Whatever their defects, they had exhibited shrewdness and vigour. The late Marquess (grandfather to the present) had been perhaps the ablest (that is, done most for the House of Vipont) of them all. Of a grandiose and superb mode of living; of a majestic deportment; of princely manners; of a remarkable talent for the management of all business, whether private or public; a perfect enthusiast for the House of Vipont, and aided by a marchioness in all respects worthy of him,--he might be said to be the culminating flower of the venerable stem. But the present lord, succeeding to the t.i.tle as a mere child, was a melancholy contrast, not only to his grandsire, but to the general character of his progenitors. Before his time, every Head of the House had done something for it; even the most frivolous had contributed one had collected the pictures, another the statues, a third the medals, a fourth had ama.s.sed the famous Vipont library; while others had at least married heiresses, or augmented, through ducal lines, the splendour of the interminable cousinhood. The present Marquess was literally nil. The pith of the Viponts was not in him. He looked well; he dressed well: if life were only the dumb show of a tableau, he would have been a paragon of a Marquess. But he was like the watches we give to little children, with a pretty gilt dial-plate, and no works in them. He was thoroughly inert; there was no winding him up: he could not manage his property; he could not answer his letters,--very few of them could he even read through.

Politics did not interest him, nor literature, nor field-sports. He shot, it is true, but mechanically; wondering, perhaps, why he did shoot. He attended races, because the House of Vipont kept a racing stud. He bet on his own horses, but if they lost showed no vexation.

Admirers (no Marquess of Montfort could be wholly without them) said, "What fine temper! what good breeding!" it was nothing but const.i.tutional apathy. No one could call him a bad man: he was not a profligate, an oppressor, a miser, a spendthrift; he would not have taken the trouble to be a bad man on any account. Those who beheld his character at a distance would have called him an exemplary man. The more conspicuous duties of his station--subscriptions, charities, the maintenance of grand establishments, the encouragement of the fine arts--were virtues admirably performed for him by others. But the phlegm or nullity of his being was not, after all, so complete as I have made it, perhaps, appear. He had one susceptibility which is more common with women than with men,--the susceptibility to pique. His _amour propre_ was unforgiving: pique that, and he could do a rash thing, a foolish thing, a spiteful thing; pique that, and, prodigious! the watch went! He had a rooted pique against his marchioness. Apparently he had conceived this pique from the very first. He showed it pa.s.sively by supreme neglect; he showed it actively by removing her from all the spheres of power which naturally fall to the wife when the husband shuns the details of business. Evidently he had a dread lest any one should say, "Lady Montfort influences my lord." Accordingly, not only the management of his estates fell to Carr Vipont, but even of his gardens, his household, his domestic arrangements. It was Carr Vipont or Lady Selina who said to Lady Montfort, "Give a ball;" "You should ask so and so to dinner;" "Montfort was much hurt to see the old lawn at the Twickenham villa broken up by those new bosquets. True, it is settled on you as a jointure-house, but for that very reason Montfort is sensitive," etc.

In fact, they were virtually as separated, my lord and my lady, as if legally disunited, and as if Carr Vipont and Lady Selina were trustees or intermediaries in any polite approach to each other. But, on the other hand, it is fair to say that where Lady Montfort's sphere of action did not interfere with her husband's plans, habits, likings, dislikings, jealous apprehensions that she should be supposed to have any ascendency over what exclusively belonged to himself as _Roi faineant_ of the Viponts, she was left free as air. No attempt at masculine control or conjugal advice. At her disposal was wealth without stint, every luxury the soft could desire, every gewgaw the vain could covet. Had her pin-money, which in itself was the revenue of an ordinary peeress, failed to satisfy her wants; had she grown tired of wearing the family diamonds, and coveted new gems from Golconda,--a single word to Carr Vipont or Lady Selina would have been answered by a carte blanche on the Bank of England. But Lady Montfort had the misfortune not to be extravagant in her tastes. Strange to say, in the world Lord Montfort's marriage was called a love-match; he had married a portionless girl, daughter to one of his poorest and obscurest cousins, against the uniform policy of the House of Vipont, which did all it could for poor cousins except marrying them to its chief. But Lady Montfort's conduct in these trying circ.u.mstances was admirable and rare. Few affronts can humiliate us unless we resent them--and in vain. Lady Montfort had that exquisite dignity which gives to submission the grace of cheerful acquiescence. That in the gay world flatterers should gather round a young wife so eminently beautiful, and so wholly left by her husband to her own guidance, was inevitable. But at the very first insinuated compliment or pathetic condolence, Lady Montfort, so meek in her household, was haughty enough to have daunted Lovelace. She was thus very early felt to be beyond temptation, and the boldest pa.s.sed on, nor presumed to tempt. She was unpopular; called "proud and freezing;" she did not extend the influence of "The House;" she did not confirm its fashion,--fashion which necessitates social ease, and which no rank, no wealth, no virtue, can of themselves suffice to give. And this failure on her part was a great offence in the eyes of the House of Vipont. "She does absolutely nothing for us," said Lady Selina; but Lady Selina in her heart was well pleased that to her in reality thus fell, almost without a rival, the female representation, in the great world, of the Vipont honours. Lady Selina was fashion itself.

Lady Montfort's social peculiarity was in the eagerness with which she sought the society of persons who enjoyed a reputation for superior intellect, whether statesmen, lawyers, authors, philosophers, artists.

Intellectual intercourse seemed as if it was her native atmosphere, from which she was habitually banished, to which she returned with an instinctive yearning and a new zest of life; yet was she called, even here, nor seemingly without justice, capricious and unsteady in her likings. These clever personages, after a little while, all seemed to disappoint her expectations of them; she sought the acquaintance of each with cordial earnestness; slid from the acquaintance with weary languor,--never, after all, less alone than when alone.

And so wondrous lovely! Nothing so rare as beauty of the high type: genius and beauty, indeed, are both rare; genius, which is the beauty of the mind,-beauty, which is the gen ius of the body. But, of the two, beauty is the rarer. All of us can count on our fingers some forty or fifty persons of undoubted and ill.u.s.trious genius, including those famous in action, letters, art. But can any of us remember to have seen more than four or five specimens of first-rate ideal beauty? Whosoever had seen Lady Montfort would have ranked her amongst such four or five in his recollection. There was in her face that l.u.s.trous dazzle to which the Latin poet, perhaps, refers when he speaks of the--

"Nitor Splendentis Pario marmore purius...

Et voltus, niminm lubricus adspici,"

and which an English poet, with the less sensuous but more spiritual imagination of northern genius, has described in lines that an English reader may be pleased to see rescued from oblivion,--

"Her face was like the milky way i' the sky, A meeting of gentle lights without a name."

(Suckling)

The eyes so purely bright, the exquisite harmony of colouring between the dark (not too dark) hair and the ivory of the skin; such sweet radiance in the lip when it broke into a smile. And it was said that in her maiden day, before Caroline Lyndsay became Marchioness of Montfort, that smile was the most joyous thing imaginable. Absurd now; you would not think it, but that stately lady had been a wild, fanciful girl, with the merriest laugh and the quickest tear, filling the air round her with April sunshine. Certainly, no beings ever yet lived the life Nature intended them to live, nor had fair play for heart and mind, who contrived, by hook or by crook, to marry the wrong person!

CHAPTER VIII.

The interior of the great house.--The British Const.i.tution at home in a family party.

Great was the family gathering that Christmas-tide at Montfort Court.

Thither flocked the cousins of the House in all degrees and of various ranks. From dukes, who had nothing left to wish for that kings and cousinhoods can give, to briefless barristers and aspiring cornets, of equally good blood with the dukes,--the superb family united its motley scions. Such reunions were frequent: they belonged to the hereditary policy of the House of Vipont. On this occasion the muster of the clan was more significant than usual; there was a "CRISES" in the const.i.tutional history of the British empire. A new Government had been suddenly formed within the last six weeks, which certainly portended some direful blow on our ancient inst.i.tutions; for the House of Vipont had not been consulted in its arrangements, and was wholly unrepresented in the Ministry, even by a lordship of the Treasury. Carr Vipont had therefore summoned the patriotic and resentful kindred.

It is an hour or so after the conclusion of dinner. The gentlemen have joined the ladies in the state suite, a suite which the last Marquess had rearranged and redecorated in his old age, during the long illness that finally conducted him to his ancestors. During his earlier years that princely Marquess had deserted Montfort Court for a seat nearer to London, and therefore much more easily filled with that brilliant society of which he had been long the ornament and centre,--railways not then existing for the annihilation of time and s.p.a.ce, and a journey to a northern county four days with posthorses making the invitations even of a Marquess of Montfort unalluring to languid beauties and gouty ministers. But nearing the end of his worldly career, this long neglect of the dwelling identified with his hereditary t.i.tles smote the conscience of the ill.u.s.trious sinner. And other occupations beginning to pall, his lordship, accompanied and cheered by a chaplain, who had a fine taste in the decorative arts, came resolutely to Montfort Court; and there, surrounded with architects and gilders and upholsterers, redeemed his errors; and, soothed by the reflection of the palace provided for his successor, added to his vaults--a coffin.

The suite expands before the eye. You are in the grand drawing-room, copied from that of Versailles. That is the picture, full length, of the late Marquess in his robes; its pendant is the late Marchioness, his wife. That table of malachite is a present from the Russian Emperor Alexander; that vase of Sevres which rests on it was made for Marie Antoinette,--see her portrait enamelled in its centre. Through the open door at the far end your eye loses itself in a vista of other pompous chambers,--the music-room, the statue hall, the orangery; other rooms there are appertaining to the suite, a ballroom fit for Babylon, a library that might have adorned Alexandria,--but they are not lighted, nor required, on this occasion; it is strictly a family party, sixty guests and no more.

In the drawing-room three whist-tables carry off the more elderly and grave. The piano, in the music-room, attracts a younger group. Lady Selina Vipont's eldest daughter, Honoria, a young lady not yet brought out, but about to be brought out the next season, is threading a wonderfully intricate German piece,

"Link'd sweetness, long drawn out,"

with variations. Her science is consummate. No pains have been spared on her education; elaborately accomplished, she is formed to be the sympathizing spouse of a wealthy statesman. Lady Montfort is seated by an elderly d.u.c.h.ess, who is good-natured and a great talker; near her are seated two middle-aged gentlemen, who had been conversing with her till the d.u.c.h.ess, having cut in, turned dialogue into monologue.

The elder of these two gentlemen is Mr. Carr Vipont, bald, with clipped parliamentary whiskers; values himself on a likeness to Canning, but with a portlier presence; looks a large-acred man. Carr Vipont has about L40,000 a year; has often refused office for himself, while taking care that other Viponts should have it; is a great authority in committee business and the rules of the House of Commons; speaks very seldom, and at no great length, never arguing, merely stating his opinion, carries great weight with him, and as he votes vote fifteen other members of the House of Vipont, besides admiring satellites. He can therefore turn divisions, and has decided the fate of cabinets. A pleasant man, a little consequential, but the reverse of haughty,--unctuously overbearing. The other gentleman, to whom he is listening, is our old acquaintance Colonel Alban Vipont Morley, Darrell's friend, George's uncle,--a man of importance, not inferior, indeed, to that of his kinsman Carr; an authority in clubrooms, an oracle in drawing-rooms, a first-rate man of the beau monde. Alban Morley, a younger brother, had entered the Guards young; retired young also from the Guards with the rank of Colonel, and on receipt of a legacy from an old aunt, which, with the interest derived from the sum at which he sold his commission, allowed him a clear income of L1,000 a year. This modest income sufficed for all his wants, fine gentleman though he was. He had refused to go into Parliament,--refused a high place in a public department. Single himself, he showed his respect for wedlock by the interest he took in the marriages of other people; just as Earl Warwick, too wise to set up for a king, gratified his pa.s.sion for royalty by becoming the king-maker. The Colonel was exceedingly accomplished, a very fair scholar, knew most modern languages. In painting an amateur, in music a connoisseur; witty at times, and with wit of a high quality, but thrifty in the expenditure of it; too wise to be known as a wit. Manly too, a daring rider, who had won many a fox's brush; a famous deer-stalker, and one of the few English gentlemen who still keep up the n.o.ble art of fencing,--twice a week to be seen, foil in hand, against all comers in Angelo's rooms. Thin, well-shaped,--not handsome, my dear young lady, far from it, but with an air so thoroughbred that, had you seen him in the day when the opera-house had a crushroom and a fops' alley,--seen him in either of those resorts, surrounded by elaborate dandies and showy beauty-men, dandies and beauty-men would have seemed to you secondrate and vulgar; and the eye, fascinated by that quiet form,--plain in manner, plain in dress, plain in feature,--you would have said, "How very distinguished it is to be so plain!" Knowing the great world from the core to the cuticle, and on that knowledge basing authority and position, Colonel Morley was not calculating, not cunning, not suspicious,--his sagacity the more quick because its movements were straightforward; intimate with the greatest, but sought, not seeking; not a flatterer nor a parasite, but when his advice was asked (even if advice necessitated reproof) giving it with military candour: in fine, a man of such social reputation as rendered him an ornament and prop to the House of Vipont; and with unsuspected depths of intelligence and feeling, which lay in the lower strata of his knowledge of this world to witness of some other one, and justified Darrell in commending a boy like Lionel Haughton to the Colonel's friendly care and admonitory counsels. The Colonel, like other men, had his weakness, if weakness it can be called: he believed that the House of Vipont was not merely the Corinthian capital, but the embattled keep--not merely the _dulce decus_, but the _praesidium columenque rerum_--of the British monarchy.

He did not boast of his connection with the House; he did not provoke your spleen by enlarging on its manifold virtues; he would often have his harmless jest against its members, or even against its pretensions: but such seeming evidences of forbearance or candour were cunning devices to mitigate envy. His devotion to the House was not obtrusive: it was profound. He loved the House of Vipont for the sake of England: he loved England for the sake of the House of Vipont. Had it been possible, by some tremendous reversal of the ordinary laws of nature, to dissociate the cause of England from the cause of the House of Vipont, the Colonel would have said, "Save at least the Ark of the Const.i.tution!

and rally round the old House!"

The Colonel had none of Guy Darrell's infirmity of family pride; he cared not a rush for mere pedigrees,--much too liberal and enlightened for such obsolete prejudices. No! He knew the world too well not to be quite aware that old family and long pedigrees are of no use to a man if he has not some money or some merit. But it was of use to a man to be a cousin of the House of Vipont, though without any money, without any merit at all. It was of use to be part and parcel of a British inst.i.tution; it was of use to have a legitimate indefeasible right to share in the administration and patronage of an empire, on which (to use a novel ill.u.s.tration) "the sun never sets." You might want nothing for yourself; the Colonel and the Marquess equally wanted nothing for themselves but man is not to be a selfish egotist! Man has cousins: his cousins may want something. Demosthenes denounces, in words that inflame every manly breast, the ancient Greek who does not love his POLIS or State, even though he take nothing from it but barren honour, and contribute towards it--a great many disagreeable taxes. As the POLIS to the Greek, was the House of Vipont to Alban Vipont Morley. It was the most beautiful, touching affection imaginable! Whenever the House was in difficulties, whenever it was threatened by a CRISIS, the Colonel was by its side, sparing no pains, neglecting no means, to get the Ark of the Const.i.tution back into smooth water. That duty done, he retired again into private life, and scorned all other reward than the still whisper of applauding conscience.

"Yes," said Alban Morley, whose voice, though low and subdued in tone, was extremely distinct, with a perfect enunciation. "Yes, it is quite true, my nephew has taken orders,--his defect in speech, if not quite removed, has ceased to be any obstacle, even to eloquence; an occasional stammer may be effective,--it increases interest, and when the right word comes, there is the charm of surprise in it. I do not doubt that George will be a very distinguished clergyman."

MR. CARR VIPONT.--"We want one; the House wants a very distinguished clergyman: we have none at this moment,--not a bishop, not even a dean!

all mere parish parsons, and among them not one we could push. Very odd, with more than forty livings too. But the Viponts seldom take to the Church kindly: George must be pushed. The more I think of it, the more we want a bishop: a bishop would be useful in the present CRISIS."

(Looking round the rooms proudly, and softening his voice), "A numerous gathering, Morley! This demonstration will strike terror in Downing Street, eh! The old House stands firm,--never was a family so united: all here, I think,--that is, all worth naming,--all, except Sir James, whom Montfort chooses to dislike, and George--and George comes to-morrow."

COLONEL MORLEY.--"You forget the most eminent of all our connections,--the one who could indeed strike terror into Downing Street, were his voice to be heard again!"

CARR VIPONT.--"Whom do you mean? Ah, I know! Guy Darrell. His wife was a Vipont; and he is not here. But he has long since ceased to communicate with any of us; the only connection that ever fell away from the House of Vipont, especially in a CRISIS like the present. Singular man! For all the use he is to us, he might as well be dead! But he has a fine fortune: what will he do with it?"

THE d.u.c.h.eSS.--"My dear Lady Montfort, you have hurt yourself with that paper cutter."

LADY MONTFORT.--"NO, indeed. Hush! we are disturbing Mr. Carr Vipont!"

The d.u.c.h.ess, in awe of Carr Vipont, sinks her voice, and gabbles on, whisperously.

CARR VIPONT (resuming the subject).--"A very fine fortune: what will he do with it?"

COLONEL MORLEY.--"I don't know; but I had a letter from him some months ago."

CARR VIPONT.--"You had, and never told me!"

COLONEL MORLEY.--"Of no importance to you, my dear Carr. His letter merely introduced to me a charming young fellow,--a kinsman of his own (no Vipont),--Lionel Haughton, son of poor Charlie Haughton, whom you may remember."

CARR VIPONT.--"Yes, a handsome scamp; went to the dogs. So Darrell takes up Charlie's son: what! as his heir?"

COLONEL MORLEY.--"In his letter to me he antic.i.p.ated that question in the negative."

CARR VIPONT.--"Has Darrell any nearer kinsman?"

COLONEL MORLEY.--"Not that I know of."

CARR VIPONT.--"Perhaps he will select one of his wife's family for his heir,--a Vipont; I should not wonder."

COLONEL MORLEY (dryly).--"I should. But why may not Darrell marry again?

I always thought he would; I think so still."

CARR VIPONT (glancing towards his own daughter Honoria).--"Well, a wife well chosen might restore him to society, and to us. Pity, indeed, that so great an intellect should be suspended,--a voice so eloquent hushed.

You are right; in this CRISIS, Guy Darrell once more in the House of Commons, we should have all we require,--an orator, a debater! Very odd, but at this moment we have no speakers,--WE the Viponts!"

COLONEL MORLEY.--"Yourself!"

CARR VIPONT.--"You are too kind. I can speak on occasions; but regularly, no. Too much drudgery; not young enough to take to it now.

So you think Darrell will marry again? A remarkably fine-looking fellow when I last saw him: not old yet; I dare say well preserved. I wish I had thought of asking him here--Montfort!" (Lord Montfort, with one or two male friends, was pa.s.sing by towards a billiard-room, opening through a side-door from the regular suite) "Montfort! only think, we forgot to invite Guy Darrell. Is it too late before our party breaks up?"

LORD MONTFORT (sullenly).--"I don't choose Guy Darrell to be invited to my house."

Carr Vipont was literally stunned by a reply so contumacious. Lord Montfort demur at what Carr Vipont suggested? He could not believe his senses.

"Not choose, my dear Montfort! you are joking. A monstrous clever fellow, Guy Darrell, and at this CRISIS--"

"I hate clever fellows; no such bores!" said Lord Montfort, breaking from the caressing clasp of Carr Vipont, and stalking away.

"Spare your regrets, my dear Carr," said Colonel Morley. "Darrell is not in England: I rather believe he is in Verona." Therewith the Colonel sauntered towards the group gathered round the piano. A little time afterwards Lady Montfort escaped from the d.u.c.h.ess, and, mingling courteously with her livelier guests, found herself close to Colonel Morley. "Will you give me my revenge at chess?" she asked, with her rare smile. The Colonel was charmed. As they sat down and ranged their men, Lady Montfort remarked carelessly,