It was the crafty Lord Fitz-pompey who brought about this catastrophe.

Having secured his nephew as a visitor to Malthorpe, by allowing him to believe that the Graftons would form part of the summer coterie, his Lordship took especial care that poor Lady Aphrodite should not be invited. 'Once part them, once get him to Malthorpe alone,' mused the experienced Peer, 'and he will be emanc.i.p.ated. I am doing him, too, the greatest kindness. What would I have given, when a young man, to have had such an uncle!'

The Morning Post announced with a sigh the departure of the Duke of St.

James to the splendid festivities of Malthorpe; and also apprised the world that Sir Lucius and Lady Aphrodite were entertaining a numerous and distinguished party at their seat, Cleve Park, Cambridgeshire.

There was a constant bustle kept up at Malthorpe, and the young Duke was hourly permitted to observe that, independent of all private feeling, it was impossible for the most distinguished n.o.bleman to ally himself with a more considered family. There was a continual swell of guests dashing down and dashing away, like the ocean; brilliant as its foam, numerous as its waves. But there was one permanent inhabitant of this princely mansion far more interesting to our hero than the evanescent crowds who rose like bubbles, glittered, broke, and disappeared.

Once more wandering in that park of Malthorpe where had pa.s.sed the innocent days of his boyhood, his thoughts naturally recurred to the sweet companion who had made even those hours of happiness more felicitous. Here they had rambled, here they had first tried their ponies, there they had nearly fallen, there he had quite saved her; here were the two very elms where St. Maurice made for them a swing, here was the very keeper's cottage of which she had made for him a drawing, and which he still retained. Dear girl! And had she disappointed the romance of his boyhood; had the experience the want of which had allowed him then to be pleased so easily, had it taught him to be ashamed of those days of affection? Was she not now the most gentle, the most graceful, the most beautiful, the most kind? Was she not the most wife-like woman whose eyes had ever beamed with tenderness? Why, why not at once close a career which, though short, yet already could yield reminiscences which might satisfy the most craving admirer of excitement? But there was Lady Aphrodite; yet that must end. Alas! on his part, it had commenced in levity; he feared, on hers, it must terminate in anguish. Yet, though he loved his cousin; though he could not recall to his memory the woman who was more worthy of being his wife, he could not also conceal from himself that the feelings which impelled him were hardly so romantic as he thought should have inspired a youth of one-and-twenty when he mused on the woman he loved best. But he knew life, and he felt convinced that a mistress and a wife must always be different characters. A combination of pa.s.sion with present respect and permanent affection he supposed to be the delusion of romance writers. He thought he must marry Caroline, partly because he must marry sooner or later; partly because he had never met a woman whom he had loved so much, and partly because he felt he should be miserable if her destiny in life were not, in some way or other, connected with his own. 'Ah! if she had but been my sister!'

After a little more cogitation, the young Duke felt much inclined to make his cousin a d.u.c.h.ess; but time did not press. After Doncaster he must spend a few weeks at Cleve, and then he determined to come to an explanation with Lady Aphrodite. In the meantime, Lord Fitz-pompey secretly congratulated himself on his skilful policy, as he perceived his nephew daily more engrossed with his daughter. Lady Caroline, like all unaffected and accomplished women, was seen to great effect in the country.

There, while they feed their birds, tend their flowers, and tune their harp, and perform those more sacred, but not less pleasing, duties which become the daughter of a great proprietor, they favourably contrast with those more modish damsels who, the moment they are freed from the Park and from Willis's, begin fighting for silver arrows and patronising county b.a.l.l.s.

September came, and brought some relief to those who were suffering in the inferno of provincial ennui; but this is only the purgatory to the Paradise of _battues_. Yet September has its days of slaughter; and the young Duke gained some laurels, with the aid of friend Egg, friend Purdy, and Manton. And the Premier galloped down sixty miles in one morning. He sacked his cover, made a light bet with St. James on the favourite, lunched standing, and was off before night; for he had only three days' holiday, and had to visit Lord Protest, Lord Content, and Lord Proxy. So, having knocked off four of his crack peers, he galloped back to London to flog up his secretaries.

And the young Duke was off too. He had promised to spend a week with Charles Annesley and Lord Squib, who had taken some Norfolk Baronet's seat for the autumn, and while he was at Spa were thinning his preserves. It was a week! What fantastic dissipation! One day, the brains of three hundred hares made a _pate_ for Charles Annesley.

Oh, Heliogabalus! you gained eternal fame for what is now 'done in a corner!'

CHAPTER II.

_A New Charmer_

THE Carnival of the North at length arrived. All civilised eyes were on the most distinguished party of the most distinguished steward, who with his horse Sanspareil seemed to share universal favour. The French Princes and the Duke of Burlington; the Protocolis, and the Fitz-pompeys, and the Bloomerlys; the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Shropshire, and the three Ladies Wrekin, who might have pa.s.sed for the Graces; Lord and Lady Vatican on a visit from Rome, his Lordship taking hints for a heat in the Corso, and her Ladyship, a cla.s.sical beauty with a face like a cameo; St. Maurice, and Annesley, and Squib, composed the party. The Premier was expected, and there was murmur of an Archduke. Seven houses had been prepared, a party-wall knocked down to make a dining-room, the plate sent down from London, and venison and wine from Hauteville.

The a.s.semblage exceeded in quant.i.ty and quality all preceding years, and the Hauteville arms, the Hauteville liveries, and the Hauteville outriders, beat all hollow in blazonry, and brilliancy, and number. The North countrymen were proud of their young Duke and his carriages and six, and longed for the Castle to be finished. Nothing could exceed the propriety of the arrangements, for Sir Lucius was an unrivalled hand, and, though a Newmarket man, gained universal approbation even in Yorkshire. Lady Aphrodite was all smiles and new liveries, and the Duke of St. James reined in his charger right often at her splendid equipage.

The day's sport was over, and the evening's sport begun, to a quiet man, who has no bet more heavy than a dozen pair of gloves, perhaps not the least amusing. Now came the numerous dinner-parties, none to be compared to that of the Duke of St. James. Lady Aphrodite was alone wanting, but she had to head the _menage_ of Sir Lucius. Every one has an appet.i.te after a race: the Duke of Shropshire attacked the venison as Samson the Philistines; and the French princes, for once in their life, drank real champagne.

Yet all faces were not so serene as those of the party of Hauteville.

Many a one felt that strange mixture of fear and exultation which precedes a battle. To-morrow was the dreaded St. Leger.

'Tis night, and the banquet is over, and all are hastening to the ball.

In spite of the brilliant crowd, the entrance of the Hauteville party made a sensation. It was the crowning ornament to the scene, the stamp of the sovereign, the lamp of the Pharos, the flag of the tower. The party dispersed, and the Duke, after joining a quadrille with Lady Caroline, wandered away to make himself generally popular.

As he was moving along, he turned his head; he started.

'Ah!' exclaimed his Grace.

The cause of this sudden and ungovernable exclamation can be no other than a woman. You are right. The lady who had excited it was advancing in a quadrille, some ten yards from her admirer. She was very young; that is to say, she had, perhaps, added a year or two to sweet seventeen, an addition which, while it does not deprive the s.e.x of the early grace of girlhood, adorns them with that indefinable dignity which is necessary to const.i.tute a perfect woman. She was not tall, but as she moved forward displayed a figure so exquisitely symmetrical that for a moment the Duke forgot to look at her face, and then her head was turned away; yet he was consoled a moment for his disappointment by watching the movements of a neck so white, and round, and long, and delicate, that it would have become Psyche, and might have inspired Praxiteles.

Her face is again turning towards him. It stops too soon; yet his eye feeds upon the outline of a cheek not too full, yet promising of beauty, like hope of Paradise.

She turns her head, she throws around a glance, and two streams of liquid light pour from her hazel eyes on his. It was a rapid, graceful movement, unstudied as the motion of a fawn, and was in a moment withdrawn, yet was it long enough to stamp upon his memory a memorable countenance. Her face was quite oval, her nose delicately aquiline, and her high pure forehead like a Parian dome. The clear blood coursed under her transparent cheek, and increased the brilliancy of her dazzling eyes. His never left her. There was an expression of decision about her small mouth, an air of almost mockery in her curling lip, which, though in themselves wildly fascinating, strangely contrasted with all the beaming light and beneficent l.u.s.tre of the upper part of her countenance. There was something, too, in the graceful but rather decided air with which she moved, that seemed to betoken her self-consciousness of her beauty or her rank; perhaps it might be her wit; for the Duke observed that while she scarcely smiled, and conversed with lips hardly parted, her companion, with whom she was evidently intimate, was almost constantly convulsed with laughter, although, as he never spoke, it was clearly not at his own jokes.

Was she married? Could it be? Impossible! Yet there was a richness in her costume which was not usual for unmarried women. A diamond arrow had pierced her cl.u.s.tering and auburn locks; she wore, indeed, no necklace; with such a neck it would have been sacrilege; no ear-rings, for her ears were too small for such a burthen; yet her girdle was of brilliants; and a diamond cross worthy of Belinda and her immortal bard hung upon her breast.

The Duke seized hold of the first person he knew: it was Lord Bagshot.

'Tell me,' he said, in the stern, low voice of a despot; 'tell me who that creature is.'

'Which creature?' asked Lord Bagshot.

'b.o.o.by! brute! Bag, that creature of light and love!'

'Where?'

'There!

'What, my mother?'

'Your mother! cub! cart-horse! answer me, or I will run you through.'

'Who do you mean?'

'There, there, dancing with that raw-boned youth with red hair.'

'What, Lord St. Jerome! Lor! he is a Catholic. I never speak to them. My governor would be so savage.'

'But the girl?'

'Oh! the girl! Lor! she is a Catholic, too.'

'But who is she?'

'Lor! don't you know?'

'Speak, hound; speak!'

'Lor! that is the beauty of the county; but then she is a Catholic. How shocking! Blow us all up as soon as look at us.'

'If you do not tell me who she is directly, you shall never get into White's. I will black-ball you regularly.'

'Lor! man, don't be in a pa.s.sion. I will tell. But then I know you know all the time. You are joking. Everybody knows the beauty of the county; everybody knows May Dacre.'

'May Dacre!' said the Duke of St. James, as if he were shot.

'Why, what is the matter now?' asked Lord Bag-shot.

'What, the daughter of Dacre of Castle Dacre?' pursued his Grace.

'The very same; the beauty of the county. Everybody knows May Dacre. I knew you knew her all the time. You did not take me in. Why, what is the matter?'

'Nothing; get away!'

'Civil! But you will remember your promise about White's?'