounced? For let us do poor human nature the justice to own, that the fear-fraught sensations of such a moment far surpass in intensity those which any merely selfish sufferings could produce. This might still have been the case had he been only the friend he professed himself: but he was never so well aware how much dearer she was to him than he would have owned to himself, as when even the recently-acquired conviction, that by his folly he had lost her heart, was superseded by the all-engrossing fear, that by his indiscretion he had endangered her life. And in his anguish he felt that there was no earthly sacrifice at which he would not purchase her precious safety.

At the time Lady Gayland’s horse broke away, he had already dismounted, which caused a moment’s delay in following her. His first impulse was digging his spurs into his own more sluggish beast to attempt to come up with her. But he was too well aware of the comparative speed of the two animals, which had before been tried on other fields, not to know that this was impracticable, as long as the fleetest and the foremost spurned from beneath him the ground he hardly seemed to touch. Therefore, with eyes constantly fixed on the object of all his anxieties, and a countenance as haggard as if the dreaded calamity had already happened, he had only to follow as best he might, pressing to the utmost his own panting steed.

There were various extensive grass-rides between avenues in the wide-spreading domains of Somersby Park; but as these intersected the open space of turf, and as Lady Gayland’s horse, in its self-directed course, had either to cross or break into these between the trees, each was a fresh source of alarm to Castleton. But as yet, his undaunted rider still maintaining her self-possession, had succeeded so far in guiding him as to steer him clear of any of these dangers. At last he rushed into the long avenue which conducted straight to the front of the house. Thus, therefore, many perils were now past, but the worst Castleton anticipated was still to be feared, from the concussion with which, sooner or later, his speed must meet a sudden check; and this dread increased as he marked how, without the slightest symptom of tiring, he still pursued his passionate career. What would not Castleton have given at that moment for wings, to dart over the short but still increasing space between them? so disgusted was he with the inadequate efforts of his own flagging and jaded animal, that he even madly meditated throwing himself off, and endeavouring by his own exertions to reach her.

Within a hundred yards of the front of the house, the flying steed had now arrived in safety, and Lady Gayland was already collecting all her remaining strength to pull him up with one last attempt, without recollecting that at that point a by-path conducted through a shrubbery, at right-angles to the stables. For this the horse made, with a sudden spring sideways. Lady Gayland, little prepared for so unexpected a turn, lost her balance, and as the jerk she had at the same time given caused him to flounder in the same direction, she had not opportunity to recover herself, and was thrown with violence against the shrubs on one side of the road.

Castleton, from the angle that the road had taken, and the thickness of the shrubbery, had not actually seen the accident, but arriving a few seconds afterwards, with horror he beheld her lying apparently lifeless on the spot where she had fallen.

Throwing himself from his own horse, and rushing to her, he raised her gently in his arms, and laying her head on his shoulder whilst he supported her waist with his trembling hand, he gazed anxiously in her face, to mark the least symptom of returning animation, but as yet she lay there with the stiffness of a corpse; her eyes were completely closed, and their long dark lashes seemed to press upon her cheek. “She’s dead,—she’s dead, and I have killed her!” he wildly cried. As he said this, her eyes for an instant opened, though only with a dull unconscious stare; and the hand he held, grasped his convulsively. “Look up once again!—For my sake live, my best beloved, my own adored Geraldine!” He paused in vain, hoping that these passionate exclamations might again wake her into life. A deep drawn breath from behind was the only sound which in reply struck upon his ear. He turned round in the direction from whence that sound proceeded, and within two paces of him—colourless and motionless as a statue—beheld the figure of his wife!

CHAPTER XI.

This may be Nature: when our friends we lose,

Our altered feelings alter to our views;

What in their tempers teazed us, or distressed,

Is with our anger, and the dead, at rest.

And much we grieve, no longer trial made,

For that impatience which we then displayed.

Now to their love, and worth of every kind,

A soft compunction turns the afflicted mind;

Virtues neglected then, adored become,

And graces slighted, blossom on the tomb.

CRABBE.

LUCY had been standing at the window of her own apartment, watching for the return of the equestrians, and from hence she had first seen with amazement the pace at which Lady Gayland was returning; Castleton not, as usual, attending closely on her, but lingering some distance in the rear. It was not till she had seen the violent manner in which the horse had bolted for the stables, that the truth broke upon her. She then became dreadfully alarmed, and would have been at once upon the spot, but that her agitation impeded her tottering steps.

Castleton was, as may be supposed, painfully anxious to ascertain whether Lucy had heard the unguarded expressions which he had incautiously dropped, but there was nothing in her immediately subsequent conduct, from which he could form a guess whether this had been so or not. She assisted with zeal and alacrity in every thing that was necessary to be attempted to bring Lady Gayland to her senses, and arranged, in concurrence with Castleton, the manner in which she had best be conveyed to the house.

The servants had by this time collected, upon the alarm of seeing the two horses return without riders to the stables. The removal to the house was effected without difficulty, which seemed to confirm the hope that no limb was fractured; and in the shortest possible space of time, the best medical advice was procured. The surgeon expressed a fear, from the state of torpor in which she remained, that there might be a concussion of the brain, and, above all things, enjoined the strictest quiet, and that she should be left to the care of her own maid.

It was not till Lucy was thus dismissed from any further attendance, that she owned that she herself was far from well; though, indeed, her countenance (now first observed) showed that she was suffering acute pain; all that night she was in considerable danger, and the next morning produced the premature birth of a dead child.

Castleton, kind and affectionate in his nature, was, as may well be supposed, driven almost distracted by her fearful state; aggravated as his anxieties were, by the idea that he had himself been the cause of the calamity. During some of the moments in which it was thought most doubtful how it might end, Lucy kept constantly repeating to her husband, “It was only the fright—it was the fright. I thought she was killed, and that frightened me so—but that was all:” and this anxious disavowal of any other cause of agitation, made Castleton only the more fear that it was too probable she had heard the expressions into which his alarm had betrayed him.

Perhaps the perfect quiet in which Lady Gayland was necessarily left, contributed as much as any thing to her progressive recovery. Lucy was, of course, unable for some time to go near her, and she availed herself of the strict rules of English decorum, to exclude Castleton also, as long as she was confined to her own room.

As soon as she was sufficiently re-established to be able to move, Lady Gayland announced that circumstances prevented her from any longer delaying her departure. She took an affectionate leave of Lucy, and an unmarked farewell of Castleton. In answer to Lucy’s inquiries, whether she still felt any ill effects from her fall, she replied in the negative; professing, at the same time, that she had no particular recollection of the circumstances which accompanied the accident. This oblivion, if real, was fortunate; if assumed, was judicious.

Castleton and Lucy were thus once more left alone, and had she really been all in all to him, he could not more tenderly and anxiously have watched over her slowly returning strength. Before she was by any means restored to health, this tranquil state was broken in upon by a melancholy piece of intelligence, which, under present circumstances, affected Lucy more deeply, perhaps, than would be imagined by those of my gentle readers who have attended to the incidents of her early life. A letter arrived from her aunt Alice, announcing the sudden death of her mother.

The end of Mrs. Darnell had been in some respects characteristic. It will be recollected, that her neighbours were few and distant; and those she had, she did not often visit, excepting one, a farmer’s wife, who had, in the time of high prices, indulged in luxuries, which Mrs. Darnell had always thought sinful. Having heard that this woman’s daughter, a pretty boarding-school miss, had eloped from a country town with a cornet, Mrs. Darnell could not deny herself the satisfaction of going over, as she said, to condole with her; though in reality to impress upon her, how the edication which she had given her daughter had just fitted her to be a lady of the land.

The length of this lecture, during the whole of which she had sat in wet clothes, brought on an inflammatory cold, in the early stages of which she had grudged herself a doctor, and in the more advanced period of the disease she had got up and gone down thrice to see the shamefu’ dinner that Richard had ordered Betty to dress for him, “which,” she said, “was just of a piece with all the rest.” This was her last grievance; for, by her ill-timed, economical imprudence, she had brought on a typhus fever, of which in a few days she had fallen the victim.

This event was a severe shock to Lucy. Mrs. Darnell was in no respect a bad, though an unamiable woman; and in the endearing relation of mother and daughter, it was impossible that, with such a child as Lucy, there should not have been many moments which had left an impression stronger than that of her habitual irritation of temper. Besides, in these cases, the mind is a sort of intellectual virtuoso, collecting and treasuring up, in proportion to their rarity, any traits of kindness which death has stamped with the fictitious value of reliques. On more general grounds, this melancholy event depressed Lucy severely. The abrupt manner in which she had heard of the catastrophe, proved to her how complete was her isolation from the home of her childhood, how absolute her separation from all those to whom formerly her every hour had been devoted, and with whom every care had been divided. She had always considered her parting with her family as only temporary, but this showed that, whilst with so few interests in common, communications were so rare between them, their parting had been transformed into a final one, without that warning which might have enabled her to have been present at its termination, or, at any rate, have somewhat prepared her to meet the worst with fortitude.

It was on her mother that this first blow had fallen; the same might shortly be the case with her father. The letter, which announced her mother’s death, contained little more than a recital of the melancholy event, and of the circumstances which had attended it; in the next communication, however, which she received shortly after from her aunt, much mention was made of her father’s lonely situation, and she learned how frequently he dwelt upon the privation of his dear child’s society, a loss which he now so deeply felt. Feeble as Lucy still was, this excited an immediate and anxious desire to go to him without delay, and she pressed her request upon Castleton more earnestly than she had previously done any wish, of the favourable reception of which she was not certain. Castleton was too much touched with her present depression of spirits, and, consequently, too anxious to accede to any desire of hers, to start any other difficulty than his fears that her strength might not be equal to the undertaking.

Morden Bay, it will be recollected, was in a very remote and secluded situation: there was only one carriage road to it, the same by which the pic-nic party had returned to Hornscliff, and that, besides being very rough and difficult, was exactly in an opposite direction to the place at which they were at present residing. It was difficult, therefore, to arrange the method of putting her views into execution, whilst she was still so far from being perfectly recovered, that even an easy journey would not have been undertaken without fatigue.

As soon as she could bear the attempt, a plan occurred to Castleton, by which the difficult part of the undertaking might be overcome. There was a little sea-bathing place, called Sandford, at about forty miles distant from Morden Bay, considerably nearer to Somersby, and here his friend, Lord Stayinmore, had his yacht in waiting for him, in case he should come back that way from his grouse-shooting in Scotland.

Lord Stayinmore was one of those persons, who, with unlimited powers to multiply their luxuries, often find that there is one thing which they cannot purchase, which is, the time necessary to the successive enjoyment of them all. This was quite the case in the present instance. Whilst staying at Cowes, he had been seized with a sudden fancy to have a yacht, and belong to the Royal Yacht Club. He had immediately purchased, at an exorbitant price, the fastest sailer; but this year the grouse had tempted him into Scotland; and as his shooting-box is in the Central Highlands, whilst “he lies amongst the moors,” his yacht was ordered to anchor in some port in the north of England, in case he should wish for a sail, upon his return.

It was not very agreeable to Castleton to ask a favour from a man of Lord Stayinmore’s character; but the circumstances of the case induced him to get over his delicacy on this head, and he was rewarded by receiving for answer a most prompt acquiescence in his request, putting the vessel entirely under his command, with a profusion of assurances of the peculiar felicity it gave him to contribute in any way to Lady Castleton’s comfort. The journey to Sandford was accomplished by easy stages, though hastened by Lucy’s impatience to relieve her father’s lonely situation.

Since the second letter of her aunt, Richard Darnell’s solitude had been broken in upon by a most unexpected return: which had happened so recently that the event had not been notified in another letter to Lucy. The ship in which George had been placed had been homeward bound much sooner than had been contemplated; having been freighted with some ex-emperor, or potentate on half-pay. George, upon the receipt of the account of his aunt’s death, had immediately obtained leave; had started for home to see his uncle, and was at present staying at Morden Bay. He had hitherto conducted himself, in his new career, to the complete satisfaction of all his superiors, and his own merit, coupled with Castleton’s recommendation, had placed him near his captain, who had made him his clerk and employed him in a confidential manner.

CHAPTER XII.

What other can she seek to see,

Than thee, companion of her bower,

The partner of her infancy?

She is back again in her sunny home,

And thick and fast the beatings come

Of that young heart, as ’round she sees

The same sweet flowers, the same old trees.

It is her home, but all in vain

Some lingering things unchanged remain;

The present wakes no smile; the past

Have tears to bid its memory last.

IT was already autumn, but autumn stealing slowly on, in the guise of summer, when, after a few hours’ sail from Sandford, the yacht made Morden Bay. Not a ripple was on the wave, hardly a breath in the air, as the light and graceful vessel rather floated with the tide, than was impelled by its half-filled and nearly flapping sails, into that romantic haven. Castleton and Lucy were seated upon the deck. He was to leave her upon landing, and to return in the yacht to Sandford; as she could not help completely concurring with him that it was much better that he should not remain with her, whilst she resided at her father’s. Still the return without him to scenes from which he only had separated her, seemed more like a dissolution of their connexion, than either the distance or the period of their parting appeared to authorise; and perhaps the same impression was made upon him; for, during the latter part of the sail, he kept constantly dwelling, with apparent anxiety to convince himself of their certainty, on the many projects which he meant to put into execution on their re-union.

They were landed just in that identical spot, in the centre of Morden Bay, where Lucy and George had first been discovered by the party from Hornscliff. The old coble, against which she had then leant, was still moored upon the beach, and even so did she now lean with Castleton, whilst the boat’s crew were engaged in carrying the packages up the cliff. The similarity of their local position, with the complete change in every other respect which had come over them since that epoch, to which their memory referred, had, indeed, struck them both most forcibly. However this might be, perhaps the very nature of those recollections prevented them from reciprocating their impressions; or perhaps the continued silence which ensued might only be produced by the vicinity of Lady Castleton’s maid, who was waiting to accompany her to the farm.

Castleton had rather disliked the idea of Mrs. Jenkins being introduced to a knowledge of her mistress’s name, but he could not possibly allow her to return home utterly unattended; and as he had previously intended to change her waiting-woman before long, he had determined that Jenkins’s service should end with the residence at the farm.

As the men had returned, and again taken their stations in the boat, he proposed to depart, and bidding her tenderly farewell, said, “Here, then, I now leave you, Lucy.” As he uttered these words, a melancholy presentiment vibrated through him. Here had been his first meeting—here might be his last parting; and as he returned to the yacht, his own words seemed to cling to him, as he mentally repeated, “Here, then, I now leave you, Lucy.” He marked her mounting up the steep path which led to her father’s house, with slow and unsteady steps, for she was still feeble; and he compared her present appearance with the light elastic gait, with which he had seen her bound up that same path. Who but himself had produced this sad change? With bitter repentance he thought how completely his experiment had failed; and the notions, which had induced him to attempt it, now appeared to him in all the naked deformity of selfishness, stripped of that disguise of assumed diffidence and self-distrust, in which habitual sophistry had hitherto concealed them from his own penetration. He had gradually been convinced how almost impossible it was to fit her to perform, with comfort to herself and credit to him, her part in that sphere to which he had so abruptly transferred her.

And yet, on the other hand, after the attempts that he had for many months made to eradicate all early impressions, did she on this melancholy occasion return the same, to the home of her childhood? Was it likely that she would now be able as naturally and efficiently to fulfil all those filial offices which had formerly been her delight? He asked himself the question, how had he repaid her for the destruction of so many habitual sources of innocent satisfaction? Was she now, as she ought to be, the unique object of his thoughts? He turned his head away in shame at the consciousness of feeling how unable he was to answer the question as he ought; but he looked on the wide waste of waters before him, as if to lose himself and his reflections on that indefinite horizon, rather than own, by a glance in an opposite direction, that his thoughts turned towards Sandford, and the possible prospect he thought there was of his there meeting Lady Gayland.

But let us not make him out worse than he was: it was no deliberate intention of this kind which had made him originate the plan; but perhaps the casual mention, by that lady, of Lord Stayinmore’s yacht being at the watering-place, to which she might be tempted to go in the course of the autumn, had first suggested to Castleton the idea of asking for the loan of the vessel.

Lucy had by this time, with much effort, half ascended the cliff, and she now stopped to rest at an angle of the path, in an arbour which had been constructed by herself and her cousin George, in the days of their childhood; and as she prepared to seat herself within it, she clung for support to those own sturdy boughs, which, as tendrils, she had formerly moulded to her will; and as her maid, on whom she had leant for assistance in the ascent, was a person in whom she could not confide, she sat here for a while in silence, reflecting on past times. She drew her sable-lined cloak more closely about her; for in spite of the cheerfulness of the scene around, she felt the morbid chilliness of lingering debility and shattered nerves; ills which, on that spot, she had certainly never suffered from before; but now she sat and shivered in the sunshine.

And even thus she was marked from near by one who longed to offer assistance, yet dared not. George, at the first seeing her from the garden above, as she landed from the boat, had rushed downwards; but his courage had failed him as he approached; and he, who had braved dangers in every shape, and in every clime, now, on this well-known spot, feared to encounter the playmate of his infancy, the confidant of his childhood; and as she neared the spot at which he had hesitated and stopped, he hid himself, crouching in the copse behind the arbour, to mark her more closely before presenting himself to her notice.

He had known her from a distance; that is, having heard that she was shortly expected, and to arrive by sea, although the day had not been fixed, he felt assured that this must be her. Yet, upon beholding her nearer, so much was she changed, that he felt disposed to doubt her identity. She had grown much thinner, and this effect was increased by her mourning attire. He had never before seen her in the garb of woe, through all the long years which they had passed together. Custom in her case would not have required her to assume it for a distant relative, nor had sad necessity obliged her to wear it for any one whom she would have really lamented. And if (thought he) she should be as much altered in inward feeling, as in outward appearance—if even now, sitting alone in that arbour, where we have together so often lingered, there is a constraint in her manners, who knows whether that constraint would be removed, or would assume only a more chilling coldness, at again suddenly beholding the companion of her youth? This fear pressed so strongly upon his mind that he stirred not from his concealment, but suffered her to pass on undisturbed.

She again commenced languidly ascending the remaining part of the cliff, leaning on her maid, whose patience was very much exhausted, and who could not help at last exclaiming; “Well to be sure, my lady, this is the most horriblest outlandish place I ever seed; I wonder that you, who knowed afore how bad it was, ever thought of returning to it again; it would have been different if you had been brought to it unsight unseen.”

“Such as it is,” replied Lady Castleton, “there is no carpeted hall where I have wandered, since last I was here, which I have trodden with half the pleasure that I feel as I again climb this rugged ascent.”

Further comment on the part of her loquacious attendant was for the present prevented; for they had at length reached the ledge upon which Bankside Farm-house was situated, and Lucy was received in the arms of her aunt Alice.

CHAPTER XIII.

And if there be a human tear,

From passion’s dross refined and clear—

A tear so tempered and so meek

That would not stain an angel’s cheek—

’Tis that which tender fathers shed

Upon a duteous daughter’s head.

ALICE DARNELL had rather expected her niece on this day, though none in particular had been specified by Lady Castleton, in the announcement of her intention. She had, therefore, come over to her brother’s to meet her. The farmer himself was, at the moment of her arrival, out superintending his labourers—employment being more than ever necessary to him. Alice Darnell, therefore, took this opportunity to announce to Lucy the return of her cousin George, thinking, with a woman’s recollections of past times, some preparation for that event expedient. So announced, Lucy was prepared for the reception of her cousin, when, having first watched her progress upwards from his hiding-place, he soon afterwards himself made his appearance.

Lucy’s greeting of him was frank and cordial; and if there was, on either side, any awkwardness in the meeting, it was screened from observation by the immediate entrance of her father, whose voice was first heard exclaiming, “Where is she? where is’t my darling? my little Lucy!” and he rushed into her arms. “Hast spoilt her by making Lady Lucy on her? Noa; there’s still the same gentle look, and kind eye. But let’s look again: why, she’s a sight thinner nor she was. Hast not fed, dear? How’s this?”

“No, father; you forget I’ve been ill, and of course in distress too; nothing more.”

“Yees; but the pratty plump cheek’s quite dipped in, I’s sure; and what’s this?” encircling with the capacious span of his finger and thumb, her somewhat emaciated arm, through the ample folds of her crape gigot sleeve, “Why’s not now half the size. Ah! these vanities,” said he, thrusting his fingers through the bows which, in the fashion of that day, hung from the shoulder; “this here ribbon grass is a terrible crop for wasting the soil that grows it. But this is a sad lonely house you’re come to now, Lucy,” as his thoughts turned to the cause of her visit; “sad, lonely place, indeed. Why there’s nobody now to keep nout in order. Cocks and hens just walk in at the front door, and Betty and the farming-men walk out at the back jist when they both like; and neither niver stop to ask my leave, whether one may come in, or t’other gang out; and I’s sure, even the kitchen clock there, like a big coward, has ticked twice as loud, since there has been none to talk against it.”

But seeing that this allusion, homely as it was, to the recent calamity, had still the effect of upsetting Lucy, and causing her to weep bitterly, he stopped short, saying, “No; but no more of this at present;” and, though not celebrated for tact, the intuitive effort of kind feeling, and true affection, enabled him soon to recover his composure; and by way of turning the conversation, he asked her, “And hast seen many fine folks in your fine hoam, Lady Lucy? Ah! let them come as fine, and as many, and as used to bedizenment as they may be, there’lt have been none to match my little Lucy in prattiness. Her little nose is still as straight as ever; there’ll have been none there to put it out of joint.”

“Dear father, your partiality makes you fancy that there is nothing in the world like your little Lucy; but if you’d been where I’ve been biding, you would soon have learnt the difference. We have not seen much company; but there is one that would in every respect shame me in the comparison. Lady Gayland is as much above me in beauty, as in book-learning.”

“And Lady Gayland has been staying with you at Lord Castleton’s house?” said George, inquiringly, as if he knew something about her, that made this a matter of surprise to him.

“Yes, dear Lady Gayland. But why should that surprise you?” asked Lucy, in her turn, anxious to find out on what his knowledge of Lady Gayland was founded; but he evaded further mention of the subject on that occasion. Some time afterwards, however, when they were alone together, and she again alluded to Lady Gayland, he also again hinted his surprise, that she should have been a guest in Castleton’s house; and when pressed by Lucy to explain what he knew of that lady, he began by asking whether she remembered Jack Carter.

This preliminary having, after reciprocal explanation, been assented to, George continued that, immediately after her wedding, Jack Carter had returned to Somersby, previously to sailing in the ship to which Castleton had recommended him, and which was the same to which George himself belonged. He had remained some few days in the neighbourhood, to renew acquaintance with his early friends, amongst whom were many of Lord Castleton’s present establishment; and, upon joining the ship, he told George, to whom, as acquainted with all the circumstances, he thought he could, without displeasing his patron, communicate in confidence; that what most excited the general surprise at my Lord’s unexpected marriage, was, that it had been the universal impression, from the reports made by those servants who had been abroad with him, that he was certainly to be united to Lady Gayland.

“Even so I thought. What would I now give that so it had been. Abroad?—Yes! and then I had never seen him but that once. Who would not then have been happier?”

“Happier, Lucy?—then you are not happy?”

“Do not ask me, dear George; there was a time when I had not a thought that I would not have shared with you; but now, there are thoughts which are my husband’s alone. Let us talk of something else. My poor father!—he’s not fitted to live in an empty house; I wish you’d fill it for him, George.”

“How do you mean, Lucy, ‘fill it?’”

“That you should marry, George. Nay, do not start so; I know that you will say that your profession takes you much abroad; but then your wife might bide your return. She would be a comfort to my father, he would be a protector to her; and this house might be a home to all.”

“No, Lucy; I’d better now never try to have a home; a roving life is my best resource. Change stands to me in the place of comfort; and bustle does instead of happiness. One could not get a home at once, either, just by the wishing it. My notion of home is, that every thought, feeling, and wish should be in perfect concert, and that the house should be the last thing to be in common.”

“This,” thought Lucy, “is his notion of home: how different has been my experience of it!”

But Lucy was not the only person under her father’s roof, at the present moment, who thought that it would well become George to take a wife.

Mrs. Jenkins, Lucy’s maid, being now completely enlightened on the subject of her mistress’s origin, thought, perhaps, that there must be something in the atmosphere of Morden Bay, to make més-alliances epidemic; and with so exaggerated a case of that description before her, as the elevation of the farmer’s daughter to the peerage, it was no great stretch of her imagination, to fancy that she might captivate a petty officer; and, as she had here little to do, and nobody to see but George, who was a good-looking manly youth, it was natural for her to suppose herself in love with him.

Mrs. Jenkins had good eyes and teeth; and though her freshness had been somewhat impaired by late hours, having been forced to watch in solitude the return of daylight, and a succession of young mistresses, yet she dressed herself with as much care and success as her lady, and was altogether rather a smart figure. But if she had been ten times as attractive, it is certain that George would, in his present position, have viewed her with indifference, or rather, not looked on her at all.

When she could no longer resist this conviction, her self-complacency could not otherwise account for the fact than by imagining that he had raised his aspiring eyes as high as her mistress; and this idea once received, she became impatient to leave her service, and make as much mischief of her discovery as she could. The defective accommodation of the farmer’s house was the plea upon which she chose to put her departure. “Very sorry, my lady, but I find it quite unpossible to remain, if I’m to sleep in the hole in which they’ve thrust me.”

“Why, what’s the matter with your room, Jenkins?”

“Why, my lady, it can’t be supposed that I’m to put up with stuccy; I’ve always been used to be papered, ever since I went first into service.”

“I can only say, Jenkins, that the room in which you at present are, is the one out of which I never slept till within the last few months.”

“Parfectly possible, my lady; but there’s a difference between what some people are ’customed to, and what other people were ’customed to.”

Further attempts to appease the irritated Abigail, predetermined to be affronted, only produced fresh impertinence; and this being overheard by George, brought down a sharp rebuke, which did not propitiate his slighted admirer. The result was, that as no attempt to persuade her to stay appeared to Lucy likely to succeed, she was allowed to depart in a fishing-boat for Sandford.

Though Lucy, from motives of delicacy, had declined entering into any explanation with George, as to the disappointment which she had experienced in the state of her husband’s feelings towards her; yet she did not think it necessary to maintain the same reserve with her aunt Alice. But even to her, her regrets were general, always accompanied with the expressed consciousness of her own deficiencies and unfitness; and, if she had gathered any specific cause of uneasiness from what she might have overheard in the shrubbery, not even to the feminine confidante of her early years, did she suffer any complaint on that head to pass her lips.

Alice, whose acuteness and experience had foreseen the probability of many of the drawbacks on her niece’s elevation, which had since occurred, (though they, of course, did not appear so inevitable as to justify her in opposing what was otherwise so advantageous,) could now do no more than advise her to hasten and mitigate, as much as she could, any expectations of exclusive devotion; and to use every exertion that in her conduct, at least, no cause of censure might arise.

CHAPTER XIV.

Those who murder fame,

Kill more than life-destroyers.

CASTLETON, for the first few days at Sandford, led a listless, lounging, watering-place kind of life. Lady Gayland was not yet come; nor did he, among the many casual acquaintances that he encountered, find any one calculated to be a resource. On the contrary, one unexpectedly crossed his path here, the renewal of whose acquaintance was most unwelcome; he would even have given much to avoid it. In passing, at dusk one afternoon, by a trinket-shop on the cliff, he heard his name uttered, inquiringly, out of a dark-coloured chaise, with rose-coloured blinds. So summoned, he approached, and, though the light was already too far gone to give more than a general view of the features of the person who addressed him, yet a disagreeable conviction at once occurred to him, through the concurrent accumulation of rouge and wrinkles, that he once more beheld Lady Madelina Manfred. She addressed him in the sickly tone of resuscitated sentiment, and requested him to call upon her the next day.

There was hardly any thing that he would not rather have done, and yet there was hardly any thing that he could not better refuse to do; and next morning saw him unwillingly winding his way towards a cottage orné on the cliff, which, with the dark-coloured chariot, had been the produce of her recruited finances. Poor Manfred had, at length, drank himself to death in the Bench; she had therefore come upon the entailed property for her settled jointure; had quarrelled with, and left Captain O’Connor in Connaught; and, with somewhat diminished powers, was trying whom she could captivate here, to use either as an agreeable passe-temps, or as a permanent settlement.

For Castleton she had always retained a lingering partiality; their connexion, such as it was, had taken its date just at that period of her life, when a woman of her description is peculiarly sensible of the admiration of a very young man. He was since married, and therefore she could not look forward to any renewal of their liaison; but as she was not conscious of any other change, least of all in herself, she still expected from him much devotion of manner. But Castleton’s feelings towards her were now, on the contrary, under the influence of that most powerful of all re-actions, the thorough consciousness of having, with very little excuse, made a very great fool of himself. He was now perfectly aware of all those faults in her character, to which he had formerly been wofully blind; and he could not even discover the traces of those personal attractions which had alone been the cause of that blindness. Therefore, though her reception of him was evidently studied; her address to him tender and languishing; and the effect of her appearance, assisted by the softened light that oozed through the triply-folded curtains; yet, in spite of all this, his manner was as cold as it was constrained.

Lady Madelina had always had a passion for presents; and on this occasion, several trinkets, said to have been sent to her for choice, were artfully displayed upon the table. Castleton could not mistake the hint intended; but he hesitated at first, between a dislike to take this particular method of checking her expectations, and the danger of encouraging these too far, by acceding to her evident wish. At last, as the best way of making good his retreat out of the room, he begged her acceptance of the article which seemed most to have tempted her fancy; accompanying his exit with an expression of his regret that he was so much occupied at present, that he could have but few opportunities of repeating his visit.

This occupation, which was imaginary at the time that it was so pleaded, was soon afterwards realized; for Lady Gayland arrived the next day, and was followed almost immediately by St. Clair and some other young men; as well as by two or three families, who having latterly been staying at the country-house where she has been on a visit, near Somersby, had been principally tempted by her to take Sandford in their way homewards.

Under these circumstances, Castleton found it very difficult now to see her alone; a difficulty which she seemed by no means anxious to remove. How wise would he have thought this determination in any other case: how little justice did he do to its discretion in his own. A man, under the influence of an unhappy passion, feeling the obligation, but not having the power to resist it, is often the most senseless animal in creation: always prone to misconstrue the actions of the object of his devotion; unreasonable in his expectations of demonstrations towards himself, and fastidiously criticising her deportment towards any one else; equally ready to exact in the one case, or exaggerate in the other.

In spite, however, of her previous determination to avoid it, the intimate footing of society at a small watering place, and the tacit acquiescence, if not expressed understanding, by which, on these occasions, those two people are allowed to be most together whose society is supposed to be the most agreeable to each other, led to interviews which dangerously reminded them both of past times, and produced some little gossip even beyond their immediate circle.

Lady Madelina had, ever since Castleton’s visit, and consequent cadeau, pestered him with incessant pointedly-expressed rose-coloured notes; which, after a time, he was rather apt to leave unanswered. The cause of this she was anxious to discover. Her position in the world was a doubtful one; she had been avoided, never excluded; no record had ever appeared against her: Captain O’Connor, and Connaught, were equally distant and unknown. She, therefore, at a watering place, hovered sufficiently within the outskirts of society to have occasional opportunities of observing Castleton. At a raffle, which was held at one of the libraries, she met him with Lady Gayland hanging on his arm, and addressing him with an easy assurance, which she probably had acquired in the western province of the sister country, said,

“Introduce me to your new friend.”

“Excuse me;” was the laconic reply, pointedly expressed.

“This from you to me!” was the equally concise retort, as she floated by.

There is nothing in the world so vindictive as an irritated fool; and an unexpected opportunity occurred of venting, in a congenial manner, her spiteful feelings.

The maid whom Lucy had been obliged to dismiss from Morden Bay, was landed at Sandford, and sought what might for her too truly be termed a suitable service with Lady Madelina Manfred. It had always been Lady Madelina’s custom to confide much in her maid, though the services which she had required had generally been in aid of a softer passion than hatred. The information that her new attendant had been living with Lady Castleton, gave her an immediate clue to all the discoveries that she most wished to make; and she was not a little surprised to find, upon inquiry, that his present wife could be no other than the little girl whom they had together seen, during their excursions on the shores of Morden Bay. The details given by Mrs. Jenkins, of the state of the establishment during the time that she lived with the Castletons, and particularly of the present family union at Bankside Farm, furnished ample food for mischief, had Lady Madelina possessed powers equal to her desire, to wield the weapons thus placed in her hands.

But there is one device, the attempt of which is open to the poorest, the effects of which may content the most rancorous spirit. An anonymous letter is a mode of moral murder, which, using only a pen for a poniard, and an inkstand for a bowl, poisons confidence, and stabs characters without fear of detection. A man who thus “filches from me my good name,” is free from any dread of having the stolen goods found upon him; and malignity, thus refined by cowardice, feasts satisfactorily upon the mere distant imagination of the success of its designs. This was the sort of revenge which it occurred to Lady Madelina to take; and, collecting some topics for mischief from her maid, she concocted the following epistle for Lucy in a feigned hand; a disguise by no means complete, since the highly-scented vellum paper, which was made use of, would have suggested to any one less artless than Lucy, the sort of person from whom it came. It began with those assurances with which every anonymous letter abounds.

“A friend, deeply interested in the welfare of Lady Castleton, begs most anxiously to warn her of the doubly dangerous precipice on which she at present stands. On one side her character is cruelly traduced, and spies set over her to endeavour to collect proofs of her criminal attachment to one whom it is unnecessary to name, but for whom the person who thus cautions her, feels assured that she only entertains an innocent regard. At the same time attempts are carrying on here by the same artful woman, who is thus working her ruin, to rob her of her husband’s affections. This object, the friend who now writes is afraid will be more likely to be accomplished than the first part of the scheme. At any rate, why is Lady Castleton not here? In regard alike for her reputation and her happiness, she ought not to delay her return another instant: already her absence is represented as arising from indifference to Lord Castleton, and partiality for another. She is young in the world, and has much to learn; and will not suffer by taking this hint from her sincere friend,—Experience.”

Whatever might be the extent of the malice with which this was written, the degree of misery which it inflicted on the poor girl to whom it was addressed, must have excited some compunction if it could have been witnessed by its author; especially as Lucy was not herself so much the object, as the means, of attack upon the other two intended victims.

Lucy, with this death-warrant of her happiness, as she considered it, in her hand, felt as solitary in the centre of her family, as she had done in the midst of the strange society to which she had been transplanted. To whom could she willingly confide insinuations so degrading to herself, so injurious to her husband? The experience of the short time that had elapsed since her return to Bankside, had served to convince her how little the greater part of what she had lately learnt, could be understood by those amongst whom she had previously lived. She could not, therefore, for the world acknowledge to her father, still less to her cousin, that she could believe that there was any foundation in that which was asserted about her husband: and as little, she knew, would they credit what was said about herself. Nay, she even shrunk from showing the odious letter to her aunt, with whom she felt that she could have no half confidences. And yet to herself she could not deny, that she thought she ought, if possible, to follow the advice it contained, of an immediate return to her husband—but on what grounds to explain to her family such a previously unmentioned design?

An occasion, however, offered the very next day, while she was repining in secret over the contents of the hateful communication, which enabled her to attribute to the peculiar convenience of the opportunity, her intention to avail herself of it.

Lord Stayinmore had had his yacht down to Scotland, to convey him Southward, but having, before its arrival, changed his mind, and being anxious to give some plausible reason for so doing, he had sent it back, with an elaborately civil note to Lady Castleton, saying that “he had desired his vessel might call at the Bay where she had landed, (he had forgotten its name,) to express his hope that she would do him the honour to avail herself of it to return home again, to gladden the sight of the living world.”

Lucy, considering this arrival as almost providential, signified her intention of immediately availing herself of the offer. In vain her father and her aunt endeavoured to dissuade her, she showed a fixed determination to abide by her intention, for which they could not account. She, who was generally so gentle and pliable, was on this occasion positive and unalterable. She refused, even, to detain the vessel till the next morning; merely urging as a reason that, as it was a convenience offered, and a favour conferred, she felt it right to avail herself of it, without delay, if at all.

George had stood by in silence during the time that this little family debate was carried on in the garden in the front of the house, not wishing to obtrude his opinion in opposition to what appeared to be Lucy’s decided intention; but he watched the while, with some inquietude, indications of the weather, which his general nautical experience, and previous knowledge of the signs to be remarked on that particular spot, combined to make him fear promised but a rough and disagreeable passage for a delicate female.

The season was now far advanced: autumn, though still gleaming with an insidious smile, appeared generally in its own blustering nakedness. As they stood in the little garden, amongst the now bare and lifeless bushes, the fallen leaves rustled round them in fitful eddies. The wind, though not loud or high, was unsteady. The little vessel, although moored within the sheltered bay, in smooth, and apparently unruffled waters, heaved slowly and solemnly under the influence of a heavy ground swell from without; and though, with the exception of some light, fleecy clouds, whose fantastic shapes seemed to sport in the sunshine, the sky was generally clear, yet a low, thick bank at sea, which lingered in the offing, appeared to George to threaten some unpleasant weather at night, should the little skiff not be able to make the port of Sandford before dark. Danger he did not himself contemplate; and he wished not to prognosticate evil, when she seemed so determined not to be dissuaded from starting; he therefore merely urged that, if she intended to depart that day, there would be no unnecessary delay. She thanked him, with an expressive glance, for not having opposed himself to her wishes.

“One night more, dear Lucy,” said her father, as she turned to prepare for her departure.

“My dear father, trust me, I would not refuse what I should myself so much wish, had I not reasons, which I cannot explain, but which convince me of the necessity of no delay.”

“You will at least, though, allow me to accompany you as far as Sandford,” said George. “Quite alone with strange sailors, you cannot think of undertaking the voyage.”

Lucy hesitated how to reply to this request. The perfect purity of her own mind, and the correctness of her conduct, made it difficult for her to fancy that any one could believe the insinuation in the anonymous letter, of her continued attachment to her cousin. Sometimes the recollection of past feelings would, perhaps, raise a sigh to what might have been; but she never had thought of those times and her cousin, but as referring to prospects which her conduct had closed for ever against her; still if such reports had been spread, the idea of returning to her husband in company with George, caused her more fear than the alternative of braving the dangers of the voyage alone. She therefore answered, “I had rather go by myself, dear George.”

But her father was not so easily satisfied: the experience of an unexpected bereavement, to one previously so prosperous, had made him, for the present, morbidly alive to danger. “I’m not now,” he said, “the fool-hardy swaggerer that I used to be; who just thought no harm could happen, because it hadn’t happened afore. Yet even now Richard Darnell’s fears are not to be slighted; and I shall jist have no rest, unless you take George wi’ you.” To the desire thus urged by her father, and seconded by her aunt’s entreaties, Lucy gave way, and consented that George should accompany her. He immediately proceeded to facilitate preparations for their departure; but even with his exertions they were rather tardy, and it was much later than he could have wished before they embarked.

Richard Darnell, and his sister, once more stood side by side to watch the departure of their beloved Lucy, though under different circumstances. Their fears were complicated, and their hopes were chastened, since they had marked her borne away from the church by her noble bridegroom. They had ascended the cliff, and reached the ledge on which the farm-house was situated, just as the little bark cleared the promontory of the bay; and as the freshening breeze met them on their ascent to the upper land, they turned again to watch the progress of a vessel that bore a freight so precious to them both; and they observed, with no little anxiety, that she, at the same moment began to pitch sharply and violently as she cut through the increasing foam of the now unsheltered waters.

CHAPTER XV.

For several virtues

Have I liked several women. Never any

With so full soul, but some defect in her

Did quarrel with the noblest grace she owed,

And put it to the foil. But you, O you,

So perfect and so peerless, are created

Of every creature’s best.

SHAKSPEARE.

Have not all past human beings parted?

And must not all the present one day part?

IT has been said that it was Lady Gayland’s intention to avoid, as much as possible, the particular attentions of Castleton. The difficulty of carrying this intention into effect very much increased, as the society, in which they lived, itself diminished. It is a hard task too, to have always to count the sentences you may with discretion accord to one whose society you prefer; particularly as there was nothing actually in Castleton’s deportment to put the most prudent upon her guard. Since that eventful day at Somersby, when circumstances had betrayed him into an unfortunate indiscretion, his address to her had always been studiously unobjectionable. It was only when, acting upon her present system, she made her attentions to any one else more conspicuous, that his impatience prevented him from altogether concealing his feelings: at other times, when enjoying her society, he seemed to be perfectly convinced that she could never be to him other than a chosen companion.

Lady Gayland was fully conscious of the danger of this position; she wanted not the innuendoes of the world to enlighten her as to its tendency; her own heart was to her the best warning that it was a provisional state of things which could not always continue. Could she have foreseen its natural termination, she would have been most desirous to await that;—but when was it to end? The return of Lady Castleton, with her partiality for herself, would only facilitate and organise an intimacy. With this conviction upon her mind, after many painful struggles, her resolution was taken; and when once decided, the arrangements in furtherance of it were made immediately, and in secret. She was most anxious to avoid, if possible, any thing in the shape of remonstrance from Castleton; but, above all, a protracted contest on the subject, which she felt must be peculiarly painful.

It was the afternoon of the same day on which Lucy embarked from Morden Bay, that Castleton, upon calling at Lady Gayland’s lodgings, was struck with the denuded and uninhabited appearance of the apartment, from which all its comforts had been removed. He had hardly time to make this observation, when a travelling carriage, heavily laden, drove up to the door, and at the same moment, Lady Gayland, equipped as for a journey, entered the room. Her countenance was calm, but unusually pale; and a slight tremor betrayed itself through the forced firmness of her voice, as she said, “Castleton, you know I never had any opinion of a system of palliatives: a disagreeable thing that must be done decidedly, may as well be communicated directly. If you—if you—regard me, do not attempt to dissuade me from what I would myself avoid, if possible. I am about to leave Sandford—and—I winter at Rome.”

“At Rome!” repeated Castleton, starting back, and concentrating into the tone in which he uttered those two words, the expression of despair at extinguished happiness. “At Rome! No—it must not be.”

At that moment a servant came in to fetch Lady Gayland’s writing-desk, which, alone, had not yet been consigned to the carriage. It was one of those inopportune entrances, which it was difficult to bear, but still more difficult to resist. The moments occupied in enclosing the desk in its case seemed interminable: it was impossible that one word could meanwhile be exchanged between the parties. Castleton had turned his back at once, upon the man’s entrance, and stood, without moving, with his face towards the chimney-piece; and Lady Gayland watched, with intense anxiety, all the varied workings of his expressive countenance, as portrayed in the mirror before him. When at length the servant had again left the room, Castleton turned slowly round, advanced towards Lady Gayland, took her hand between his, and with effort gasped forth, “Geraldine—you are right!”

This unexpectedly generous acquiescence in the propriety of her determination, powerfully increased all her feelings in his favour, and added therefore to the difficulty of concealing her own weakness. Again, for some moments, they stood as silent as if an eye-witness had been in the room: at last he continued—“’Tis, however, somewhat sudden. I cannot yet quite forget what my prospects were the last hour—what they are this. Mystery and concealment need no longer be maintained, when all will so soon be over. Of course, I cannot conceal from myself that I am connected with this determination.”

“Castleton, I had hoped, by the course which I have taken, to have been spared explanation, useless to you—injurious to myself: but after the noble and disinterested manner in which you have facilitated the execution of my project, by acknowledging its propriety, I cannot refuse to answer your question, if you press for reply.”

“I press for nothing that can be painful to yourself. I can have no claim on you.”

“You feel that it is not necessary,” added she, faintly smiling, “to force me to a verbal confession that it was the influence which I felt you must have over my actions, if I stayed, which has induced me to take this irrevocable step.”

“This candid avowal, at such a moment, only the more completely exposes the folly of my former wilful blindness. But think not now that I ever dared to shape my rash hopes into any other form than the being allowed on sufferance the enjoyment of your society: I had not the shadow of an excuse for further presumption. Had I first known you bound in loathsome chains, I fear that a sense of moral obligation might have in vain attempted to arrest the force of my passion in its endeavours to break these chains asunder. But you are still free—free as when I first loved you; and I am the cause of my own bondage. That fatal mistake—I had had painful experience of your sex—and by this I blindly judged a manner peculiar to yourself—I thought myself again deceived: I felt that any thing like you, yet not yourself, would be unendurable. I sought, therefore, in another rank of life a perfect contrast. All that I could, in common reason, have expected in such an experiment, I have obtained: and with it every tie of honour obliges me to be satisfied—and so I will. Go, dearest Lady Gayland, where prudence calls you. I have again deceived myself in fancying that I could live with you as a friend. The attempt has been useless. Go—you may still be happy in forgetting him who has only himself to blame.”

“No; not entirely so. I feel that I likewise was formerly much to blame; but my error was unintentional. I was always a strange, unaccountable creature: I never could drill my deportment into intelligible discipline; and, singular as it may seem, the same heedless appearance was sometimes caused by directly opposite feelings. It was, I believe, those very high spirits, produced by the conviction of your attachment, which excited, at Rome, that levity of which you complained: had I been more of a coquette at heart, I should have been less a coquette in manner. Here, on the contrary, where I have been really unhappy, as the sad certainty broke upon me that I could not consider you only as a friend, though still hoping that mine was a love as passionless as human heart can know, I have endeavoured to lose for a moment that consciousness in the frivolous society of others. Believe me, a gay tone often conceals more anguish than it causes.”

“I believe all you say—I admire all you do—I despise myself—and I submit.”

“The carriage is quite ready, my Lady,” said a servant opening the door, and then closing it again.

“O not yet!” exclaimed Castleton, “I had so much more to say.”

“Is it, for either of our sakes, desirable to prolong these sad moments?”

“No; and yet I would postpone, if it were even for an instant, the dreary void in existence which will succeed your departure. Whilst you are still here, I have not yet the actual consciousness that she, who was but this morning the charm of every prospect, has for ever faded from my sight. But this is wrong; your firmness deserves better support from me. I feel the value, especially to you, of appearances on this occasion. One moment more, and I will be ready.”

He took two or three hasty strides across the room—clenched his hands violently—pressed his teeth against his closed lips—and then, with forced composure, said, “Now I am ready to attend you to your carriage.”

As they descended the first flight of stairs, Lady Gayland softly murmured, “One word at parting: cherish your wife; she loves you, and you should at least make her happy.”

Castleton pressed her arm against his heart, and nodded assent.

“Not quite ready, my Lady,” said the same servant, “the chaise seat was forgot, in Mademoiselle’s room.”

As they had with much effort screwed their courage to the point, this suspense was even more painful than their parting would have been a few moments before; but there was no resource, and they stood leaning against the wall at the head of the first flight of steps. Availing himself of this opportunity, Castleton added, “You will at least allow me to write to you; there are so many subjects—indifferent subjects I mean—in the retired life that I intend to lead, and I shall have no one near me with whom I can communicate. To this, at least, there can be no objection.”

To this request Lady Gayland hesitated how to reply. “For the present,” said she, “let us settle nothing but separation; it may be a satisfaction to us hereafter that, at least for the time, we made that complete.”

“Quite ready, my Lady,” was again announced, before Castleton could further urge his request. As they descended the stairs they seemed both nerved for the trial of the ultimate parting. Groups of idlers on horseback, casual acquaintances returning from the parade, made this exertion the more necessary. “An odious day,” exclaimed one. “The most disagreeable that I ever knew,” added another;—and so they passed on, without in the least suspecting that those whom they thus concisely greeted, and in whom they remarked nothing particular, were in the act of perfecting the greatest mutual sacrifice that the world could require from either. Their hands had at length been severed, the door was closed, and the carriage in motion, when Lady Gayland covered her face, and sobbed aloud, exclaiming indistinctly; “The blinds—the blinds—quick. Angélique, les rideaux, tirez les donc.”

“You are ill, my Lady; will we stop?”

“Stop! No; faster—still faster:” and overwhelmed with long suppressed emotion, she burst into an hysterical fit of tears.

CHAPTER XVI.

O, I have suffered

With those that I saw suffer: a brave vessel

Who had no doubt some noble creatures in her,

Dashed all to pieces!

SHAKSPEARE.

THE evening, which was pronounced odious by the loungers at Sandford, closed in dark and louring over the little vessel still far distant from that port which she was endeavouring to make.

Lucy had been guilty of an imprudent piece of generosity on first coming on board. Castleton had always given her an unbounded command of money, wishing to provide against the danger of her having imbibed parsimonious inclinations from her mother. Upon their last separation, too, he had forced upon her a larger sum than usual; thinking it not unlikely that she might wish to make a present to her family, as from herself, without putting them under an obligation to him: but as Farmer Darnell had resolutely refused to receive money from her in any shape, knowing from whom the funds must be derived, she still found herself with an over-burthened purse; and, under a restless desire to give to some one, and a dislike to cause unrequited trouble, she had made a much more liberal present to be divided amongst the crew of Lord Stayinmore’s yacht, than they had previously expected, or than they afterwards merited. For, without in the least meaning to assert, that an amateur’s crew may not be the best in the world, the crew of a neglected yacht may be supposed likely to get a little disorganized. The certainty of this being their last voyage for the season, joined to the prospect of ample funds, provided for them by Lady Castleton, which they would soon be at liberty to spend at their own pleasure, determined them to make clear ship of what they yet had in store; having found out therefore that their passenger George, was something of a seaman, the helm, after having been transferred from one to the other of the crew, was at length consigned to him. George readily accepted the trust; believing from his knowledge of the local difficulties of the coast, that he could steer her with the greatest safety. But he was not a little uneasy when he saw the purpose for which this trust had been abandoned to him.

Lucy sat near the helmsman, inquiring occasionally as to their progress, which seemed to her impatience slow and tedious. George endeavoured, as far as truth permitted, to tranquillize her; but his own anxieties increased, as he watched the unclear and thickening aspect of the weather, and at the same time noted, in the excited countenances of the crew, as they occasionally peered above the hatchway, how much they were unfitting themselves for that calm and efficient assistance, which he knew must soon be required.

George’s situation was a difficult one; he could not leave the helm, nor could he vociferate all he feared, to the unconscious crew, without the danger of alarming Lucy. At length, he caught within hail one straggler from the revellers below; and whispering to him energetically the necessity of preparing to resist the danger, which was now imminent, said, “Are you already so blinded, you besotted drivellers, as not to see it yourselves? I have witnessed some stiff gales and rough weather in every part of the world; but with this wind, and the lee-shore, and the reef of rocks to weather with an ebb-tide, I never saw threaten an uglier night, or one that required more care.”

The man stood with the stupid, would-be-wise look of incipient inebriety, and said he would go and tell his messmates.

Lucy evidently saw, by George’s anxious countenance, that all was not right, and looked up to him, inquiring, as if demanding that he should not conceal from her his thoughts; but as a driving rain was just then added to the discomforts of the lowering evening, he, instead of saying any thing in confirmation of her now awakened fears, only urged that she should retire below, and not unnecessarily expose herself to the storm. But she shook her head, saying, “No, George; in my earliest dangers I was used to cling to you for protection; and it seems more natural-like to bide by you, if we are now in danger—are we, George?”

“Danger? no. There’s nothing but what such a tight built bark as this ought to ride through in safety; but nothing’s to be done without hands. If you could but call the skipper, Lucy; I cannot leave the helm, even for a moment.” Lucy rose on the instant, and, impressed with the idea of exerting herself for the common safety, she trod the rolling deck with unusual firmness and security. The sound of her voice unexpectedly calling upon them, and urging them solemnly to return to their duty, roused the besotted revellers from their orgies, and they tumbled, one after the other, upon deck, and immediately began to consider as to the best method of meeting the danger.

George, now relieved from the helm, insisted upon conveying Lucy to the cabin, where she would be more safe from the boisterous rudeness alike of the weather and of the crew. “George, I see that you think there’s danger; tell me the truth, I pray you; it will be better for me.”

“I can only repeat, that there ought to be no danger; but there are points between here and Sandford, which require steady heads, and skilful pilotage, to weather. The night, too, has set in darker than I had hoped, and there are those aboard that are not so clear as they might be; I certainly fear that, with this wind, we shall not get any more sea-room. But the best safeguard is, that no one should stand idle, whose hand and head are alike steady; so I must leave you, Lucy.”

“One moment, George; if the worst should happen; that is, if the ship should go down, think not of me. You, a man, active, and an excellent swimmer, might easily save yourself. As for me, though I would not sinfully hasten my end, believe me I feel still less disposed to avoid it; for I should not in the least regret to die.”

“No, Lucy; the first instinct of my nature was to assist you, and I should now selfishly bless the danger that gave me an unlooked-for opportunity of either dying with you, or being the means of your salvation.”

“But if to save me be beyond your power, then take this little watch to my husband. Tell him that he tossed it to me carelessly before he loved me; that I valued it as a relic, after he had ceased to love me, and that only with the prospect of impending death did I part with it. No, not even yet will I do so; it will be more proper to keep it till the last,” said she, checking herself, and again hanging it round her neck, and pressing it to her heart. “But, haste, you’re wanted, George;” as a discordant cry for him was heard from the crew above.

“Where are we, Sir?” eagerly asked several voices together.

“Why, fools, dolts, lubbers,” cried George, indignant, and at the same time alarmed, “by the bearing of those two lights, we should be as near as possible over Sunken-Spike Head.”

“No more a lubber than yourself; and we’re no more there than we are in hell,” answered the offended skipper. But before the words had well passed his lips, the violence of a sudden shock laid the greater part of the already unsteady crew prostrate on the deck; and the rest, thus completely sobered, too surely knew, from the pointed form of the hidden rock, that an incurable leak must be sprung.

“The boat—the boat,” was the immediate cry. The boat was soon lowered, and Lucy, almost unconscious, was carried into it by George. The crew followed immediately, but in much greater numbers than so small a bark could possibly hold, with any prospect of escape to the passengers. But all remonstrance on this subject was rendered unavailing; for whilst in this state, the boat was raised for an instant on the surface of an enormous breaker, then dashed with overpowering force against the side of the vessel; and it being thus completely swamped, every one endeavoured to provide for his own safety as best he might. George, supporting Lucy on one arm, and maintaining his hold of a stray plank with the other, was left at the mercy of the contending billows.

CHAPTER XVII.

Was it her corpse that he bore for miles,

When he gladly dreamt of her grateful smiles?

Silently, as he bore her on,

Her soul from its gentle frame has gone,

And never on earth shall his heart discover

The moment her love and her life were over.

* * * *

Lay her i’ the earth;

And from her fair and unpolluted flesh

May violets spring!

SHAKSPEARE.

CASTLETON had passed all that night in wakeful solitude. He had dismissed his servant early, as if to write; but instead, had watched through the sleepless hours, absorbed in somewhat tardy reflections on the state to which he had reduced himself. How many prospects, which opening life had shown him in perspective, had he unaccountably missed in the actual attainment! How many sources of happiness had been dried up, whilst he, instead of partaking of their spontaneous flow, had been refining over-much on their component qualities. Too true it was, that he, the favoured child of nature and fortune, had signally failed, both in securing his own happiness, and in contributing to that of others: and yet, in the result, he had no one but himself to blame.

The silence of the hour, and the sad abstraction of his thoughts conspired to invest any extraneous object, which should force his attention, with the morbid impressions of his imagination. The fitful gusts of the moaning wind seemed to speak a solemn and piteous warning to him. He rose and drew aside the window-curtains. The dim and struggling dawn had just begun to win its hard-fought way through the dense masses of fast-rolling clouds, which rushed onwards to oppose its progress. For one moment he felt freshened, as he exposed his burning brow to the driving rain. Looking forth, he beheld at his own door, a houseless mendicant, with a child in her arms, crouching for shelter; and as he dropt a coin into her hand, he thought, “Poor wretch! your sorrows are not of your own devising. One ought to be thankful, that neither oneself, nor a beloved one, is exposed to such a night as this.”

He had hardly again closed the window, when a noise was heard below, and Carter, who had been staying with him lately, rushed into the room, evidently endeavouring, but in vain, through his consternation and distress, so to collect himself, as to be able to break to his patron some dreadful news.

“O my Lord! prepare for the worst. My Lady!—they’re bringing her here!—but it’s all over.”

Before he could at all relieve Castleton’s agonizing suspense, the frantic figure of George stood before them; his eyes staring wildly, and his drenched appearance showing from whence he had just emerged.

“She’s dead!—she’s dead! You’ll look your last on her now; and cursed be the hour when you first beheld her!”

“Hold, man!” said Carter; “respect his feelings.”

“His feelings! what were his feelings for her compared with mine? Who was it, who, in the moment of danger was present, to struggle for her safety? He who had sworn to love, honour, and protect her, or her despised and neglected cousin?”

The agony of Castleton, as the truth broke upon him, was too intense for utterance, and prevented interruption; George, therefore, proceeded half raving, “But for that hideous breaker which forced us asunder, she might still have been saved. I stretched forth my hand to renew my protecting hold, and this met my gripe, and snapped within it,” putting his hand into his breast, and producing the gold chain and little watch before referred to;—“your first fatal gift;” and with that recollection, he raised it in his hand furiously, as if preparing to dash it to the ground; but checking himself, he added, “No; it was her last thought, the last request she made!” and, kissing it solemnly, he placed it on the table before Castleton. “Once more I felt that I had her safe. In vain the breakers a second time strove to separate us; or, perhaps they only roared in mockery at my reviving hopes. I rushed through the surf, as I thought in triumph;—she was already dead!”

The mournful procession now arrived, bearing in a litter the lifeless form of Lucy. There was on her no trace of death, beyond the mere absence of life. Placid, as still in sleep, she lay without as yet the paleness of a corpse; no disorder in her appearance, except the streaming locks of her long fair hair, which, darkened and clotted with moisture, hung in tangled masses over her features. There was no symptom of a struggle on her part; but it seemed rather as if, trusting, under Providence, to the efforts of him who would have saved her if he could, she yielded her spirit to the issue; those lips, through which might never more pass the slightest breath to stir a feather, or dull a mirror, were calmly closed, not forcibly compressed: the expression of her whole countenance was perfect repose.

As they, who had brought her into the presence of her husband, deposited their burthen, one arm dropped from her side, and hung stiffly down to the ground. Castleton earnestly regarded it: there was the hand on which he had placed the wedding-ring; and, as he pressed it between his, already cold and clammy as it was, the idea that first roused him from his stupor into which the sudden shock had plunged him was, that she might yet be saved; such things had been done before.

With wonderful precision he gave the requisite orders for attempting to restore animation. George, who had for some time remained silent, on hearing this, cried out with a bitter smile, “As if I would have left her for a moment, had I not too surely known that there was no longer such a chance.”

He was right: after many hours’ useless endeavours, all were obliged to own that their efforts were vain.

George had, in the mean time, been in the first paroxysms of a brain fever; through all the stages of which Castleton attended him with the affectionate care of a brother; and when he was pronounced out of danger, prepared to follow the corpse of poor Lucy to Somersby, where she was to be interred in the family vault. As the orders which Castleton had in his first despair given, that every possible honour should be paid to her remains, were to be acted on by interested parties, they had been too extravagantly fulfilled; and though, in the stupor of grief, the chief mourner was as unconscious of any of the surrounding splendours, as the corpse in whose honour they were collected, yet she, to whom in life pomp had been her only bane, was borne unconsciously along with princely and almost unparalleled pageantry.

Castleton’s first care, upon somewhat recovering his composure, was to exert all his influence to advance George in his profession. In his wishes to serve the farmer and his sister, though equally sincere, he was not equally successful. Nothing could persuade them to leave Bankside, where they remained together, still mourning their bereavement.

As to Castleton himself, I have too much respect for the intensity of his present grief, aggravated in his case by bitter feelings of self-reproach, to anticipate the date when that elasticity of spirit, which is the never-failing attribute of the human mind, shall have enabled him to struggle with his present depression, and imparting its buoyancy, as it will do whenever the heart’s core has not been completely crushed, shall, with the assistance of time, have triumphed over mortal sorrow.

THE END.

LONDON:

IBOTSON AND PALMER, PRINTERS, SAVOY STREET, STRAND.

Transcriber’s Note:

A simple table of contents was added for the convenience of users. Words may have multiple spelling variations or inconsistent hyphenation in the text. These were left unchanged, as were jargon, dialect, obsolete and alternative spellings. Ten misspelled words were corrected. The word ‘to’ was added to “... sit next [to] Lady ...”

Obvious printing errors, such as backwards, upside down, reversed, or partially printed letters and punctuation, were corrected. Final stops missing at the end of sentences and abbreviations were added. Duplicate letters or words at line endings were removed.

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Table of Contents

THE CONTRAST,

THE CONTRAST.

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER VI.

CHAPTER VII.

CHAPTER VIII.

CHAPTER IX.

CHAPTER X.

CHAPTER XI.

CHAPTER XII.

CHAPTER XIII.

CHAPTER XIV.

CHAPTER XV.

CHAPTER XVI.

CHAPTER XVII.

Transcriber’s Note:

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