CHAPTER IX.
Late one night in June two gentlemen arrived at
the Villa Hotel of the Baths of Lucca. They stopped
the low britzka in which they travelled, and, leaving
a servant to make arrangements for their lodging,
linked arms and strolled up the road toward the banks
of the Lima. The moon was chequered at the moment
with the poised leaf of a treetop, and as it passed
from her face, she arose and stood alone in the
steel-blue of the unclouded heavens—a luminous and
tremulous plate of gold. And you know how beautiful
must have been the night, a June night in Italy,
with a moon at the full!
A lady, with a servant following her at a little distance,
passed the travellers on the bridge of the Lima.
She dropped her veil and went by in silence. But
the Freyherr felt the arm of his friend tremble within
his own.
“Do you know her, then?” asked Von Leisten.
“By the thrill in my veins we have met before,”
said Clay; “but whether this involuntary sensation
was pleasurable or painful, I have not yet decided.
There are none I care to meet—none who can be
here.” He added the last few words after a moment's
pause, and sadly.
They walked on in silence to the base of the mountain,
busy each with such coloring as the moonlight
threw on their thoughts, but neither of them was
happy.
Clay was humane, and a lover of nature—a poet,
that is to say—and, in a world so beautiful, could never
be a prey to disgust; but he was satiated with the
common emotions of life. His heart, for ever overflowing,
had filled many a cup with love, but with
strange tenacity he turned back for ever to the first.
He was weary of the beginnings of love—weary of
its probations and changes. He had passed the period
of life when inconstancy was tempting. He
longed now for an affection that would continue into
another world—holy and pure enough to pass a gate
guarded by angels. And his first love—recklessly as
he had thrown it away—was now the thirst of his existence.
It was two o'clock at night. The moon lay broad
upon the southern balconies of the hotel, and every
casement was open to its luminous and fragrant stillness.
Clay and the Freyherr Von Leisten, each in
his apartment, were awake, unwilling to lose the luxury
of the night. And there was one other under
that roof waking, with her eyes fixed on the moon.
As Clay leaned his head on his hand, and looked
outward to the sky, his heart began to be troubled.
There was a point in the path of the moon's rays
where his spirit turned back. There was an influence
abroad in the dissolving moonlight around him which
resistessly awakened the past—the sealed but unforgotten
past. He could not single out the emotion. He
knew not whether it was fear or hope—pain or pleasure.
He called, through the open window, to Von Leisten.
The Freyherr, like himself, and like all who have
outlived the effervescence of life, was enamored of the
night. A moment of unfathomable moonlight was
dearer to him than hours disenchanted with the sun.
He, too, had been looking outward and upward—but
with no trouble at his heart.
“The night is inconceivably sweet,” he said, as he
entered, “and your voice called in my thought and
sense from the intoxication of a revel. What would
you, my friend?”
“I am restless, Von Leisten! There is some one
near us whose glances cross mine on the moonlight,
and agitate and perplex me. Yet there was but one
on earth deep enough in the life-blood of my being
to move me thus—even were she here! And she is
not here!”
His voice trembled and softened, and the last word
was scarce audible on his closing lips, for the Freyherr
had passed his hands over him while he spoke,
and he had fallen into the trance of the spirit-world.
Clay and Von Leisten had retired from the active
passions of life together, and had met and mingled at
that moment of void and thirst when each supplied
the want of the other. The Freyherr was a German
noble, of a character passionately poetic, and of singular
acquirement in the mystic fields of knowledge.
Too wealthy to need labor, and too proud to submit
his thoughts or his attainments to the criticism or
judgment of the world, he lavished on his own life, and
on those linked to him in friendship, the strange powers
he had acquired, and the prodigal overthrow of his
daily thought and feeling. Clay was his superior,
perhaps, in genius, and necessity had driven him to
develop the type of his inner soul, and leave its impress
on the time. But he was inferior to Von Leisten
in the power of will, and he lay in his control like
a child in its mother's. Four years they had passed
together, much of it in the secluded castle of Von
Leisten, busied with the occult studies to which the
Freyherr was secretly devoted; but travelling down
to Italy to meet the luxurious summer, and dividing
their lives between the enjoyment of nature and the
ideal world they had unlocked. Von Leisten had
lost, by death, the human altar on which his heart
could alone burn the incense of love; and Clay had
flung aside in an hour of intoxicating passion the one
pure affection in which his happiness was sealed—
and both were desolate. But in the world of the
past, Von Leisten, though more irrevocably lonely,
was more tranquilly blest.
The Freyherr released he entranced spirit of his
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friend, and bade him follow back the rays of the moon
to the source of his agitation.
A smile crept slowly over the speaker's lips.
In an apartment flooded with the silver lustre of the
night, reclined, in an invalid's chair, propped with pillows,
a woman of singular, though most fragile beauty.
Books and music lay strewn around, and a lamp, subdued
to the tone of the moonlight by an orb of alabaster,
burned beside her. She lay bathing her blue
eyes in the round chalice of the moon. A profusion
of brown ringlets fell over the white dress that enveloped
her, and her oval cheek lay supported on the
palm of her hand, and her bright red lips were parted.
The pure, yet passionate spell of that soft night possessed
her.
Over her leaned the disembodied spirit of him who
had once loved her—praying to God that his soul
might be so purified as to mingle unstartingly, unrepulsively,
in hallowed harmony with hers. And presently
he felt the coming of angels toward him, breathing
into the deepest abysses of his existence a tearful
and purifying sadness. And with a trembling aspiration
of grateful humility to his Maker, he stooped to
her forehead, and with his impalpable lips impressed
upon its snowy tablet a kiss.
It seemed to Eve Gore a thought of the past that
brought the blood suddenly to her cheek. She started
from her reclining position, and, removing the obscuring
shade from her lamp, arose and crossed her hands
upon her wrists, and paced thoughtfully to and fro.
Her lips murmured marticulately. But the thought,
painfully though it came, changed unaccountably to
melancholy sweetness; and, subduing her lamp again,
she resumed her steadfast gaze upon the moon.
Ernest knelt beside her, and with his invisible brow
bowed upon her hand, poured forth, in the voiceless
language of the soul, his memories of the past, his
hope, his repentance, his pure and passionate adoration
at the present hour.
And thinking she had been in a sweet dream, yet
wondering at its truthfulness and power, Eve wept,
silently and long. As the morning touched the east,
slumber weighed upon her moistened eyelids, and
kneeling by her bedside she murmured her gratitude
to God for a heart relieved of a burden long borne,
and so went peacefully to her sleep.
It was in the following year, and in the beginning
of May. The gay world of England was concentrated
in London, and at the entertainments of noble
houses there were many beautiful women and many
marked men. The Freyherr Von Leisten, after
years of absence, had appeared again, his mysterious
and andeniable superiority of mien and influence
again yielded to, as before, and again bringing to his
feet the homage and deference of the crowd he moved
among. To his inscrutable power the game of society
was easy, and he walked where he would through
its barriers of form.
He stood one night looking on at a dance. A lady
of a noble air was near him, and both were watching
the movements of the loveliest woman present, a creature
in radiant health, apparently about twenty-three,
and of matchless fascination of person and manner.
Von Leisten turned to the lady near him to inquire
her name, but his attention was arrested by the re
semblance between her and the object of his admiring
curiosity, and he was silent.
The lady had bowed before he withdrew his gaze,
however.
“I think we have met before!” she said; but at
the next instant a slight flush of displeasure came to her
cheek, and she seemed regretting that she had spoken.
“Pardon me!” said Von Leisten, “but—if the
question be not rude—do you remember where?”
She hesitated a moment.
“I have recalled it since I have spoken,” she continued;
“but as the remembrance of the person who
accompanied you always gives me pain. I would willingly
have unsaid it. One evening of last year, crossing
the bridge of the Lima, you were walking with
Mr. Clay. Pardon me—but, though I left Lucca
with my daughter on the following morning, and saw
you no more, the association, or your appearance,
had imprinted the circumstance on my mind.”
“And is that Eve Gore?” said Von Leisten, musingly,
gazing on the beautiful creature now gliding
with light step to her mother's side.
But the Freyherr's heart was gone to his friend.
As the burst of the waltz broke in upon the closing
of the quadrille, he offered his hand to the fair girl,
and as they moved round to the entrancing music, he
murmured in her ear, “He who came to you in the
moonlight of Italy will be with you again, if you are
alone, at the rising of to-night's late moon. Believe
the voice that then speaks to you!”
It was with implacable determination that Mrs.
Gore refused, to the entreaties of Von Leisten, a renewal
of Clay's acquaintance with her daughter.
Resentment for the apparent recklessness with which
he had once sacrificed her maiden love for an unlawful
passion—scornful unbelief of any change in his
character—distrust of the future tendency of the
powers of his genius—all mingled together in a hostility
proof against persuasion. She had expressed
this with all the positiveness of language, when her
daughter suddenly entered the room. It was the
morning after the ball, and she had risen late. But
though subdued and pensive in her air, Von Leisten
saw at a glance that she was happy.
“Can you bring him to me?” said Eve, letting her
hand remain in Von Leisten's, and bending her deep
blue eyes inquiringly on his.
And with no argument but tears and caresses, and
an unexplained assurance of her conviction of the repentant
purity and love of him to whom her heart
was once given, the confiding and strong-hearted
girl bent, at last, the stern will that forbade her happiness.
Her mother unclasped the slight arms from her
neck, and gave her hand in silent consent to Von Leisten.
The Freyherr stood a moment with his eyes fixed
on the ground. The color fled from his cheeks, and
his brow moistened.
“I have called him,” he said—“he will be here!”
An hour elapsed, and Clay entered the house. He
had risen from a bed of sickness, and came, pale and
in terror—for the spirit-summons was powerful. But
Von Leisten welcomed him at the door with a smile,
and withdrew the mother from the room, and left Ernest
alone with his future bride—the first union, save
in spirit, after years of separation.
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I introduce you at once to the Marquis de la Chetardie—
a diplomatist who figured largely in the gay
age of Louis XV.—and the story is but one of the
illuminated pages of the dark book of diplomacy.
Charles de la Chetardie appeared for the first time
to the eyes of the king at a masquerade ball, given at
Versailles, under the auspices of la belle Pompadour.
He was dressed as a young lady of high rank, making
her début and, so perfect was his acting, and the deception
altogether, that Louis became enamored
of the disguised marquis, and violently excited the
jealousy of “Madame,” by his amorous attentions.
An eclaircissement, of course, took place, and the result
was a great partiality for the marquis's society,
and his subsequent employment, in and out of petticoats,
in many a scheme of state diplomacy and royal
amusement.
La Chetardie was at this time just eighteen. He
was very slight, and had remarkably small hands and
feet, and the radiant fairness of his skin and the luxuriant
softness of his profuse chestnut curls, might
justly have been the envy of the most delicate woman.
He was, at first, subjected to some ridicule for his
effeminacy, but the merry courtiers were soon made
aware, that, under this velvet fragility lay concealed
the strength and ferocity of the tiger. The grasp of
his small hand was like an iron vice, and his singular
activity, and the cool courage which afterward gave
him a brilliant career on the battle-field, established
him, in a very short time, as the most formidable
swordsman of the court. His ferocity, however, lay
deeply concealed in his character, and, unprovoked,
he was the gayest and most brilliant of merry companions.
This was the age of occult and treacherous diplomacy,
and the court of Russia, where Louis would
fain have exercised an influence (private as well as political
in its results), was guarded by an implacable
Argus, in the person of the prime minister, Bestucheff.
Aided by Sir Hambury Williams, the English ambassador,
one of the craftiest men of that crafty period, he
had succeeded for some years in defeating every attempt
at access to the imperial ear by the secret emissaries
of France. The sudden appearance of La
Chetardie, his cool self-command, and his successful
personation of a female, suggested a new hope to the
king, however; and, called to Versailles by royal mandate,
the young marquis was taken into cabinet confidence,
and a secret mission to St. Petersburgh, in
petticoats, proposed to him and accepted.
With his instructions and secret despatches stitched
into his corsets, and under the ostensible protection of
a scientific man, who was to present him to the tzarine
as a Mademoiselle de Beaumont, desirous of entering
the service of Elizabeth, the marquis reached St. Petersburg
without accident or adventure. The young
lady's guardian requested an audience through Bestucheff,
and having delivered the open letters recommending
her for her accomplishments to the imperial
protection, he begged leave to continue on his scientific
tour to the central regions of Russia.
Congé was immediately granted, and on the disappearance
of the savant, and before the departure of
Bestucheff, the tzarine threw off all ceremony, and
piuching the cheeks and imprinting a kiss on the fore
head of the beautiful stranger, appointed her, by one
of those sudden whims of preference against which
her ministers had so much trouble to guard, lectrice
intime et particulière—in short, confidential personal
attendant. The blushes of the confused marquis, who
was unprepared for so affectionate a reception, served
rather to heighten the disguise, and old Bestucheff
bowed himself out with a compliment to the beauty
of Mademoiselle de Beaumont, veiled in a diplomatic
congratulation to her imperial mistress.
Elizabeth was forty and a little passée, but she still
had pretensions, and was particularly fond of beauty
in her attendants, female as well as male. Her favorite,
of her personal suite, at the time of the arrival of
the marquis, was an exquisite little creature who had
been sent to her, as a compliment to this particular
taste, by the Dutchess of Mecklenberg-Strelitz—a kind
of German “Fenella,” or “Mignon,” by the name of
Nadége Stein. Not much below the middle size,
Nadége was a model of symmetrical proportion, and
of very extraordinary beauty. She had been carefully
educated for her present situation, and was highly
accomplished; a fine reader, and a singularly sweet
musician and dancer. The tzarine's passion for this
lovely attendant was excessive, and the arrival of a new
favorite of the same sex was looked upon with some
pleasure by the eclipsed remainder of the palace
idlers.
Elizabeth summoned Nadége, and committed Mademoiselle
de Beaumont temporarily to her charge;
but the same mysterious magnetism which had reached
the heart of the tzarine, seemed to kindle, quite as
promptly, the affections of her attendant. Nadége
was no sooner alone with her new friend, than she
jumped to her neck, smothered her with kisses, called
her by every endearing epithet, and overwhelmed her
with questions, mingled with the most childlike exclamations
of wonder at her own inexplicable love for
a stranger. In an hour, she had shown to the new
demoiselle all the contents of the little boudoir in which
she lived; talked to her of her loves and hates at the
Russian court; of her home in Mecklenberg, and her
present situation—in short, poured out her heart with
the naif abandon of a child. The young marquis had
never seen so lovely a creature; and, responsibly as he
felt his difficult and delicate situation, he returned the
affection so innocently lavished upon him, and by the
end of this first fatal hour, was irrecoverably in love.
And, gay as his life had been at the French court, it
was the first, and subsequently proved to be the deepest,
passion of his life.
On the tzarine's return to her private apartment, she
summoned her new favorite, and superintended, with
condescending solicitude, the arrangements for her
palace lodging. Nadége inhabited a small tower adjoining
the bedroom of her mistress, and above this
was an unoccupied room, which, at the present suggestion
of the fairy little attendant, was allotted to the
new-comer. The staircase opened by one door into
the private gardens, and by the opposite, into the corridor
leading immediately to the imperial chamber.
The marquis's delicacy would fain have made some
objection to this very intimate location; but he could
hazard nothing against the interests of his sovereign,
and he trusted to a speedy termination of his disguise
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with the attainment of his object. Meantime, the
close neighborhood of the fair Nadége was not the
most intolerable of necessities.
The marquis's task was a very difficult one. He
was instructed, before abandoning his disguise and delivering
his secret despatches, to awaken the interest
of the tzarine on the two subjects to which the documents
had reference: viz., a former partiality of her
majesty for Louis, and a formerly discussed project of
seating the Prince de Conti on the throne of Poland.
Bestucheff had so long succeeded in cutting off all
approach of these topics to the ear of the tzarine, that
her majesty had probably forgotten them altogether.
Weeks passed, and the opportunities to broach these
delicate subjects had been inauspiciously rare. Mademoiselle
de Beaumont, it is true, had completely
eclipsed the favorite Nadége; and Elizabeth, in her
hours of relaxation from state affairs, exacted the constant
attendance of the new favorite in her private
apartments. But the almost constant presence of
some other of the maids of honor, opposed continual
obstacles and interruptions, and the tzarine herself
was not always disposed to talk of matters more serious
than the current trifles of the hour. She was
extremely indolent in her personal habits; and often
reclining at length upon cushions on the floor of her
boudoir, she laid her imperial head in the lap of the
embarrassed demoiselle, and was soothed to sleep by
reading and the bathing of her temples. And during
this period, she exacted frequently of the marquis, with
a kind of instinctive mistrust, promises of continuance
for life in her personal service.
But there were sweeter hours for the enamored La
Chetardie than those passed in the presence of his
partial and imperial mistress. Encircled by sentinels,
and guarded from all intrusion of other eyes, in the
inviolable sanctuary of royalty, the beautiful Nadége,
impassioned she knew not why, in her love for her
new companion, was ever within call, and happy in
devoting to him all her faculties of caressing endearment.
He had not yet dared to risk the interests of
his sovereign by a disclosure of his sex, even in the
confidence of love. He could not trust Nadége to
play so difficult a part as that of possessor of so embarrassing
a secret in the presence of the shrewd and
observing tzarine. A betrayal, too, would at once put
an end to his happiness. With the slight arm of the
fair and relying creature about his waist, and her head
pressed close against his breast, they passed the balmy
nights of the Russian summer in pacing the flowery
alleys of the imperial garden, discoursing, with but
one reserve, on every subject that floated to their lips.
It required, however, all the self-control of La Chetardie,
and all the favoring darkness of the night, to conceal
his smiles at the naive confessions of the unconscious
girl, and her wonderings at the peculiarity of her
feelings. She had thought, hitherto, that there were
affections in her nature which could only be called forth
by a lover. Yet now, the thought of caressing another
than her friend—of repeating to any human ear, least
of all to a man, those new-born vows of love—filled
her with alarm and horror. She felt that she had
given her heart irrevocably away—and to a woman!
Ah, with what delirious, though silent passion, La
Chetardie drew her to his bosom, and, with the pressure
of his lips upon hers, interrupted those sweet
confessions!
Yet the time at last drew near for the waking from
this celestial dream. The disguised diplomatist had
found his opportunity, and had successfully awakened
in Elizabeth's mind both curiosity and interest as to
the subjects of the despatches still sewed safely in his
corsets. There remained nothing for him now but to
seize a favorable opportunity, and, with the delivery
of his missives, to declare his sex to the tzarine. There
was risk to life and liberty in this, but the marquis
knew not fear, and he thought but of its consequences
to his love.
In La Chetardie's last interview with the savant who
conducted him to Russia, his male attire had been
successfully transferred from one portmanteau to the
other, and it was now in his possession, ready for the
moment of need. With his plans brought to within a
single night of the dénouement, he parted from the
tzarine, having asked the imperial permission for an
hour's private interview on the morrow, and, with gentle
force excluding Nadége from his apartment, he
dressed himself in his proper costume, and cut open
the warm envelope of his despatches. This done, he
threw his cloak over him, and, with a dark lantern in
his hand, sought Nadége in the garden. He had determined
to disclose himself to her, renew his vows of
love in his proper guise, and arrange, while he had
access and opportunity, some means for uniting their
destinies hereafter.
As he opened the door of the turret, Nadége flew
up the stair to meet him, and observing the cloak in
the faint glimmer of the stars, she playfully endeavored
to envelope herself in it. But, seizing her hands,
La Chetardie turned and glided backward, drawing
her after him toward a small pavilion in the remoter
part of the garden. Here they had never been interrupted,
the empress alone having the power to intrude
upon them, and La Chetardie felt safe in devoting this
place and time to the double disclosure of his secret
and his suppressed passion.
Persuading her with difficulty to desist from putting
her arms about him and sit down without a caress, he
retreated a few steps, and in the darkness of the pavilion,
shook down his imprisoned locks to their masculine
abandon, threw off his cloak, and drew up the
blind of his lantern. The scream of surprise, which
instantly parted from the lips of Nadége, made him
regret his imprudence in not having prepared her for
the transformation, but her second thought was mirth,
for she could believe it of course to be nothing but a
playful masquerade; and with delighted laughter she
sprang to his neck, and overwhelmed him with her
kisses—another voice, however, joining very unexpectedly
in the laughter!
The empress stood before them!
For an instant, with all his self-possession, La Chetardie
was confounded and dismayed. Siberia, the
knout, the scaffold, flitted before his eyes, and Nadége
was the sufferer! But a glance at the face of the
tzarine reassured him. She, too, took it for a girlish
masquerade!
But the empress, unfortunately, was not disposed to
have a partner in her enjoyment of the society of this
new apparition of “hose and doublet.” She ordered
Nadége to her turret, with one of those petulant commands
which her attendants understood to admit of no
delay, and while the eclipsed favorite disappeared with
the tears of unwilling submission in her soft eyes, La
Chetardie looked after her with the anguish of eternal
separation at his heart, for a presentiment crowded
irresistibly upon him that he should never see her
more!
The empress was in slippers and robe de nuit, and,
as if fate had determined that this well-kept secret
should not survive the hour, her majesty laid her arm
within that of her supposed masquerader, and led the
way to the palace. She was wakeful, and wished to
be read to sleep. And, with many a compliment to
the beauty of her favorite in male attire, and many a
playful caress, she arrived at the door of her chamber.
But the marquis could go no farther. He had hitherto
been spared the embarrassment of passing this
sacred threshold, for the passée empress had secrets
of toilet for the embellishment of her person, which
she trusted only to the eyes of an antiquated attendant.
La Chetardie had never passed beyond the
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bondoir which was between the antechamber and the bedroom,
and the time had come for the disclosure of his
secret. He fell on his knees and announced himself
a man!
Fortunately they were alone. Incredulous at first,
the empress listened to his asseverations, however,
with more amusement than displeasure, and the immediate
delivery of the despatches, with the commendations
of the disguised ambassador by his royal master
to the forgiveness and kindness of the empress,
amply secured his pardon. But it was on condition
that he should resume his disguise and remain in her
service.
Alone in his tower (for Nadége had disappeared, and
he knew enough of the cruelty of Elizabeth to dread
the consequences to the poor girl of venturing on direct
inquiries as to her fate). La Chetardie after a few
weeks fell ill; and fortunate, even at this price, to
escape from the silken fetters of the enamored tzarine,
he departed under the care of the imperial physician,
for the more genial climate of France—not without
reiterated promises of return, however, and offers, in
that event, of unlimited wealth and advancement.
But, as the marquis made his way slowly toward
Vienna, a gleam of light dawned on his sadness.
The Princess Sophia Charlotte was newly affianced to
George the Third of England, and this daughter of
the house of Mecklenberg had been the playmate of
Nadége Stein, from infancy till the time when Nadége
was sent to the tzarine by the Dutchess of Mecklenberg.
Making a confidant of the kind physician who
accompanied him, La Chetardie was confirmed, by the
good man's better experience and knowledge, in the
belief that Nadége had shared the same fate of every
female of the court who had ever awakened the jealousy
of the empress. She was doubtless exiled to
Siberia; but, as she had committed no voluntary fault,
it was probably without other punishment; and, with
a playmate on the throne of England, she might be
demanded and recovered ere long, in all her freshness
and beauty. Yet the recent fate of the fair Eudoxie
Lapoukin, who, for an offence but little more distasteful
to the tzarine, had been pierced through the tongue
with hot iron, whipped with the knout, and exiled for
life to Siberia, hung like a cloud of evil augury over
his mind.
The marquis suddenly determined that he would see
the affianced princess, and plead with her for her friend,
before the splendors of a throne should make her inaccessible.
The excitement of this hope had given
him new life, and he easily persuaded his attendant, as
they entered the gates of Vienna, that he required his
attendance no farther. Alone with his own servants,
he resumed his female attire, and directed his course
to Mecklenberg-Strelitz.
The princess had maintained an intimate correspondence
with her playmate up to the time of her
betrothal, and the name of Mademoiselle de Beaumont
was passport enough. La Chetardie had sent
forward his servant, on arriving at the town, in the
neighborhood of the ducal residence, and the reply
to his missive was brought back by one of the officers
in attendance, with orders to conduct the demoiselle
to apartments in the castle. He was received with all
honor at the palace-gate by a chamberlain in waiting,
who led the way to a suite of rooms adjoining those
of the princess, where, after being left alone for a few
minutes, he was familiarly visited by the betrothed
girl, and overwhelmed, as formerly by her friend, with
most embarrassing caresses. In the next moment,
however, the door was hastily flung open, and Nadége,
like a stream of light, fled through the room, hung
upon the neck of the speechless and overjoyed marquis,
and ended with convulsions of mingled tears and
laughter. The moment that he could disengage himself
from her arms, La Chetardie requested to be left
for a moment alone. He felt the danger and impropriety
of longer maintaining his disguise. He closed
his door on the unwilling demoiselles, hastily changed
his dress, and, with his sword at his side, entered the
adjoining reception-room of the princess, where Mademoiselle
de Beaumont was impatiently awaited.
The scene which followed, the mingled confusion
and joy of Nadége, the subsequent hilarity and masquerading
at the castle, and the particulars of the
marriage of the Marquis de la Chetardie to his fair
fellow maid-of-honor, must be left to the reader's imagination.
We have room only to explain the reappearance
of Nadége at Mecklenberg.
Nadége retired to her turret at the imperative command
of the empress, sad and troubled; but waited
wakefully and anxiously for the re-entrance of her disguised
companion. In the course of an hour, however,
the sound of a sentinel's musket, set down at her
door, informed her that she was a prisoner. She knew
Elizabeth, and the Dutchess of Mecklenberg, with an
equal knowledge of the tzarine's character, had provided
her with a resource against the imperial cruelty,
should she have occasion to use it. She crept to the
battlements of the tower, and fastened a handkerchief
to the side looking over the public square.
The following morning, at daylight, Nadége was
summoned to prepare for a journey, and, in an hour,
she was led between soldiers to a carriage at the palace-gate,
and departed by the northern egress of the
city, with a guard of three mounted cossacks. In two
hours from that time, the carriage was overtaken, the
guard overpowered, and the horses' heads turned in
the direction of Moscow. After many difficulties and
dangers, during which she found herself under the
charge of a Mecklenbergian officer in the service of
the tzarine, she reached Vienna in safety, and was immediately
concealed by her friends in the neighborhood
of the palace at Mecklenberg, to remain hidden
till inquiry should be over. The arrival of Mademoiselle
de Beaumont, for the loss of whose life or liberty
she had incessantly wept with dread and apprehension,
was joyfully communicated to her by her friends; and
so the reader knows some of the passages in the early
life of the far-famed beauty in the French court in
the time of Louis XV.—the Marchioness de la Chetardie.
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“That man i' the world who shall report he has
A better wife, let him in naught be trusted
For speaking false in that.”
—Henry VIII.
[figure description] Page 272.[end figure description]
I have always been very fond of the society of
portrait-painters. Whether it is, that the pursuit of
a beautiful and liberal art softens their natural qualities,
or that, from the habit of conversing while engrossed
with the pencil, they like best that touch-and-go
talk which takes care of itself; or, more probably
still, whether the freedom with which they are admitted
behind the curtains of vanity and affection gives
a certain freshness and truth to their views of things
around them—certain it is, that, in all countries, their
rooms are the most agreeable of haunts, and they
themselves most enjoyable of cronies.
I had chanced in Italy to make the acquaintance of
S—, an English artist of considerable cleverness
in his profession, but more remarkable for his frank
good breeding and his abundant good nature. Four
years after, I had the pleasure of renewing my intercourse
with him in London, where he was flourishing,
quite up to his deserving, as a portrait-painter. His
rooms were hard by one of the principal thoroughfares,
and, from making an occasional visit, I grew to
frequenting them daily, often joining him at his early
breakfast, and often taking him out with me to drive
whenever we changed to tire of our twilight stroll.
While rambling in Hyde Park, one evening, I mentioned
for the twentieth time, a singularly ill-assorted
couple I had once or twice met at his room—a woman
of superb beauty attended by a very inferior-looking
and ill-dressed man. S— had, previously, with
a smile at my speculations, dismissed the subject
rather crisply; but, on this occasion, I went into some
surmises as to the probable results of such “pairing
without matching,” and he either felt called upon to
defend the lady, or made my misapprehension of her
character an excuse for telling me what he knew about
her. He began the story in the Park, and ended it
over a bottle of wine in the Haymarket—of course
with many interruptions and digressions. Let me see
if I can tie his broken threads together.
“That lady is Mrs. Fortescue Titton, and the
gentleman you so much disparage is, if you please,
the incumbrance to ten thousand a year—the money
as much at her service as the husband by whom she
gets it. Whether he could have won her had he been
“Bereft and gelded of his patrimony,”
I will not assert, especially to one who looks on them
as `Beauty and the Beast;' but that she loves him,
or at least prefers to him no handsomer man, I may
say I have been brought to believe, in the way of my
profession.”
“You have painted her, then?” I asked rather
eagerly, thinking I might get a sketch of her face to
take with me to another country.
“No, but I have painted him—and for her—and it
is not a case of Titania and Bottom, either. She is
quite aware he is a monster, and wanted his picture
for a reason you would never divine. But I must begin
at the beginning.
“After you left me in Italy, I was employed by the
earl of —, to copy one or two of his favorite
pictures in the Vatican, and that brought me rather
well acquainted with his son. Lord George was a gay
youth, and a very `look-and-die' style of fellow, and,
as much from admiration of his beauty as anything
else, I asked him to sit to me, on our return to London.
I painted him very fantastically in an Albanian
cap and oriental morning-gown and slippers, smoking
a narghile—the room in which he sat, by the way,
being a correct portrait of his own den, a perfect
museum of costly luxury. It was a pretty gorgeous
turn-out in the way of color, and was severely criticised,
but still a good deal noticed—for I sent it to the exhibition.
“I was one day going into Somerset-house, when
Lord George hailed me from his cab. He wished to
suggest some alteration in his picture, or to tell me
of some criticism upon it, I forget exactly what; but
we went up together. Directly before the portrait,
gazing at it with marked abstraction, stood a beautiful
woman, quite alone; and as she occupied the only
point where the light was favorable, we waited a moment
till she should pass on—Lord George, of course,
rather disposed to shrink from being recognised as the
original. The woman's interest in the picture seemed
rather to increase, however, and what with variations
of the posture of her head, and pulling at her glove
fingers, and other female indications of restlessness
and enthusiasm, I thought I was doing her no injustice
by turning to my companion with a congratulatory
smile.
“`It seems a case, by Jove!' said Lord George, trying
to look as if it was a matter of very simple occurrence;
`and she's as fine a creature as I've seen this
season! Eh, old boy? we must run her down, and
see where she burrows—and there's nobody with her,
by good luck!'
“A party entered just then, and passed between her
and the picture. She looked annoyed, I thought, but
started forward and borrowed a catalogue of a little
girl, and we could see that she turned to the last page,
on which the portrait was numbered, with, of course,
the name and address of the painter. She made a
memorandum on one of her cards, and left the house.
Lord George followed, and I too, as far as the door,
where I saw her get into a very stylishly appointed
carriage and drive away, followed closely by the cab
of my friend, whom I had declined to accompany.
“You wouldn't have given very heavy odds against
his chance, would you?” said S—, after a moment
pause.
“No, indeed!” I answered quite sincerely.
“Well, I was at work, the next morning, glazing a
picture I had just finished, when the servant brought
up the card of Mrs. Fortescue Titton. I chanced to
be alone, so the lady was shown at once into my painting
room, and lo! the incognita of Somerset-House.
The plot thickens, thought I! She sat down in my
`subject' chair, and, faith! her beauty quite dazzled
me! Her first smile—but you have seen her, so I'll
not bore you with a description.
“Mrs. Titton blushed on opening her errand to me,
first inquiring if I was the painter of `No 403' in the
exhibition, and saying some very civil things about the
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[figure description] Page 273.[end figure description]
picture. I mentioned that it was a portrait of Lord
George — (for his name was not in the catalogue),
and I thought she blushed still more confusedly—
but that, I think now, was fancy, or at any rate had
nothing to do with feeling for his lordship. It was
natural enough for me to be mistaken, for she was very
particular in her inquiries as to the costume, furniture,
and little belongings of the picture, and asked me
among other things, whether it was a flattered likeness;—
this last question very pointedly, too!
“She arose to go. Was I at leisure, and could I
sketch a head for her, and when?
“I appointed the next day, expecting of course that
the subject was the lady herself, and scarcely slept
with thinking of it, and starved myself at breakfast to
have a clear eye, and a hand wide awake. And at
ten she came, with her Mr. Fortescue Titton! I was
sorry to see that she had a husband, for I had indulged
myself with a vague presentiment that she was a
widow; but I begged him to take a chair, and prepared
the platform for my beautiful subject.
“`Will you take your seat?' I asked, with all my
suavity, when my palette was ready.
“`My dear,' said she, turning to her husband, and
pointing to the chair, `Mr. S— is ready for you.'
“I begged pardon for a moment, crossed over to
Verey's and bolted a beef-steak! A cup of coffee, and
a glass of Curaçoa, and a little walk round Hanoversquare,
and I recovered from the shock a little. It
went very hard, I give you my word.
“I returned, and took a look, for the first time, at
Mr. Titton. You have seen him, and have some idea
of what his portrait might be, considered as a pleasure
to the artist—what it might promise, I should rather
say, for, after all, I ultimately enjoyed working at it,
quite aside from the presence of Mrs. Titton. It was
the ugliest face in the world, but full of good-nature;
and, as I looked closer into it, I saw, among its coarse
features, lines of almost feminine delicacy, and capabilities
of enthusiasm of which the man himself was
probably unconscious. Then a certain helpless style
of dress was a wet blanket to him. Rich from his
cradle, I suppose his qualities had never been needed
on the surface. His wife knew them.
“From time to time, as I worked, Mrs. Titton came
and looked over my shoulder. With a natural desire
to please her, I, here and there, softened a harsh line,
and was going on to flatter the likeness—not as successful
as I could wish, however, for it is much easier
to get a faithful likeness than to flatter without destroying
it.
“`Mr. S—,' said she, laying her hand on my
arm as I thinned away the lumpy rim of his nostril,
`I want, first, a literal copy of my husband's features.
Suppose, with this idea, you take a fresh canvass?'
“Thoroughly mystified by the whole business, I
did as she requested; and, in two sittings, made a
likeness of Titton which would have given you a faceache.
He shrugged his shoulders at it, and seemed
very glad when the bore of sitting was over; but they
seemed to understand each other very well, or, if not,
he reserved his questions till there could be no restraint
upon the answer. He seemed a capital fellow, and I
liked him exceedingly.
“I asked if I should frame the picture and send it
home? No! I was to do neither. If I would be kind
enough not to show it, nor to mention it to any one,
and come the next day and dine with them en famille,
Mrs. Titton would feel very much obliged to me.
And this dinner was followed up by breakfasts and
lunches and suppers, and, for a fortnight, I really lived
with the Tittons—and pleasanter people to live with,
by Jove, you haven't seen in your travels, though you
are `a picked man of countries!'
“I should mention, by the way, that I was always
placed opposite Titton at table, and that he was a good
deal with me, one way and another, taking me out, as
you do, for a stroll, calling and sitting with me when
I was at work, etc. And as to Mrs. Titton—if I did
not mistrust your arriere penseé, I would enlarge a
little on my intimacy with Mrs. Titton!—But, believe
me when I tell you, that, without a ray of flirtation,
we became as cozily intimate as brother and sister.”
“And what of Lord George, all this time?” I asked.
“Oh, Lord George!—Well, Lord George of course
had no difficulty in making Mrs. Titton's acquaintance,
though they were not quite in the same circle, and he
had been presented to her, and had seen her at a party
or two, where he managed to be invited on purpose—
but of this, for a while, I heard nothing. She had not
yet seen him at her own house, and I had not chanced
to encounter him. But let me go on with my story.
“Mrs. Titton sent for me to come to her, one
morning rather early. I found her in her boudoir, in
a negligé morning-dress, and looking adorably beautiful,
and as pure as beautiful, you smiling villain! She
seemed to have something on her mind about which she
was a little embarrassed, but I knew her too well to lay
any unction to my soul. We chatted about the weather
a few moments, and she came to the point. You will
see that she was a woman of some talent, mon ami!
“`Have you looked at my husband's portrait since
you finished it?' she asked.
“`No, indeed!' I replied rather hastily—but immediately
apologized.
“`Oh, if I had not been certain you would not,'
she said with a smile, `I should have requested it, for
I wished you to forget it, as far as possible. And now
let me tell you what I want of you! You have got,
on canvass, a likeness of Fortescue as the world sees
him. Since taking it, however, you have seen him
more intimately, and—and—like his face better, do
you not?'
“`Certainly! certainly!' I exclaimed, in all sincerity.
“`Thank you! If I mistake not, then, you do not,
when thinking of him, call up to your mind the
features in your portrait, but a face formed rather of
his good qualities, as you have learned to trace them
in his expression.'
“`True,' I said, `very true!'
“`Now, then,' she continued, leaning over to me
very earnestly, `I want you to paint a new picture,
and without departing from the real likeness, which
you will have to guide you, breathe into it the expression
you have in your ideal likeness. Add, to what
the world sees, what I see, what you see, what all who
love him see, in his plain features. Idealize it,
spiritualize it—and without lessening the resemblance.
Can this be done?'
“I thought it could. I promised to do my utmost.
“`I shall call and see you as you progress in it,'
she said, `and now, if you have nothing better to do,
stay to lunch, and come out with me in the carriage.
I want a little of your foreign taste in the selection of
some pretty nothings for a gentleman's toilet.'
“We passed the morning in making what I should
consider very extravagent purchases for anybody but
a prince royal, winding up with some delicious cabinet
pictures and some gems of statuary—all suited only,
I should say, to the apartments of a fastidious luxuriast.
I was not yet at the bottom of her secret.
“I went to work upon the new picture with the
zeal always given to an artist by an appreciative and
confiding employer. She called every day and made
important suggestions, and at last I finished it to her
satisfaction and mine; and, without speaking of it as
a work of art, I may give you my opinion that Titton
will scarcely be more embellished in the other world—
that is, if it be true, as the divines tell us, that our
mortal likeness will be so far preserved, though improved
upon, that we shall be recognisable by our
friends. Still I was to paint a third picture—a cabinet
-- 274 --
[figure description] Page 274.[end figure description]
full length—and for this the other two were but studies,
and so intended by Mrs. Fortescue Titton. It was
to be an improvement upon Lord George's portrait
(which of course had given her the idea), and was to
represent her husband in a very costly, and an exceedingly
recherché morning costume—dressing-gown,
slippers, waistcoat, and neckcloth, worn with perfect
elegance, and representing a Titton with a faultless
attitude (in a fauteuil, reading), a faultless exterior,
and around him the most sumptuous appliances of
dressing-room luxury. This picture cost me a great
deal of vexation and labor, for it was emphatically a
fancy picture—poor Titton never having appeared in
that character, even `by particular desire.' I finished
it however, and again, to her satisfaction. I afterward
added some finishing touches to the other two, and
sent them home, appropriately framed according to
very minute instructions.”
“How long ago was this?” I asked.
“Three years,” replied S—, musing over his wine.
“Well—the sequel?” said I, a little impatient.
“I was thinking how I should let it break upon you,
as it took effect upon her acquaintances—for, understand,
Mrs. Titton is too much of a diplomatist to do
anything obviously dramatic in this age of ridicule.
She knows very well that any sudden `flare-up' of her
husband's consequence—any new light on his character
obviously calling for attention—would awaken
speculation and set to work the watchful anatomizers
of the body fashionable. Let me see! I will tell you
what I should have known about it, had I been only
an ordinary acquaintance—not in the secret, and not
the painter of the pictures.
“Some six months after the finishing of the last
portrait, I was at a large ball at their house. Mrs.
Titton's beauty, I should have told you, and the style
in which they lived, and very possibly a little of Lord
George's good will, had elevated them from the wealthy
and respectable level of society to the fashionable and
exclusive. All the best people went there. As I was
going in, I overtook, at the head of the stairs, a very
clever little widow, an acquaintance of mine, and she
honored me by taking my arm and keeping it for a
promenade through the rooms. We made our bow
to Mrs. Titton and strolled across the reception room,
where the most conspicuous object, dead facing us,
with a flood of light upon it, was my first veracious
portrait of Titton! As I was not known as the artist,
I indulged myself in some commonplace exclamations
of horror.
“`Do not look at that,” said the widow, `you will
distress poor Mrs. Titton. What a quiz that clever
husband of hers must be to insist on exposing such a
caricature!'
“`How insist upon it?' I asked.
“`Why, have you never seen the one in her boudoir?
Come with me!'
“We made our way through the apartments to the
little retreat lined with silk, which the morning lounge
of the fair mistress of the house. There was but one
picture, with a curtain drawn carefully across it—my
second portrait! We sat down on the luxurious
cushions, and the widow went off into a discussion of
it and the original, pronouncing it a perfect likeness,
not at all flattered, and very soon begging me to redraw
the curtain, lest we should be surprised by Mr.
Titton himself.
“`And suppose we were?' said I.
“`Why, he is such an oddity!' replied the widow
lowering her tone. `They say that in this very house
he has a suite of apartments entirely to himself, furnished
with a taste and luxury really wonderful! There
are two Mr. Tittons, my dear friend!—one a perfect
Sybarite, very elegant in his dress when he chooses
to be, excessively accomplished and fastidious, and
brilliant and fascinating to a degree!—(and in this
character they say he won that superb creature for a
wife), and the other Mr. Titton is just the slovenly
monster that everybody sees! Isn't it odd!'
“`Queer enough!' said I, affecting great astonishment;
`pray, have you ever been into these mysterious
apartments?'
“`No!—they say only his wife and himself and one
confidential servant ever pass the threshold. Mrs.
Titton don't like to talk about it—though one would
think she could scarcely object to her husband's being
thought better of. It's pride on his part—sheer pride—
and I can understand the feeling very well! He's
a very superior man, and he has made up his mind
that the world thinks him very awkward and
ugly, and he takes a pleasure in showing the world
that he don't care a rush for its opinion, and has resources
quite sufficient within himself. That's the
reason that atrocious portrait is hung up in the best
room, and this good-looking one covered up with a
curtain! I suppose this wouldn't be here if he could
have his own way, and if his wife wasn't so much in
love with him!'
“This, I assure you,” said S—, “is the impression
throughout their circle of acquaintances.
The Tittons themselves maintain a complete silence
on the subject. Mr. Fortescue Titton is considered
a very accomplished man, with a very proud and very
secret contempt for the opinions of the world—dressing
badly on purpose, silent and simple by design, and only
caring to show himself in his real character to his
beautiful wife, who is thought to be completely in love
with him, and quite excusable for it! What do you
think of the woman's diplomatic talents?”
“I think I should like to know her,” said I; “but
what says Lord George to all this?”
“I had a call from Lord George not long ago,”
replied S—, “and for the first time since our
chat at Somerset-House, the conversation turned upon
the Tittons.
“`Devilish sly of you!' said his lordship, turning
to me half angry, `why did you pretend not to know
the woman at Somerset-House? You might have
saved me lots of trouble and money, for I was a month
or two finding out what sort of people they were—
feeing the servants and getting them called on and
invited here and there—all with the idea that it was
a rich donkey with a fine toy that didn't belong to him!”
“`Well!' exclaimed I—
“`Well!—not at all well! I made a great ninny
of myself, with that satirical slyboots, old Titton,
laughing at me all the time, when you, that had
painted him in his proper character and knew what a
deep devil he was, might have saved me with but half
a hint!'
“`You have been in the lady's boudoir then!'
“`Yes, and in the gentleman's sanctum sanctorum!
Mrs. Titton sent for me about some trumpery thing
or other, and when I called, the servant showed me in
there by mistake. There was a great row in the house
about it, but I was there long enough to see what a
monstrous nice time the fellow has of it, all to himself,
and to see your picture of him in his private
character. The picture you made of me was only a
copy of that, you sly traitor! And I suppose Mrs.
Titton didn't like your stealing from hers, did she—
for, I take it that was what ailed her at the exhibition,
when you allowed me to be so humbugged!'
“I had a good laugh, but it was as much at the
quiet success of Mrs. Titton's tactics as at Lord
George's discomfiture. Of course, I could not undeceive
him. And now,” continued S—, very
good-naturedly, “just ring for a pen and ink, and I'll
write a note to Mrs. Titton, asking leave to bring you
there this evening, for it's her `night at home,' and
she's worth seeing, if my pictures, which you will see
there, are not.”
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[figure description] Page 275.[end figure description]
We got down from an omnibus in Charing-Cross.
“Sovereign or ha'penny?” said the cad, rubbing
the coin between his thumb and finger.
“Sovereign, of course!” said B— confidently,
pocketing the change which the man had ready for
the emergency in a bit of brown paper.
It was a muggy, misty, London twilight. I was
coming up to town from Blackheath, and in the
crowded vehicle had chanced to encounter my compatriot
B— (call it Brown), who had been lionizing
the Thames tunnel. In the course of conversation,
it came out that we were both on the town for
our dinner, and as we were both guests at the Traveller's
Club, we had pulled the omnibus-string at the
nearest point, and, after the brief dialogue recorded
above, strolled together down Pall Mall.
As we sat waiting for our fish, one of us made a remark
as to the difference of feel between gold and
copper coin, and Brown, fishing in his pocket for
money to try the experiment, discovered that the
doubt of the cad was well founded, for he had unconsciously
passed a halfpenny for a sovereign.
“People are very apt to take your coin at your own
valuation!” said Brown, with a smile of some meaning,
“and when they are in the dark as to your original
coinage (as the English are with regard to Americans
abroad), it is as easy to pass for gold as for copper.
Indeed, you may pass for both in a day, as I have
lately had experience. Remind me presently to tell
you how. Here comes the fried sole, and it's troublesome
talking when there are bones to fight shy of—
the `flow of sole' to the contrary notwithstanding.”
I will take advantage of the hiatus to give the reader
a slight idea of my friend, as a preparation for his
story.
Brown was the “mirror of courtesy.” He was
also the mirror of vulgarity. And he was the mirror
of everything else. He had that facility of adaptation
to the society he was in, which made him seem
born for that society, and that only; and, without calculation
or forethought—by an unconscious instinct,
indeed—he cleverly reflected the man and manners
before him. The result was a popularity of a most
varied quality. Brown was a man of moderate fortune
and no profession. He had travelled for some
years on the continent, and had encountered all classes
of Englishmen, from peers to green-grocers, and as
he had a visit to England in prospect, he seldom parted
from the most chance acquaintance without a volunteer
of letters of introduction, exchange of addresses,
and similar tokens of having “pricked through
his castle wall.” When he did arrive in London, at
last, it was with a budget like the postman's on Valentine's
day, and he had only to deliver one letter in
a score to be put on velvet in any street or square
within the bills of mortality. Sagacious enough to
know that the gradations of English society have the
facility of a cat's back (smooth enough from the head
downward), he began with a most noble duke, and at
the date of his introduction to the reader, was on the
dinner-list of most of the patricians of May Fair.
Presuming that you see your man, dear reader, let
us come at once to the removal of the cloth.
“As I was calling myself to account, the other day,
over my breakfast,” said Brown, filling his glass and
pushing the bottle, “it occurred to me that my round
of engagements required some little variation. There's
a `toujours perdrix,' even among lords and ladies, particularly
when you belong as much to their sphere,
and are as likely to become a part of it, as the fly revolving
in aristocratic dust on the wheel of my lord's
carriage. I thought, perhaps, I had better see some
other sort of people.
“I had, under a presse papier on the table, about a
hundred letters of introduction—the condemned remainder,
after the selection, by advice, of four or five
only. I determined to cut this heap like a pack of
cards, and follow up the trump.
“`John Mimpson, Esq., House of Mimpson and
Phipps, Mark's Lane, London.'
“The gods had devoted me to the acquaintance of
Mr. (and probably Mrs.) John Mimpson. After turning
over a deal of rubbish in my mind, I remembered
that the letter had been given me five years before by
an American merchant—probably the correspondent
of the firm in Mark's Lane. It was a sealed letter,
and said in brackets on the back, `Introducing Mr.
Brown.' I had a mind to give it up and cut again,
for I could not guess on what footing I was introduced,
nor did I know what had become of the writer—
nor had I a very clear idea how long a letter of
recommendation will hold its virtue. It struck me
again that these difficulties rather gave it a zest, and
I would abide by the oracle. I dressed, and, as the
day was fine, started to stroll leisurely through the
Strand and Fleet street, and look into the shop-windows
on my way—assuring myself, at least, thus
much of diversion in my adventure.
“Somewhere about two o'clock, I left daylight behind,
and plunged into Mark's Lane. Up one side
and down the other—`Mimpson and Co.' at last, on a
small brass plate, set in a green baize door. With my
unbuttoned coat nearly wiped off my shoulder by the
strength of the pulley, I shoved through, and emerged
in a large room, with twenty or thirty clerks perched
on high stools, like monkeys in a menagerie.
“`First door right!' said the nearest man, without
raising his eyes from the desk, in reply to my inquiry
for Mr. Mimpson.
“I entered a closet, lighted by a slanting skylight,
in which sat my man.
“`Mr. John Mimpson?'
“`Mr. John Mimpson!'
“After this brief dialogue of accost, I produced my
letter, and had a second's leisure to examine my new
friend while he ran his eye over the contents. He
was a rosy, well-conditioned, tight-skinned little man,
with black hair, and looked like a pear on a chair.
(Hang the bothering rhymes!) His legs were completely
hid under the desk, so that the ascending eye
began with his equatory line, and whether he had no
shoulders or no neck, I could not well decide—but it
was a tolerably smooth plane from his seat to the top
curl of his sinciput. He was scrupulously well dressed,
and had that highly washed look which marks the
city man in London—bent on not betraying his `diggins'
by his complexion.
“I answered Mr. Mimpson's inquiries about our
mutual friend with rather a hazardous particularity,
and assured him he was quite well (I have since discovered
that he has been dead three years), and conversation
warmed between us for ten minutes, till we
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were ready to part sworn friends. I rose to go, and
the merchant seemed very much perplexed.
“`To-morrow,' said he, rubbing the two great business
bumps over his eyebrows—`no—yes—that is to
say, Mrs. Mimpson—well, it shall be to-morrow!
Can you come out to Rose Lodge, and spend the day
to-morrow?'
“`With great pleasure,' said I, for I was determined
to follow my trump letter to extremities.
“`Mrs. Mimpson,' he next went on to say, as he
wrote down the geography of Rose Lodge—`Mrs.
Mimpson expects some friends to-morrow—indeed,
some of her very choice friends. If you come early,
you will see more of her than if you just save your
dinner. Bring your carpetbag, of course, and stay
over night. Lunch at two—dine at seven. I can't
be there to receive you myself, but I will prepare Mrs.
Mimpson to save you all trouble of introduction.
Hampstead road. Good morning, my dear sir.'
“So, I am in for a suburban bucolic, thought I, as I
regained daylight in the neighborhood of the Mansion
House.
“It turned out a beautiful day, sunny and warm;
and had I been sure of my navigation, and sure of my
disposition to stay all night, I should have gone out
by the Hampstead coach, and made the best of my
way, carpetbag in hand. I went into Newman's for a
postchaise, however, and on showing him the written
address, was agreeably surprised to find he knew
Rose Lodge. His boys had all been there.
“Away I went through the Regent's park, behind
the blood-posters, blue jacket and white hat, and,
somewhere about one o'clock, mounted Hampstead
Hill, and in ten minutes thence was at my destination.
The postboy was about driving in at the open gate,
but I dismounted and sent him back to the inn to
leave his horses, and then depositing my bag at the
porter's lodge, walked up the avenue. It was a much
finer place, altogether, than I expected to see.
“Mrs. Mimpson was in the garden. The dashing
footman who gave me the information, led me through
a superb drawing-room and out at a glass door upon
the lawn, and left me to make my own way to the lady's
presence.
“It was a delicious spot, and I should have been
very glad to ramble about by myself till dinner, but,
at a turn in the grand-walk, I came suddenly upon
two ladies.
“I made my bow, and begged leave to introduce
myself as `Mr. Brown.'
“With a very slight inclination of the head, and no
smile whatever, one of the ladies asked me if I had
walked from town, and begged her companion (without
introducing me to her) to show me in to lunch.
The spokester was a stout and tall woman, who had
rather an aristocratic nose, and was not handsome,
but, to give her her due, she had made a narrow
escape of it. She was dressed very showily, and evidently
had great pretensions; but, that she was not
at all glad to see Mr. Brown, was as apparent as was
at all necessary. As the other, and younger lady,
who was to accompany me, however, was very pretty,
though dressed very plainly, and had, withal, a look
in her eye which assured me she was amused with my
unwelcome apparition, I determined, as I should not
otherwise have done, to stay it out, and accepted
her convoy with submissive civility—very much inclined,
however, to be impudent to somebody, somehow.
“The lunch was on a tray in a side-room, and I
rang the bell and ordered a bottle of champagne. The
servant looked surprised, but brought it, and meantime
I was getting through the weather and the other
commonplaces, and the lady saying little, was watching
me very calmly. I liked her looks, however, and
was sure she was not a Mimpson.
“`Hand this to Miss Armstrong!' said I to the footman,
pouring out a glass of champagne.
“`Miss Bellamy, you mean, sir.'
“I rose and bowed, and, with as grave a courtesy
as I could command, expressed my pleasure at my
first introduction to Miss Bellamy—through Thomas,
the footman! Miss Bellamy burst into a laugh, and
was pleased to compliment my American manners,
and in ten minutes we were a very merry pair of
friends, and she accepted my arm for a stroll through
the grounds, carefully avoiding the frigid neighborhood
of Mrs. Mimpson.
“Of course I set about picking Miss Bellamy's
brains for what information I wanted. She turned
out quite the nicest creature I had seen in England—
fresh, joyous, natural, and clever; and as I was delivered
over to her bodily, by her keeper and feeder, she
made no scruple of promenading me through the
grounds till the dressing-bell—four of the most agreeable
hours I have to record in my travels.
“By Miss Bellamy's account, my advent that day
was looked upon by Mrs. Mimpson as an enraging
calamity. Mrs. Mimpson was, herself, fourth cousin
to a Scotch lord, and the plague of her life was the
drawback to the gentility of her parties in Mimpson's
mercantile acquaintance. She had married the little
man for his money, and had thought, by living
out of town, to choose her own society, with her husband
for her only incumbrance; but Mimpson vowed
that he should be ruined in Mark's Lane, if he did
not house and dine his mercantile fraternity and their
envoys at Rose Lodge, and they had at last compromised
the matter. No Yankee clerk, or German
agent, or person of any description, defiled by trade,
was to be invited to the Lodge without a three days'
premonition to Mrs. Mimpson, and no additions were
to be made, whatever, by Mr. M., to Mrs. M's dinners,
soirées, matinees, archery parties, suppers, dejeuners,
tableaux, or private theatricals. This holy
treaty, Mrs. Mimpson presumed, was written `with a
gad of steel on a leaf of brass'—inviolable as her cousin's
coat-of-arms.
“But there was still `Ossa on Pelion.' The dinner
of that day had a diplomatic aim. Miss Mimpson
(whom I had not yet seen) was ready to `come
out,' and her mother had embarked her whole soul in
the enterprise of bringing about that debut at Almack's.
Her best card was a certain Lady S—,
who chanced to be passing a few days in the neighborhood,
and this dinner was in her honor—the company
chosen to impress her with the exclusiveness of
the Mimpsons, and the prayer for her ladyship's influence
(to procure vouchers from one of the patronesses)
was to be made, when she was `dieted to their
request.' And all had hitherto worked to a charm.
Lady S— had accepted—Ude had sent his best
cook from Crockford's—the Belgian chargé and a
Swedish attaché were coming—the day was beautiful,
and the Lodge was sitting for its picture; and on the
very morning, when every chair at the table was ticketed
and devoted, what should Mr. Mimpson do, but send
back a special messenger from the city, to say that he
had forgotten to mention to Mrs. M. at breakfast, that he
had invited Mr. Brown! Of course he had forgotten
it, though it would have been as much as his
eyes were worth to mention it in person to Mrs.
Mimpson.
“To this information, which I give you in a lump,
but which came to light in the course of rather a desultory
conversation, Miss Bellamy thought I had
some title, from the rudeness of my reception. It
was given in the shape of a very clever banter, it is
true, but she was evidently interested to set me right
with regard to Mr. Mimpson's good intentions in my
behalf, and, as far as that and her own civilities would
do it, to apologise for the inhospitality of Rose Lodge.
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Very kind of the girl—for I was passing, recollect,
at a most ha'penny valuation.
“I had made some casual remark touching the absurdity
of Almack's aspirations in general, and Mrs.
Mimpson's in particular, and my fair friend, who of
course fancied an Almack's ticket as much out of Mr.
Brown's reach as the horn of the new moon, took up
the defence of Mrs. Mimpson on that point, and undertook
to dazzle my untutored imagination by a picture
of this seventh heaven—as she had heard it described—
for to herself, she freely confessed, it was not
even within the limits of dream-land. I knew this
was true of herself, and thousands of highly-educated
and charming girls in England; but still, looking at
her while she spoke, and seeing what an ornament she
would be to any ballroom in the world, I realized,
with more repugnance than I had ever felt before, the
arbitrary barriers of fashion and aristocracy. As accident
had placed me in a position to `look on the reverse
of the shield,' I determined, if possible, to let
Miss Bellamy judge of its color with the same advantage.
It is not often that a plebeian like myself
has the authority to
“`Bid the pebbles on the hungry beach
Fillip the stars.'
“We were near the open window of the library,
and I stepped in and wrote a note to Lady —
(one of the lady patronesses, and the kindest friend I
have in England), asking for three vouchers for the
next ball. I had had occasion once or twice before to
apply for similar favors, for the countrywomen of my
own, passing through London on their travels, and I
knew that her ladyship thought no more of granting
them than of returning bows in Hyde Park. I did
not name the ladies for whom the three tickets were
intended, wishing to reserve the privilege of handing
one to Miss Mimpson, should she turn out civil and
presentable. The third, of course, was to Miss Bellamy's
chaperon, whoever that might be, and the
party might be extended to a quartette by the `Monsieur
De Trop' of the hour—cela selon. Quite a dramatic
plot—wasn't it?
“I knew that Lady — was not very well, and
would be found at home by the messenger (my post-boy),
and there was time enough between soup and
coffee to go to London and back, even without the
spur in his pocket.
“The bell rang, and Miss Bellamy took herself off
to dress. I went to my carpetbag in the bachelor
quarters of the house, and through a discreet entretien
with the maid who brought me hot water, became
somewhat informed as to my fair friend's position in
the family. She was the daughter of a gentleman who
had seen better days. They lived in a retired cottage
in the neighborhood; and, as Miss Bellamy and a
younger sister were both very highly accomplished,
they were usually asked to the Lodge, whenever there
was company to be entertained with their music.
“I was early in the drawing-room, and found there
Mrs. Mimpson and a tall dragoon of a young lady I
presumed to be her daughter. She did not introduce
me. I had hardly achieved my salutary salaam when
Miss Bellamy came in opportunely, and took me off
their hands, and as they addressed no conversation to
us, we turned over music, and chatted in the corner
while the people came in. It was twilight in the reception-room,
and I hoped, by getting on the same
side of the table with Lady S— (whom I had
the honor of knowing), to escape recognizance till
we joined the ladies in the drawing-room after dinner.
As the guests arrived, they were formally introduced
to Miss Mimpson by the mother, and everybody but
myself was formally presented to Lady S—, the
exception not noticeable, of course, among thirty
people. Mr. Mimpson came late from the city, pos
sibly anxious to avoid a skirmish on the subject of his
friend Brown, and he entered the room barely in time
to hand Lady S— in to dinner.
“My tactics were ably seconded by my unconscious
ally. I placed myself in such a position at table,
that, by a little management, I kept Miss Bellamy's
head between me and Lady S—, and my name
was not so remarkable as to draw attention to me
when called on to take wine with the peccant spouse
of the Scotch lord's cousin. Meantime I was very
charmingly entertained—Miss Bellamy not having, at
all, the fear of Mrs. Mimpson before her eyes, and
apparently finding the Yankee supercargo, or cotton
clerk, or whatever he might be, quite worth trying her
hand upon. The provender was good, and the wine
was enough to verify the apocrypha—at least for the
night—`a man remembering neither sorrow nor debt'
with such glorious claret.
“As I was vis-a-vis to Miss Mimpson, and only two
plates removed from her mother, I was within reach
of some syllable or some civility, and one would have
thought that good-breeding might exact some slight
notice for the devil himself, under one's own roof by
invitation; but the large eyes of Miss Aurelia and her
mamma passed over me as if I had on the invisible
ring of Gyges. I wonder, by-the-way, whether the
ambitious youths who go to London and Paris with
samples, and come back and sport `the complete varnish
of a man' acquired in foreign society—I wonder
whether they take these rubs to be part of their pollishing!
“The ladies rose and left us, and as I had no more
occasion to dodge heads, or trouble myself with humility,
I took Lady S—'s place at old Mimpson's
right hand, and was immediately recognised with great
empressement by the Belgian chargé, who had met me
`very often, in very agreeable society.' Mimpson
stared, and evidently took it for a bit of flummery or
a mistake; but he presently stared again, for the butler
came in with a coronetted note on his silver tray,
and the seal side up, and presented it to me with a
most deferential bend of his white coat. I felt the
vouchers within, and pocketed it without opening, and
we soon after rose and went to the drawing-room for
our coffee.
“Lady S— sat with her back to the door, besieged
by Mrs. Mimpson; and at the piano, beside
Miss Bellamy, who was preparing to play, stood one
of the loveliest young creatures possibly to fancy. A
pale and high-bred looking lady in widow's weeds sat
near them, and I had no difficulty in making out who
were the after-dinner additions to the party. I joined
them, and was immediately introduced by Miss Bellamy
to her mother and sister, with whom (after a
brilliant duet by the sisters) I strolled out upon the
lawn for an hour—for it was a clear night, and the
moon and soft air almost took me back to Italy. And
(perhaps by a hint from Miss Bellamy) I was allowed
to get on very expeditiously in my acquaintance with
her mother and sister.
“My new friends returned to the drawing-room,
and as the adjoining library was lighted, I went in and
filled up the blank vouchers with the names of Mrs.
Bellamy and her daughters. I listened a moment to
the conversation in the next room. The subject was
Almack's, and was discussed with great animation.
Lady S—, who seemed to me trying to escape
the trap they had baited for her, was quietly setting
forth the difficulties of procuring vouchers, and recommending
to Mrs. Mimpson not to subject herself
to the mortification of a refusal. Old Mimpson
backed up this advice with a stout approval, and this
brought Mrs. Mimpson out `horse and foot,' and she
declared that she would submit to anything, do anything,
give anything, rather than fail in this darling
object of her ambition. She would feel under eternal
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inexpressible obligations to any friend who would procure,
for herself and daughter, admission for but one
night to Almack's.
“And then came in the sweet voice of Miss Bellamy,
who `knew it was both wrong and silly, but she
would give ten years of her life to go to one of Almack's
balls, and in a long conversation she had had
with Mr. Brown on the subject that morning—'
“`Ah!' interrupted Lady S—, `if it had been
the Mr. Brown, you would have had very little trouble
about it.'
“`And who is the Mr. Brown?' asked Mrs. Mimpson.
“`The pet and protegé of the only lady patroness
I do not visit,' said Lady S—, `and unluckily,
too, the only one who thinks the vouchers great rubbish,
and gives them away without thought or scruple.'
“At that moment I entered the room.
“`Good heavens!' screamed Lady S—, `is
that his ghost? Why, Mr. Brown!' she gasped, giving
me her hand very cautiously, `do you appear
when you are talked of like—like—like—'
“`Like the devil? No! But I am here in the
body, and very much at your ladyship's service,' said
I, `for of course you are going to the duke's to-night,
and so am I. Will you take me with you, or shall
my po-chay follow where I belong—in your train?”
“`I'll take you, of course,' said her ladyship, rising,
`but first about these vouchers. You have just come,
and didn't hear our discussion. Mrs. Mimpson is extremely
anxious that her daughter should come out
at Almack's, and as I happened to say, the moment
before you entered, that you were the very person to
procure the tickets from Lady —. How very
odd that you should come in just then! But tell
us—can you?'
“A dead silence followed the question. Mrs.
Mimpson sat with her eyes on the floor, the picture
of dismay and mortification. Miss Mimpson blushed
and twisted her handkerchief, and Miss Bellamy
looked at her hostess, half amused and half distressed.
“I handed the three vouchers to Miss Bellamy,
and begged her acceptance of them, and then turning
to Lady S—, without waiting for a reply, regretted
that, not having had the pleasure of being presented
to Mrs. Mimpson, I had not felt authorized to
include her in my effort to oblige Miss Bellamy.
“And what with old Mimpson's astonishment, and
Lady S—'s immediate tact in covering, by the
bustle of departure, what she did not quite understand,
though she knew it was some awkward contre
temps or other, I found time to receive Miss Bellamy's
thanks, and get permission from the mother to
call and arrange this unexpected party, and in ten
minutes I was on my way to London with Lady
S—, amusing her almost into fits with my explanations
of the Mimpson mystery.
“Lady S— was to be still at Hampstead for a
few days, and, at my request, she called with me on
the Bellamys, and invited the girls up to town. Rose
Bellamy, the younger, is at this moment one of the
new stars of the season accordingly, and Miss Bellamy
and I carry on the war, weekly, at Almack's,
and nightly at some waxlight paradise or other, and
Lady S— has fallen in love with them both, and
treats them like daughters.
“So you see, though I passed for a ha'penny with
the Mimpsons, I turned out a sovereign to the Bellamys.
“Pass the bottle!”
There are two commodities, much used by gentlemen,
neither of which will bear tinkering or tampering
with—matrimony and patent leather. Their necessities
are fair weather and untroubled wear and tear.
Ponder on the following melancholy example!
My friend Follett married a lady contrary to my
advice. I gave the advice contrary to my wont and
against my will. He would have it. The lady was a
tolerably pretty woman, on whose original destiny it
was never written that she should be a belle. How
she became one is not much matter; but nature being
thoroughly taken by surprise with her success, had
neglected to provide the counterpoise. I say it is no
great matter how she became a belle—nor is it—for if
such things were to be accounted for to the satisfaction
of the sex, the world have little time for other speculations;
but I will devote a single paragraph to the
elucidation of this one of many mysteries, for a reason
I have. Fœnam habet in cornu.
Poets are the least fastidious, and the least discriminating
of men, in their admiration of women (vide
Byron), partly because their imagination, like sunshine,
glorifies all that turns to it, and partly because
the voluptuous heart, without which they were not
poets, is both indolent and imperial, from both causes
waiting always to be sought. In some circles, bards
are rather comets than stars, and the one whose orbit
for a few days interested that of Miss Adele Burnham,
was the exclusive marvel of the hour. Like other po
ets, the one of which I speak was concentrative in his
attentions, and he chose (why, the gods knew better
than the belles of the season) to have neither eyes nor
ears, flowers, flatteries, nor verses, for any other than
Miss Burnham. He went on his way, but the incense,
in which he had enveloped the blest Adele, lingered
like a magic atmosphere about her, and Tom Follett
and all his tribe breathed it in blind adoration. I trust
the fair reader has here nodded her head, in evidence
that this history of the belleship of Miss Burnham is
no less brief than natural and satisfactory.
When Follett came to me with the astounding information
that he intended to propose to Miss Burnham
(he had already proposed and been accepted, the
traitor)! my fancy at once took the prophetic stride so
natural on the first breaking of such news, and in the
five minutes which I took for reflection, I had travelled
far into that land of few delusions—holy matrimony.
Before me, in all the changeful variety of a magic
mirror, came and went the many phases of which that
multiform creature, woman, is susceptible. I saw her
in diamonds and satin, and in kitchen-apron and curlpapers;
in delight, and in the dumps; in supplication,
and in resistance; shod like a fairy in French shoes,
and slip-shod (as perhaps fairies are, too, in their bedrooms
and dairies). I saw her approaching the climacteric
of age, and receding from it—a mother, a
nurse, an invalid—mum over her breakfast, chatty over
her tea—doing the honors at Tom's table, and
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mending with sober diligence Tom's straps and suspenders.
The kaleidoscope of fancy exhausted its combinations.
“Tom!” said I (looking up affectionately, for he
was one of my weaknesses, was Tom, and I indulged
myself in loving him without a reason), “Miss Burnham
is in the best light where she is. If she cease
to be a belle, as of course she will, should she marry—”
“Of course!” interrupted Tom very gravely.
“Well, in that case, she lays off the goddess, trust
me! You will like her to dress plainly —”
“Quite plain!”
“And stripped of her plumage, your bird of paradise
would be nothing but a very indifferent hen—with the
disadvantage of remembering that she had been a bird
of paradise.”
“But it was not her dress that attracted the brilliant
author of —”
Possibly not. But as the false gods of mythology
are only known by their insignia, Jupiter by his thunderbolt,
and Mercury by his talaria and caduceus, so
a woman, worshipped by accident, will find a change
of exterior nothing less than a laying aside of her divinity.
That's a didactic sentence, but you will know
what I mean, when I tell you that I myself can not see
a pair of coral ear-rings without a sickness of the
heart, though the woman who once wore them, and
who slighted me twenty years ago, sits before me in
church, without diverting a thought from the sermon.
Don't marry her, Tom!”
Six weeks after this conversation, I was at the wedding,
and the reader will please pass to the rear the
six succeeding months—short time as it seems—to
record a change in the bland sky of matrimony. It was
an ellipse in our friendship as well; for advice (contrary
to our wishes and intentions) is apt to be resented,
and I fancied, from the northerly bows I received
from Mrs. Follett, that my friend had made a merit to
her of having married contrary to my counsel. At the
end of this period Tom called on me.
Follett, I should have said, was a man of that undecided
exterior which is perfectly at the mercy of a cravat
or waistcoat. He looked “snob” or “nob,” according
to the care with which he had made his toilet.
While a bachelor, of course, he could never afford in
public a negligence or a mistake, and was invariably
an elegant man, harmonious and “pin-point” from
straps to whiskers. But alas! the security of wedded
life! When Tom entered my room, I perused him
as a walking homily. His coat, still made on the old
measure, was buttoned only at the top, the waist being
rather snug, and his waistcoat pockets loaded with the
copper which in his gayer days he always left on the
counter. His satin cravat was frayed and brownish,
with the tie slipped almost under his ear. The heel
of his right boot (he trod straight on the other foot)
almost looked him in the face. His pantaloons (the
one article of dress in which there are no gradations—
nothing, if not perfect) were bulged and strained. He
wore a frightfully new hat, no gloves, and carried a
baggy brown umbrella, which was, in itself, a most expressive
portrait of “gone to seed.” Tom entered
with his usual uppish carriage, and, through the how-d'ye-dos,
and the getting into his chair, carried off the
old manner to a charm. In talking of the weather, a
moment after, his eye fell on his stumpy umbrella,
which, with an unconscious memory of an old affectation
with his cane, he was balancing on the toe of his
boot, and the married look slid over him like a mist.
Down went his head between his shoulders, and down
went the corners of his mouth—down the inflation of
his chest like a collapsed balloon; and down, in its
youth and expression it seemed to me, every muscle
of his face. He had assumed in a minute the style
and countenance of a man ten years older.
I smiled. How could I but smile!
“Then you have heard of it!” exclaimed Tom,
suddenly starting to his feet, and flushing purple to the
roots of his hair.
“Heard of what?”
My look of surprise evidently took him aback; and,
seating himself again with confused apologies, Tom
proceeded to “make a clean breast,” on a subject
which I had not anticipated.
It seemed that, far from moulting her feathers after
marriage, according to my prediction, Mrs. Follett
clearly thought that she had not yet “strutted her
hour,” and, though everything Tom could wish behind
the curtain, in society she had flaunted and flirted, not
merely with no diminution of zest from the wedding-day,
but, her husband was of opinion, with a ratio
alarmingly increasing. Her present alliance was with
a certain Count Hautenbas, the lion of the moment,
and though doubtless one in which vanity alone was
active, Tom's sense of connubial propriety was at its
last gasp. He could stand it no longer. He wished
my advice in the choice between two courses. Should
he call out the Frenchman, or should he take advantage
of the law's construction of “moral insanity,” and
shut her up in a mad-house.
My advice had been of so little avail in the first instance,
that I shrank from troubling Tom with any
more of it, and certainly should have evaded it altogether,
but for an experiment I wished to make, as
much for my own satisfaction as for the benefit of that
large class, the unhappy married.
“Your wife is out every night, I suppose, Tom?”
“Every night when she has no party at home.”
“Do you go with her always?”
“I go for her usually—but the truth is, that since
I married, parties bore me, and after seeing my wife off,
I commonly smoke and snooze, or read, or run into
Bob Thomas's and `talk horse,' till I have just time to
be in at the death.”
“And when you get there, you don't dance?”
“Not I, faith! I haven't danced since I was married!”
“But you used to be the best waltzer of the day.”
“Well, the music sometimes gets into my heels
now, but, when I remember I am married, the fit cools
off. The deuce take it! a married man shouldn't be
seen whirling round the room with a girl in his arms!”
“I presume that were you still single, you would
fancy your chance to be as good for ladies' favors as
any French count's that ever came over?”
“Ehem! why—yes!”
Tom pulled up his collar.
“And if you had access to her society all day and
all night, and the Frenchman only an hour or two in
the evening, any given lady being the object, you would
bet freely on your own head?”
“I see your drift,” said Tom, with a melancholy
smile, “but it won't do!”
“No, indeed—it is what would have done. You had
at the start a much better chance with your wife than
Count Hautenbas; but husbands and lovers are the
`hare and the tortoise' of the fable. We must resort
now to other means. Will you follow my advice, as
well as take it, should I be willing again to burn my
fingers in your affairs?”
The eagerness of Tom's protestations quite made
the amende to my mortified self-complacency, and I
entered zealousy into my little plot for his happiness.
At this moment I heartily wish I had sent him and his
affairs to the devil, and (lest I should forget it at the
close of this tale) I here caution all men, single and
double, against “meddling or making,” marring or
mending, in matrimonial matters. The alliteration
may, perhaps, impress this salutary counsel on the
mind of the reader.
I passed the remainder of the day in repairing the
damage of Tom's person. I had his whiskers curled
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and trimmed even (his left whisker was an inch nearer
his nose than the right), and his teeth looked to by the
dentist. I stood by, to be sure that there was no carelessness
in his selection of patent leathers, and on his
assuring me that he was otherwise well provided, I
suffered him to go home to dress, engaging him to
dine with me at seven.
He was punctual to the hour. By Jove, I could
scarce believe it was the same man. The consciousness
of being well dressed seemed to have brightened
his eyes and lips, as it certainly changed altogether his
address and movements. He had a narrow escape of
being handsome. After all, it is only a “man of mark,”
or an Apollo, who can well afford to neglect the outer
man; and a judicious negligence, or a judicious plainness,
is probably worth the attention of both the man
of mark and the Apollo. Tom was quite another order
of creature—a butterfly that was just now a worm—
and would have been treated with more consideration
in consequence, even by those least tolerant of “the
pomps and vanities.” We dined temperately, and I
superseded the bottle by a cup of strong green tea, at
an early moment after the removal of the cloth, determined
to have Tom's wits in as full dress as his person.
Without being at all a brilliant man, he was—
the next best thing—a steady absorbent; and as most
women are more fond of giving than receiving in all
things, but particularly in conversation, I was not uneasy
as to his power of making himself agreeable. Nor
was he, faith!
The ball of the night was at the house of an old
friend of my own, and Mr. and Mrs. Follett were but
newly introduced to the circle. I had the company
very clearly in my eye, therefore, while casting about
for dramatis personœ, and fixing upon Mrs. Beverly
Fairlie, for the prominent character, I assured success,
though being very much in love with that coquettish
widow myself, I had occasion for some selfdenial
in the matter. Of Mrs. Fairlie's weak points
(on which it seemed necessary that I should enlighten
Tom), I had information not to be acquired short of
summering and wintering her, and with my eye solely
directed to its effect upon Mrs. Follett. I put the clues
into my friend's hands in a long after-dinner conversation.
As he seemed impatient to open the campaign
after getting these definite and valuable instructions, I
augured well for his success, and we entered the ball-room
in high spirits.
It was quite enough to say to the mischievous widow
that another woman was to be piqued by any attentions
she might choose to pay Mr. Follett. Having said
thus much, and presented Tom, I sought out Mrs.
Follett myself, with the double purpose of breaking
up the monopoly of Mons. Hautenbas, and of directing
her attention, should it be necessary, to the suavities
between Tom and the widow.
It was a superb ball, and the music, as Tom said,
went to the heels. The thing he did well was waltzing,
and after taking a turn or two with Mrs. Fairlie,
the rustic dame ran up to Mrs. Follett with the most
innocent air imaginable, and begged the loan of her
husband for the rest of the evening! I did not half
like the look of earnest with which she entered into
the affair, indeed, and there was little need of my
taking much trouble to enlighten Mrs. Follett; for a
woman so surprised with a six months' husband I never
saw. They were so capitally matched, Tom and the
widow, in size, motion, style of waltzing, and all, that
not we only, but the whole party, were occupied with
observing and admiring them. Mrs. Follett and I (for
a secret sympathy, somehow, drew us together, as the
thing went on) kept up a broken conversation, in which
the count was even less interested than we; and after
a few ineffectual attempts to draw her into the tea-room,
the Frenchman left us in pique, and we gave
ourselves up to the observation of the couple who (we
presumed) severally belonged to us. They carried on
the war famously, to be sure! Mrs. Fairlie was a
woman who could do as she liked, because she would;
and she cared not a straw for the very pronouncé demonstration
of engrossing one man for all the quadrilles,
waltzes, and galopades, beside being with him to supper.
Once or twice I tried to find an excuse for leaving
Mrs. Follett, to put in an oar for myself; but the
little woman clung to me as if she had not the courage
to undertake another person's amusement, and, new
and sudden as the feeling must have been, she was
pale and wretched, with a jealousy more bitter probably
than mine. Tom never gave me a look after the
first waltz; and as to the widow, she played her part
with rather more zeal than we set down for her.
I passed altogether an uncomfortable night, for a
gay one, and it was a great relief to me when
Mrs. Follett asked me to send Tom for the carriage.
“Be so kind as to send a servant for it,” said Follett,
very coolly, “and say to Mrs. Follett, that I will
join her at home. I am going to sup, or rather breakfast,
with Mrs. Beverly Fairlie!”
Here was a mess!
“Shall I send the count for your shawl?” I asked,
after giving this message, and wishing to know whether
she was this side of pride in her unhappiness.
The little woman burst into tears.
“I will sit in the cloak-room till my husband is
ready,” she said; “go to him, if you please, and implore
him to come and speak to me.”
As I said before, I wished the whole plot to the
devil. We had achieved our object, it is true—and
so did the man who knocked the breath out of his
friend's body, in killing a fly on his back. Tom is
now (this was years ago) a married flirt of some celebrity,
for after coming out of the widow's hands with a
three months' education, he had quite forgot to be
troubled about Mrs. Follett; and instead of neglecting
his dress, which was his only sin when I took him
in hand, he now neglects his wife, who sees him, as
women are apt to see their husbands, through other
women's eyes. I presume they are doomed to quite
as much unhappiness as would have fallen to their lot,
had I let them alone—had Mrs. Follett ran away with
the Frenchman, and had Tom died a divorced sloven.
But when I think that, beside achieving little for them,
I was the direct means of spoiling Mrs. Beverly Fairlie
for myself, I think I may write myself down as a
warning to meddlers in matrimony.
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That favored portion of the light of one summer's
morning that was destined to be the transparent bath
of the master-pieces on the walls of the Pitti, was
pouring in a languishing flood through the massive
windows of the palace. The ghosts of the painters
(who, ministering to the eye only, walk the world from
cock-crowing to sunset) were haunting invisibly the
sumptuous rooms made famous by their pictures;
and the pictures themselves, conscious of the presence
of the fountain of soul from which gushed the soul
that is in them, glowed with intoxicated mellowness
and splendor, and amazed the living students of the
gallery with effects of light and color till that moment
undiscovered.
[And now, dear reader, having paid you the compliment
of commencing my story in your vein (poetical),
let me come down to a little every-day brick-and-mortar,
and build up a fair and square common-sense
foundation.]
Graeme McDonald was a young highlander from
Rob Roy's country, come to Florence to study the
old masters. He was an athletic, wholesome, handsome
fellow, who had probably made a narrow escape
of being simply a fine animal; and, as it was, you
never would have picked him from a crowd as anything
but a hussar out of uniform, or a brigand perverted
to honest life. His peculiarity was (and this I
foresee is to be an ugly sentence), that he had peculiarities
which did not seem peculiar. He was full of
genius for his art, but the canvass which served him
him as a vent, gave him no more anxiety than his
pocket-handkerchief. He painted in the palace, or
wiped his forehead on a warm day with equally small
care, to all appearance, and he had brought his mother
and two sisters to Italy, and supported them by a most
heroic economy and industry—all the while looking as
if the “silver moon” and all the small change of the
stars would scarce serve him for a day's pocket-money.
Indeed, the more I knew of McDonald, the more I
became convinced that there was another man built
over him. The painter was inside. And if he had
free thoroughfare and use of the outer man's windows
and ivory door, he was at any rate barred from hanging
out the smallest sign or indication of being at any
time “within.” Think as hard as he would—devise,
combine, study, or glow with enthusiasm—the proprietor
of the front door exhibited the same careless
and smiling bravery of mien, behaving invariably as if
he had the whole tenement to himself, and was neither
proud of, nor interested in the doings of his more
spiritual inmate—leading you to suppose, almost,
that the latter, though billeted upon him, had not
been properly introduced. The thatch of this common
tenement was of jetty black hair, curling in most
opulent prodigality, and, altogether, it was a house
that Hadad, the fallen spirit, might have chosen, when
becoming incarnate to tempt the sister of Absalom.
Perhaps you have been in Florence, dear reader,
and know by what royal liberality artists are permitted
to bring their easels into the splendid apartments of
the palace, and copy from the priceless pictures on
the walls. At the time I have my eye upon (some
few years ago), McDonald was making a beginning
of a copy of Titian's Bella, and near him stood the
easel of a female artist who was copying from the
glorious picture of “Judith and Holofernes,” in the
same apartment. Mademoiselle Folie (so she was
called by the elderly lady who always accompanied
her) was a small and very gracefully-formed creature,
with the plainest face in which attraction could possibly
reside. She was a passionate student of her art,
pouring upon it apparently the entire fulness of her
life, and as unconsciously forgetful of her personal
impressions on those around her, as if she wore the
invisible ring of Gyges. The deference with which
she was treated by her staid companion drew some
notice upon her, however, and her progress, in the
copy she was making, occasionally gathered the artists
about her easel; and, altogether, her position among
the silent and patient company at work in the different
halls of the palace, was one of affectionate and tacit
respect. McDonald was her nearest neighbor, and
they frequently looked over each other's pictures, but,
as they were both foreigners in Florence (she of Polish
birth, as he understood), their conversation was in
French or Italian, neither of which languages were
fluently familiar to Graeme, and it was limited generally
to expressions of courtesy or brief criticism of
each other's labors.
As I said before, it was a “proof-impression” of a
celestial summer's morning, and the thermometer
stood at heavenly idleness. McDonald sat with his
maul-stick across his knees, drinking from Titian's
picture. An artist, who had lounged in from the
next room, had hung himself by the crook of his arm
over a high peg, in his comrade's easel, and every now
and then he volunteered an observation to which he
expected no particular answer.
“When I remember how little beauty I have seen
in the world,” said Ingarde (this artist), “I am inclined
to believe with Saturninus, that there is no resurrection
of bodies, and that only the spirits of the good
return into the body of the Godhead—for what is
ugliness to do in heaven!”
McDonald only said, “hm—hm!”
“Or rather,” said Ingarde again, “I should like to
fashion a creed for myself, and believe that nothing
was immortal but what was heavenly, and that the
good among men and the beautiful among women
would be the only reproductions hereafter. How will
this little plain woman look in the streets of the New
Jerusalem, for example? Yet she expects, as we all
do, to be recognisable by her friends in Heaven, and,
of course, to have the same irredeemably plain face!
(Does she understand English, by the way—for she
might not be altogether pleased with my theory!”)
“I have spoken to her very often,” said McDonald,
“and I think English is Hebrew to her—but my theory
of beauty crosses at least one corner of your argument,
my friend! I believe that the original type of
every human face is beautiful, and that every human
being could be made beautiful, without, in any essential
particular, destroying the visible identity. The likeness
preserved in the faces of a family through several
generations is modified by the bad mental qualities,
and the bad health of those who hand is down. Remove
these modifications, and, without destroying the
family likeness, you would take away all that mars the
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[figure description] Page 282.[end figure description]
beauty of its particular type. An individual countenance
is an integral work of God's making, and God
`saw that it was good' when he made it. Ugliness,
as you phrase it, is the damage that type of countenance
has received from the sin and suffering of life. But
the type can be restored, and will be, doubtless, in
Heaven!”
“And you think that little woman's face could be
made beautiful?”
“I know it.”
“Try it, then! Here is your copy of Titian's
`Bella,' all finished but the face. Make an apotheosis
portrait of your neighbor, and while it harmonizes
with the body of Titian's beauty, still leave it recognisable
as her portrait, and I'll give in to your theory—
believing in all other miracles, if you like, at the same
time!”
Ingarde laughed, as he went back to his own picture,
and McDonald, after sitting a few minutes lost in
revery, turned his easel so as to get a painter's view
of his female neighbor. He thought she colored
slightly as he fixed his eyes upon her; but, if so, she
apparently became very soon unconscious of his gaze,
and he was soon absorbed himself in the task to which
his friend had so mockingly challenged him.
[Excuse me, dear reader, while with two epistles I
build a bridge over which you can cross a chasm of a
month in my story.]
“To Graeme McDonald.
“Sir: I am intrusted with a delicate commission,
which I know not how to broach to you, except by
simple proposal. Will you forgive my abrupt brevity,
if I inform you, without further preface, that the
Countess Nyschriem, a Polish lady of high birth and
ample fortune, does you the honor to propose for your
hand. If you are disengaged, and your affections are
not irrevocably given to another, I can conceive no
sufficient obstacle to your acceptance of this brilliant
connexion. The countess is twenty-two, and not
beautiful, it must in fairness be said; but she has
high qualities of head and heart, and is worthy of any
man's respect and affection. She has seen you, of
course, and conceived a passion for you, of which this
is the result. I am directed to add, that should you
consent, the following conditions are imposed—that
you marry her within four days, making no inquiry
except as to her age, rank, and property, and that,
without previous interview, she come veiled to the
altar.
“An answer is requested in the course of to-morrow,
addressed to `The Count Hanswald, minister of his
majesty the king of Prussia.'
“I have the honor, &c., &c.
“Hanswald.”
McDonald's answer was as follows:—
“To his Excellency, Hanswald, &c., &c.
“You will pardon me that I have taken two days to
consider the extraordinary proposition made me in
your letter. The subject, since it is to be entertained
a moment, requires, perhaps, still further reflection—
but my reply shall be definite, and as prompt as I can
bring myself to be, in a matter so important.
“My first impulse was to return your letter, declining
the honor you would do me, and thanking the lady
for the compliment of her choice. My first reflection
was the relief and happiness which an independence
would bring to a mother and two sisters dependant,
now, on the precarious profits of my pencil. And I
first consented to ponder the matter with this view,
and I now consent to marry (frankly) for this advantage.
But still I have a condition to propose.
“In the studies I have had the opportunity to make
of the happiness of imaginative men in matrimony, I
have observed that their two worlds of fact and fancy
were seldom under the control of one mistress. It
must be a very extraordinary woman of course, who,
with the sweet domestic qualities needful for common
life, possesses at the same time the elevation and
spirituality requisite for the ideal of the poet and
painter. And I am not certain, in any case, whether
the romance of some secret passion, fed and pursuec
in the imagination only, be not the inseparable necessity
of a poetical nature. For the imagination is incapable
of being chained, and it is at once disenchanted
and set roaming by the very possession and certainty,
which are the charms of matrimony. Whether
exclusive devotion of all the faculties of mind and body
be the fidelity exacted in marriage, is a question every
woman should consider before making a husband of
an imaginative man. As I have not seen the countess.
I can generalize on the subject without offence, and
she is the best judge whether she can chain my fancy
as well as my affections, or yield to an imaginative
mistress the devotion of so predominant a quality of
my nature. I can only promise her the constancy of
a husband.
“Still—if this were taken for only vague speculation—
she might be deceived. I must declare, frankly
that I am, at present, completely possessed with an
imaginative passion. The object of it is probably as
poor as I, and I could never marry her were I to continue
free. Probably, too, the high-born countess
would be but little jealous of her rival, for she has no
pretensions to beauty, and is an humble artist. But,
in painting this lady's portrait—(a chance experiment,
to try whether so plain a face could be made lovely)—
I have penetrated to so beautiful an inner countenance
(so to speak)—I have found charms of impression
so subtly masked to the common eye—I have
traced such exquisite lineament of soul and feeling,
visible, for the present, I believe, to my eye only—
that, while I live. I shall do irresistible homage to her
as the embodiment of my fancy's want, the very spirit
and essence suitable to rule over my unseen world of
imagination. Marry whom I will, and be true to her
as I shall, this lady will (perhaps unknown to herself)
be my mistress in dream-land and revery.
“This inevitable license allowed—my ideal world
and its devotions, that is to say, left entirely to myself—
I am ready to accept the honor of the countess's
hand. If, at the altar, she should hear me murmur
another name with her own—(for the bride of my fancy
must be present when I wed, and I shall link the vows
to both in one ceremony)—let her not fear for my
constancy to herself, but let her remember that it is
not to offend her hereafter, if the name of the other
come to my lip in dreams.
“Your excellency may command my time and
presence. With high consideration, &c.
“Graeme McDonald.”
Rather agitated than surprised seemed Mademoiselle
Folie, when, the next day, as she arranged her brushes
upon the shelf of her easel, her handsome neighbor
commenced, in the most fluent Italian he could command,
to invite her to his wedding. Very much
surprised was McDonald when she interrupted him
in English, and begged him to use his native tongue,
as madame, her attendant, would not then understand
him. He went on delightedly in his own honest
language, and explained to her his imaginative admiration,
though he felt compunctious, somewhat,
that so unreal a sentiment should bring the blood into
her cheek. She thanked him—drew the cloth from
the upper part of her own picture, and showed him an
admirable portrait of his handsome features, substituted
for the masculine head of Judith in the original from
which she copied—and promised to be at his wedding,
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and to listen sharply for her murmured name in his
vow at the altar. He chanced to wear at the moment
a ring of red cornelian, and he agreed with her that
she should stand where he could see her, and, at the
moment of his putting the marriage ring upon the
bride's fingers, that she should put on this, and for
ever after wear it, as a token of having received his
spiritual vows of devotion.
The day came, and the splendid equipage of the
countess dashed into the square of Santa Maria, with
a veiled bride and a cold bridegroom, and deposited
them at the steps of the church. And they were followed
by other coroneted equipages, and gayly dressed
from each—the mother and sisters of the bridegroom
gayly dressed, among them, but looking pale
with incertitude and dread.
The veiled bride was small, but she moved gracefully
up the aisle, and met her future husband at the
altar with a low courtesy, and made a sign to the priest
to proceed with the ceremony. McDonald was color
less, but firm, and indeed showed little interest, except
by an anxious look now and then among the crowd of
spectators at the sides of the altar. He pronounced
with a steady voice, but when the ring was to be put
on, he looked around for an instant, and then suddenly,
and to the great scandal of the church, clasped his
bride with a passionate ejaculation to his bosom
The cornelian ring was on her finger—and the Countess
Nyschriem and Mademoiselle Folie—his bride and
his fancy queen—were one.
This curious event happened in Florence some
eight years since—as all people then there will remember—
and it was prophesied of the countess that
she would have but a short lease of her handsome and
gay husband. But time does not say so. A more
constant husband than McDonald to his plain and
titled wife, and one more continuously in love, does
not travel and buy pictures, and patronize artists—
though few except yourself and I, dear reader, know
the philosophy of it!
I was standing in a hostelry, at Geneva, making a
bargain with an Italian for a place in a return carriage
to Florence, when an Englishman, who had been in
the same steamer with me on Lake Leman, the day
before, came in and stood listening to the conversation.
We had been the only two passengers on board,
but had passed six hours in each other's company
without speaking. The road to an Englishman's
friendship is to have shown yourself perfectly indifferent
to his acquaintance, and, as I liked him from the
first, we were now ready to be conscious of each other's
existence.
“I beg pardon,” said he, advancing in a pause of
the vetturino's oration, “will you allow me to engage
a place with you? I am going to Florence, and, if
agreeable to you, we will take the carriage to ourselves.”
I agreed very willingly, and in two hours we were
free of the gates of Geneva, and keeping along the
edge of the lake in the cool twilight of one of the loveliest
of heaven's summer evenings. The carriage was
spaciously contrived for four; and, with the curtains
up all around, our feet on the forward seat, my companion
smoking, and conversation bubbling up to
please itself, we rolled over the smooth road, gliding
into the first chapter of our acquaintance as tranquilly
as Geoffrey Crayon and his reader into the first chapter
of anything he has written.
My companion (Mr. St. John Elmslie, as put down
in his passport) seemed to have something to think of
beside propitiating my good will, but he was considerate
and winning, from evident high breeding, and
quite open, himself, to my most scrutinizing study.
He was about thirty, and, without any definite beauty,
was a fine specimen of a man. Probably most persons
would have called him handsome. I liked him
better, probably, from the subdued melancholy with
which he brooded on his secret thought, whatever it
might be—sad men, in this world of boisterous gayety
or selfish ill-humor, interesting me always.
From that something, on which his memory fed in
quiet but constant revery, nothing aroused my companion
except the passing of a travelling carriage, going
in the other direction, on our own arrival at an inn.
I began to suspect, indeed, after a little while, that
Elmslie had some understanding with our vetturino,
for, on the approach of any vehicle of pleasure, our
horses became restiff, and, with a sudden pull-up
stood directly across the way. Out jumped my friend
to assist in controlling the restiff animals, and, in the
five minutes during which the strangers were obliged
to wait, we generally saw their heads once or twice
thrust inquiringly from the carriage window. This
done, our own vehicle was again wheeled about, and
the travellers allowed to proceed.
We had arrived at Bologna with but one interruption
to the quiet friendliness of our intercourse. Apropos
of some vein of speculation, I had asked my companion
if he were married. He was silent for a moment, and
then, in a jocose tone of voice, which was new to me
replied, “I believe I have a wife—somewhere in Scotland.”
But though Elmslie had determined to show
me that he was neither annoyed nor offended at my
inquisitiveness, his manner changed. He grew ceremonious.
For the remainder of that day, I felt uncomfortable,
I scarce knew why; and I silently determined
that if my friend continued so exceedingly well
bred in his manner for another day, I should find an
excuse for leaving him at Bologna.
But we had left Bologna, and, at sunset of a warn
day, were slowly toiling up the Apennines. The inn to
which we were bound was in sight, a mile or two above
us, and, as the vetturino stopped to breathe his horses
Elmslie jumped from the carriage and started to wall
on. I took advantage of his absence to stretch myself
over the vacated cushions, and, on our arrival at the
inn, was soundly asleep.
My friend's voice, in an unusual tone, awoke me
and, by his face, as he looked in at the carriage window,
I saw that he was under some extraordinary excitement.
This I observed by the light of the stable
lantern—for the hostelry, Italian fashion, occupied
the lower story of the inn, and our carriage was driven
under the archway, where the faint light from without
made but little impression on the darkness. I followed
Elmslie's beckoning finger, and climbing after him up
the stairway of stone, stood in a large refectory occupying
the whole of the second story of the building.
At the first glance I saw that there was an English
party in the house. An Italian inn of the lower order
has no provision for private parties, and few, except
English travellers, object to joining the common even
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[figure description] Page 284.[end figure description]
ing meal. The hall was dark with the twilight, but a
large curtain was suspended across the farther extremity,
and, by the glimmer of lights, and an occasional
sound of a knife, a party was within supping in
silence.
“If you speak, speak in Italian,” whispered Elmslie,
taking me by the arm, and leading me on tiptoe to
one of the corners of the curtain.
I looked in and saw two persons seated at a table—
a bold and soldierly-looking man of fifty, and a young
lady, evidently his daughter. The beauty of the lastmentioned
person was so extraordinary that I nearly
committed the indiscretion of an exclamation in English.
She was slight, but of full and well-rounded
proportions, and she sat and moved with an eminent
grace and ladylikeness altogether captivating.
Though her face expressed a settled sadness, it was
of unworn and faultless youth and loveliness, and
while her heavily-fringed eyes would have done, in
their expression, for a Niobe, Hebe's lips were not
more ripe, nor Juno's arched more proudly. She was
a blonde, with eyes and eyelashes darker than her
hair—a kind of beauty almost peculiar to England.
The passing in of a tall footman, in a plain livery of
gray, interrupted my gaze, and Elmslie drew me away
by the arm, and led me into the road in front of the
locanda. The night had now fallen, and we strolled
up and down in the glimmer of the starlight. My
companion was evidently much disturbed, and we
made several turns after I had seen very plainly that
he was making up his mind to communicate to me the
secret.
“I have a request to make of you,” he said, at last;
“a service to exact, rather, to which there were no
hope that you would listen for a moment if I did not
first tell you a very singular story. Have a little patience
with me, and I will make it as brief as I can—
the briefer, that I have no little pain in recalling it with
the distinctness of description.”
I expressed my interest in all that concerned my
new friend, and begged him to go on.
“Hardly six years ago,” said Elmslie, pressing my
arm gently in acknowledgment of my sympathy, “I
left college and joined my regiment, for the first time,
in Scotland. By the way, I should re-introduce myself
to you as Viscount S—, of the title of which,
then, I was in prospect. My story hinges somewhat
upon the fact that, as an honorable captain, a nobleman
in expectancy, I was an object of some extraneous
interest to the ladies who did the flirting for the
garrison. God forgive me for speaking lightly on the
subject!
“A few evenings after my arrival, we had been dining
rather freely at mess, and the major announced to us
that we were invited to take tea with a linen-draper,
whose house was a popular resort of the officers of
the regiment. The man had three or four daughters,
who, as the phrase goes, `gave you a great deal for
your money,' and, for romping and frolicking, they
had good looks and spirit enough. The youngest was
really very pretty, but the eldest, to whom I was exclusively
presented by the major, as a sort of quiz on
a new-comer, was a sharp and sneering old maid, redheaded,
freckled, and somewhat lame. Not to be outdone
in frolic by my persecutor, I commenced making
love to Miss Jacky in mock heroics, and we were soon
marching up and down the room, to the infinite entertainment
of my brother officers, lavishing on each other
every possible term of endearment.
“In the midst of this, the major came up to me with
rather a serious face.
“`Whatever you do,' said he, `for God's sake don't
call the old girl your wife. The joke might be serious.
'
“It was quite enough that I was desired not to do
anything in the reign of misrule then prevailing. I
immediately assumed a connubial air, to the best of
my dramatic ability, begged Miss Jacky to join me in
the frolic, and made the rounds of the room, introducing
the old girl as Mrs. Elmslie, and receiving from
her quite as many tendernesses as were bearable by
myself or the company present. I observed that the
lynx-eyed linen-draper watched this piece of fun very
closely, and my friend, the major, seemed distressed
and grave about it. But we carried it out till the
party broke up, and the next day the regiment was
ordered over to Ireland, and I thought no more, for
awhile, either of Miss Jacky or my own absurdity.
“Two years afterward, I was, at a drawing-room at
St. James's, presented, for the first time, by the name
which I bear. It was not a very agreeable event to me,
as our family fortunes were inadequate to the proper
support of the title, and on the generosity of a maternal
uncle, who had been at mortal variance with my father,
depended our hopes of restoration to prosperity. From
the mood of bitter melancholy in which I had gone
through the ceremony of an introduction, I was aroused
by the murmur in the crowd at the approach of a young
girl just presented to the king. She was following a
lady whom I slightly knew, and had evidently been
presented by her; and, before I had begun to recover
from my astonishment at her beauty, I was requested
by this lady to give her protegé an arm and follow to a
less crowded apartment of the palace.
“Ah, my friend! the exquisite beauty of Lady
Melicent—but you have seen her. She is here, and
I must fold her in my arms to-night, or perish in the
attempt.
“Pardon me!” he added, as I was about to interrupt
him with an explanation. “She has been—she
is—my wife! She loved me and married me, making
life a heaven of constant ecstacy—for I worshipped
her with every fibre of my existence.”
He paused and gave me his story brokenly, and I
waited for him to go on without questioning.
“We had lived together in absolute and unclouded
happiness for eight months, in lover-like seclusion at
her father's house, and I was looking forward to the
birth of my child with anxiety and transport, when the
death of my uncle left me heir to his immense fortune,
and I parted from my greater treasure to go and pay
the fitting respect at his burial.
“I returned, after a week's absence, with an impatience
and ardor almost intolerable, and found the door
closed against me.
“There were two letters for me at the porter's lodge—
one from Lord A—, my wife's father, informing
me that the Lady Melicent had miscarried and was
dangerously ill, and enjoining upon me as a man of
honor and delicacy, never to attempt to see her again;
and another from Scotland, claiming a fitting support
for my lawful wife, the daughter of the linen-draper.
The proofs of the marriage, duly sworn to and certified
by the witnesses of my fatal frolic, were enclosed,
and on my recovery, six weeks after, from the delirium
into which these multiplied horrors precipitated me, I
found that, by the Scotch law, the first marriage was
valid, and my ruin was irrevocable.”
“And how long since was this?” I inquired, breaking
in upon his narration for the first time.
“A year and a month—and till to-night I have not
seen her. But I must break through this dreadful
separation now—and I must speak to her, and press
her to my breast—and you will aid me?”
“To the last drop of my blood, assuredly. But
how?”
“Come to the inn! You have not supped, and we
will devise as you eat. And you must lend me your
invention, for my heart and brain seem to me going
wild.”
Two hours after, with a pair of loaded pistols in my
breast, we went to the chamber of the host, and bound
-- 285 --
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him and his wife to the posts of their beds. There
was but one man about the house, the hostler, and we
had made him intoxicated with our travelling flask of
brandy. Lord A— and his daughter were still sitting
up, and she, at her chamber window, was watching
the just risen moon, over which the clouds were
drifting very rapidly. Our business was, now, only
with them, as, in their footman, my companion had
found an attached creature, who remembered him, and
willingly agreed to offer no interruption.
After taking a pull at the brandy-flask myself (for,
in spite of my blackened face and the slouched hat of
the hostler, I required some fortification of the muscles
of my face before doing violence to an English
nobleman), I opened the door of the chamber which
must be passed to gain access to that of Lady Melicent.
It was Lord A—'s sleeping-room, and, though
the light was extinguished, I could see that he was
still up, and sitting at the window. Turning my lantern
inward, I entered the room and set it down, and,
to my relief, Lord A— soliloquized in English, that
it was the host with a hint that it was time to go to
bed. My friend was at the door, according to my arrangement,
ready to assist me should I find any difficulty;
but, from the dread of premature discovery of
the person, he was to let me manage it alone if possible.
Lord A— sat unsuspectingly in his chair, with
his head turned half way over his shoulders to see why
the officious host did not depart. I sprung suddenly
upon him, drew him backward and threw him on his
face, and, with my hand over his mouth, threatened
him with death, in my choicest Italian, if he did not
remain passive till his portmanteau had been looked
into. I thought he might submit, with the idea that
it was only a robbery, and so it proved. He allowed
me, after a short struggle, to tie his hands behind him,
and march him down to his carriage, before the muzzle
of my pistol. The hostelry was still as death, and,
shutting his carriage door upon his lordship, I mounted
guard.
The night seemed to me very long, but morning
dawned, and, with the earliest gray, the postillions
came knocking at the outer door of the locanda. My
friend went out to them, while I marched back Lord
A— to his chamber, and, by immense bribing, the
horses were all put to our carriage a half hour after,
and the outraged nobleman was left without the means
of pursuit till their return. We reached Florence in
safety, and pushed on immediately to Leghorn, where
we took the steamer for Marseilles and eluded arrest,
very much to my most agreeable surprise.
By a Providence that does not always indulge mortals
with removing those they wish in another world,
Lord S— has lately been freed from his harrowing
chain by the death of his so-called lady; and, having
re-married Lady Melicent, their happiness is renewed
and perfect. In his letter to me, announcing it, he
gives me liberty to tell the story, as the secret was divulged
to Lord A— on the day of his second nuptials.
He said nothing, however, of his lordship's
forgiveness for my rude handling of his person, and,
in ceasing to be considered a brigand, possibly I am
responsible as a gentleman.
Willis, Nathaniel Parker, 1806-1867 [1847], The miscellaneous works (J.S. Redfield, New York) [word count] [eaf419].
