Coningsby

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His manner was such as might have assisted her, even had she been more
troubled. It was marked by a degree of respectful friendliness. He
expressed without reserve his pleasure at meeting her again; inquired much
how she had passed her time since they last parted; asked more than once
after the Marquess. The Count moved away; Sidonia took his seat. His ease
and homage combined greatly relieved her. She expressed to him how kind
her Lord would consider his society, for the Marquess had suffered in
health since Sidonia last saw him. His periodical gout had left him, which
made him ill and nervous. The Marquess received his friends at dinner
every day. Sidonia, particularly amiable, offered himself as a guest for
the following one.

'And do you go to the great ball to-morrow?' inquired Lucretia, delighted
with all that had occurred.

'I always go to their balls,' said Sidonia, 'I have promised.'

There was a momentary pause; Lucretia happier than she had been for a long
time, her face a little flushed, and truly in a secret tumult of sweet
thoughts, remembered she had been long there, and offering her hand to
Sidonia, bade him adieu until to-morrow, while he, as was his custom, soon
repaired to the refined circle of the Countess de C-s-l-ne, a lady whose
manners he always mentioned as his fair ideal, and whose house was his
favourite haunt.

Before to-morrow comes, a word or two respecting two other characters of
this history connected with the family of Lord Monmouth. And first of
Flora. La Petite was neither very well nor very happy. Her hereditary
disease developed itself; gradually, but in a manner alarming to those who
loved her. She was very delicate, and suffered so much from the weakness
of her chest, that she was obliged to relinquish singing. This was really
the only tie between her and the Marchioness, who, without being a petty
tyrant, treated her often with unfeeling haughtiness. She was, therefore,
now rarely seen in the chambers of the great. In her own apartments she
found, indeed, some distraction in music, for which she had a natural
predisposition, but this was a pursuit that only fed the morbid passion of
her tender soul. Alone, listening only to sweet sounds, or indulging in
soft dreams that never could be realised, her existence glided away like a
vision, and she seemed to become every day more fair and fragile. Alas!
hers was the sad and mystic destiny to love one whom she never met, and by
whom, if she met him, she would scarcely, perhaps, be recognised. Yet in
that passion, fanciful, almost ideal, her life was absorbed; nor for her
did the world contain an existence, a thought, a sensation, beyond those
that sprang from the image of the noble youth who had sympathised with her
in her sorrows, and had softened the hard fortunes of dependence by his
generous sensibility. Happy that, with many mortifications, it was still
her lot to live under the roof of one who bore his name, and in whose
veins flowed the same blood! She felt indeed for the Marquess, whom she so
rarely saw, and from whom she had never received much notice, prompted, it
would seem, by her fantastic passion, a degree of reverence, almost of
affection, which seemed occasionally, even to herself, as something
inexplicable and without reason.

As for her fond step-father, M. Villebecque, the world fared very
differently with him. His lively and enterprising genius, his ready and
multiform talents, and his temper which defied disturbance, had made their
way. He had become the very right hand of Lord Monmouth; his only
counsellor, his only confidant; his secret agent; the minister of his
will. And well did Villebecque deserve this trust, and ably did he
maintain himself in the difficult position which he achieved. There was
nothing which Villebecque did not know, nothing which he could not do,
especially at Paris. He was master of his subject; in all things the
secret of success, and without which, however they may from accident
dazzle the world, the statesman, the orator, the author, all alike feel
the damning consciousness of being charlatans.

Coningsby had made a visit to M. Villebecque and Flora the day after his
arrival. It was a recollection and a courtesy that evidently greatly
gratified them. Villebecque talked very much and amusingly; and Flora,
whom Coningsby frequently addressed, very little, though she listened with
great earnestness. Coningsby told her that he thought, from all he heard,
she was too much alone, and counselled her to gaiety. But nature, that had
made her mild, had denied her that constitutional liveliness of being
which is the graceful property of French women. She was a lily of the
valley, that loved seclusion and the tranquillity of virgin glades. Almost
every day, as he passed their _entresol_, Coningsby would look into
Villebecque's apartments for a moment, to ask after Flora.

CHAPTER II.

Sidonia was to dine at Lord Monmouth's the day after he met Lucretia, and
afterwards they were all to meet at a ball much talked of, and to which
invitations were much sought; and which was to be given that evening by
the Baroness S. de R----d.

Lord Monmouth's dinners at Paris were celebrated. It was generally agreed
that they had no rivals; yet there were others who had as skilful cooks,
others who, for such a purpose, were equally profuse in their expenditure.
What, then, was the secret spell of his success? The simplest in the
world, though no one seemed aware of it. His Lordship's plates were always
hot: whereas at Paris, in the best appointed houses, and at dinners which,
for costly materials and admirable art in their preparation, cannot be
surpassed, the effect is always considerably lessened, and by a mode the
most mortifying: by the mere circumstance that every one at a French
dinner is served on a cold plate. The reason of a custom, or rather a
necessity, which one would think a nation so celebrated for their
gastronomical taste would recoil from, is really, it is believed, that the
ordinary French porcelain is so very inferior that it cannot endure the
preparatory heat for dinner. The common white pottery, for example, which
is in general use, and always found at the cafes, will not bear vicinage
to a brisk kitchen fire for half-an-hour. Now, if we only had that treaty
of commerce with France which has been so often on the point of
completion, the fabrics of our unrivalled potteries, in exchange for their
capital wines, would be found throughout France. The dinners of both
nations would be improved: the English would gain a delightful beverage,
and the French, for the first time in their lives, would dine off hot
plates. An unanswerable instance of the advantages of commercial
reciprocity.

The guests at Lord Monmouth's to-day were chiefly Carlists, individuals
bearing illustrious names, that animate the page of history, and are
indissolubly bound up with the glorious annals of their great country.
They are the phantoms of a past, but real Aristocracy; an Aristocracy that
was founded on an intelligible principle; which claimed great privileges
for great purposes; whose hereditary duties were such, that their
possessors were perpetually in the eye of the nation, and who maintained,
and, in a certain point of view justified, their pre-eminence by constant
illustration.

It pleased Lord Monmouth to show great courtesies to a fallen race with
whom he sympathised; whose fathers had been his friends in the days of his
hot youth; whose mothers he had made love to; whose palaces had been his
home; whose brilliant fetes he remembered; whose fanciful splendour
excited his early imagination; and whose magnificent and wanton luxury had
developed his own predisposition for boundless enjoyment. Soubise and his
suppers; his cutlets and his mistresses; the profuse and embarrassed De
Lauragais, who sighed for 'entire ruin,' as for a strange luxury, which
perpetually eluded his grasp; these were the heroes of the olden time that
Lord Monmouth worshipped; the wisdom of our ancestors which he
appreciated; and he turned to their recollection for relief from the
vulgar prudence of the degenerate days on which he had fallen: days when
nobles must be richer than other men, or they cease to have any
distinction.

It was impossible not to be struck by the effective appearance of Lady
Monmouth as she received her guests in grand toilet preparatory to the
ball; white satin and minever, a brilliant tiara. Her fine form, her
costume of a fashion as perfect as its materials were sumptuous, and her
presence always commanding and distinguished, produced a general effect to
which few could be insensible. It was the triumph of mien over mere beauty
of countenance.

The hotel of Madame S. de R----d is not more distinguished by its profuse
decoration, than by the fine taste which has guided the vast expenditure.
Its halls of arabesque are almost without a rival; there is not the
slightest embellishment in which the hand and feeling of art are not
recognised. The rooms were very crowded; everybody distinguished in Paris
was there: the lady of the Court, the duchess of the Faubourg, the wife of
the financier, the constitutional Throne, the old Monarchy, the modern
Bourse, were alike represented. Marshals of the Empire, Ministers of the
Crown, Dukes and Marquesses, whose ancestors lounged in the Oeil de Boeuf;
diplomatists of all countries, eminent foreigners of all nations, deputies
who led sections, members of learned and scientific academies,
occasionally a stray poet; a sea of sparkling tiaras, brilliant bouquets,
glittering stars, and glowing ribbons, many beautiful faces, many famous
ones: unquestionably the general air of a firstrate Parisian saloon, on a
great occasion, is not easily equalled. In London there is not the variety
of guests; nor the same size and splendour of saloons. Our houses are too
small for reception.

Coningsby, who had stolen away from his grandfather's before the rest of
the guests, was delighted with the novelty of the splendid scene. He had
been in Paris long enough to make some acquaintances, and mostly with
celebrated personages. In his long fruitless endeavour to enter the saloon
in which they danced, he found himself hustled against the illustrious
Baron von H----t, whom he had sat next to at dinner a few days before at
Count M----e's.

'It is more difficult than cutting through the Isthmus of Panama, Baron,'
said Coningsby, alluding to a past conversation.

'Infinitely,' replied M. de H., smiling; 'for I would undertake to cut
through the Isthmus, and I cannot engage that I shall enter this ball-
room.'

Time, however, brought Coningsby into that brilliant chamber. What a blaze
of light and loveliness! How coquettish are the costumes! How vivid the
flowers! To sounds of stirring melody, beautiful beings move with grace.
Grace, indeed, is beauty in action.

Here, where all are fair and everything is attractive, his eye is suddenly
arrested by one object, a form of surpassing grace among the graceful,
among the beauteous a countenance of unrivalled beauty.

She was young among the youthful; a face of sunshine amid all that
artificial light; her head placed upon her finely-moulded shoulders with a
queen-like grace; a coronet of white roses on her dark brown hair; her
only ornament. It was the beauty of the picture-gallery.

The eye of Coningsby never quitted her. When the dance ceased, he had an
opportunity of seeing her nearer. He met her walking with her cavalier,
and he was conscious that she observed him. Finally he remarked that she
resumed a seat next to the lady whom he had mistaken for her mother, but
had afterwards understood to be Lady Wallinger.

Coningsby returned to the other saloons: he witnessed the entrance and
reception of Lady Monmouth, who moved on towards the ball-room. Soon after
this, Sidonia arrived; he came in with the still handsome and ever
courteous Duke D----s. Observing Coningsby, he stopped to present him to
the Duke. While thus conversing, the Duke, who is fond of the English,
observed, 'See, here is your beautiful countrywoman that all the world are
talking of. That is her uncle. He brings to me letters from one of your
lords, whose name I cannot recollect.'

And Sir Joseph and his lovely niece veritably approached. The Duke
addressed them: asked them in the name of his Duchess to a concert on the
next Thursday; and, after a thousand compliments, moved on. Sidonia
stopped; Coningsby could not refrain from lingering, but stood a little
apart, and was about to move away, when there was a whisper, of which,
without hearing a word, he could not resist the impression that he was the
subject. He felt a little embarrassed, and was retiring, when he heard
Sidonia reply to an inquiry of the lady, 'The same,' and then, turning to
Coningsby, said aloud, 'Coningsby, Miss Millbank says that you have
forgotten her.'

Coningsby started, advanced, coloured a little, could not conceal his
surprise. The lady, too, though more prepared, was not without confusion,
and for an instant looked down. Coningsby recalled at that moment the long
dark eyelashes, and the beautiful, bashful countenance that had so charmed
him at Millbank; but two years had otherwise effected a wonderful change
in the sister of his school-day friend, and transformed the silent,
embarrassed girl into a woman of surpassing beauty and of the most
graceful and impressive mien.

'It is not surprising that Mr. Coningsby should not recollect my niece,'
said Sir Joseph, addressing Sidonia, and wishing to cover their mutual
embarrassment; 'but it is impossible for her, or for anyone connected with
her, not to be anxious at all times to express to him our sense of what we
all owe him.'

Coningsby and Miss Millbank were now in full routine conversation,
consisting of questions; how long she had been at Paris; when she had
heard last from Millbank; how her father was; also, how was her brother.
Sidonia made an observation to Sir Joseph on a passer-by, and then himself
moved on; Coningsby accompanying his new friends, in a contrary direction,
to the refreshment-room, to which they were proceeding.

'And you have passed a winter at Rome,' said Coningsby. 'How I envy you! I
feel that I shall never be able to travel.'

'And why not?'

'Life has become so stirring, that there is ever some great cause that
keeps one at home.'

'Life, on the contrary, so swift, that all may see now that of which they
once could only read.'

'The golden and silver sides of the shield,' said Coningsby, with a smile.

'And you, like a good knight, will maintain your own.'

'No, I would follow yours.'

'You have not heard lately from Oswald?'

'Oh, yes; I think there are no such faithful correspondents as we are; I
only wish we could meet.'

'You will soon; but he is such a devotee of Oxford; quite a monk; and you,
too, Mr. Coningsby, are much occupied.'

'Yes, and at the same time as Millbank. I was in hopes, when I once paid
you a visit, I might have found your brother.'

'But that was such a rapid visit,' said Miss Millbank.

'I always remember it with delight,' said Coningsby.

'You were willing to be pleased; but Millbank, notwithstanding Rome,
commands my affections, and in spite of this surrounding splendour, I
could have wished to have passed my Christmas in Lancashire.'

'Mr. Millbank has lately purchased a very beautiful place in the county. I
became acquainted with Hellingsley when staying at my grandfather's.'

'Ah! I have never seen it; indeed, I was much surprised that papa became
its purchaser, because he never will live there; and Oswald, I am sure,
could never be tempted to quit Millbank. You know what enthusiastic ideas
he has of his order?'

'Like all his ideas, sound, and high, and pure. I always duly appreciated
your brother's great abilities, and, what is far more important, his lofty
mind. When I recollect our Eton days, I cannot understand how more than
two years have passed away without our being together. I am sure the fault
is mine. I might now have been at Oxford instead of Paris. And yet,' added
Coningsby, 'that would have been a sad mistake, since I should not have
had the happiness of being here.

'Oh, yes, that would have been a sad mistake,' said Miss Millbank.

'Edith,' said Sir Joseph, rejoining his niece, from whom he had been
momentarily separated, 'Edith, that is Monsieur Thiers.'

In the meantime Sidonia reached the ball-room, and sitting near the
entrance was Lady Monmouth, who immediately addressed him. He was, as
usual, intelligent and unimpassioned, and yet not without a delicate
deference which is flattering to women, especially if not altogether
unworthy of it. Sidonia always admired Lucretia, and preferred her society
to that of most persons. But the Lady was in error in supposing that she
had conquered or could vanquish his heart. Sidonia was one of those men,
not so rare as may be supposed, who shrink, above all things, from an
adventure of gallantry with a woman in a position. He had neither time nor
temper for sentimental circumvolutions. He detested the diplomacy of
passion: protocols, protracted negotiations, conferences, correspondence,
treaties projected, ratified, violated. He had no genius for the tactics
of intrigue; your reconnoiterings, and marchings, and countermarchings,
sappings, and minings, assaults, sometimes surrenders, and sometimes
repulses. All the solemn and studied hypocrisies were to him infinitely
wearisome; and if the movements were not merely formal, they irritated
him, distracted his feelings, disturbed the tenor of his mind, deranged
his nervous system. Something of the old Oriental vein influenced him in
his carriage towards women. He was oftener behind the scenes of the Opera-
house than in his box; he delighted, too, in the society of _etairai_;
Aspasia was his heroine. Obliged to appear much in what is esteemed pure
society, he cultivated the acquaintance of clever women, because they
interested him; but in such saloons his feminine acquaintances were merely
psychological. No lady could accuse him of trifling with her feelings,
however decided might be his predilection for her conversation. He yielded
at once to an admirer; never trespassed by any chance into the domain of
sentiment; never broke, by any accident or blunder, into the irregular
paces of flirtation; was a man who notoriously would never diminish by
marriage the purity of his race; and one who always maintained that
passion and polished life were quite incompatible. He liked the drawing-
room, and he liked the Desert, but he would not consent that either should
trench on their mutual privileges.

The Princess Lucretia had yielded herself to the spell of Sidonia's
society at Coningsby Castle, when she knew that marriage was impossible.
But she loved him; and with an Italian spirit. Now they met again, and she
was the Marchioness of Monmouth, a very great lady, very much admired, and
followed, and courted, and very powerful. It is our great moralist who
tells us, in the immortal page, that an affair of gallantry with a great
lady is more delightful than with ladies of a lower degree. In this he
contradicts the good old ballad; but certain it is that Dr. Johnson
announced to Boswell, 'Sir, in the case of a Countess the imagination is
more excited.'

But Sidonia was a man on whom the conventional superiorities of life
produced as little effect as a flake falling on the glaciers of the high
Alps. His comprehension of the world and human nature was too vast and
complete; he understood too well the relative value of things to
appreciate anything but essential excellence; and that not too much. A
charming woman was not more charming to him because she chanced to be an
empress in a particular district of one of the smallest planets; a
charming woman under any circumstances was not an unique animal. When
Sidonia felt a disposition to be spellbound, he used to review in his
memory all the charming women of whom he had read in the books of all
literatures, and whom he had known himself in every court and clime, and
the result of his reflections ever was, that the charming woman in
question was by no means the paragon, which some who had read, seen, and
thought less, might be inclined to esteem her. There was, indeed, no
subject on which Sidonia discoursed so felicitously as on woman, and none
on which Lord Eskdale more frequently endeavoured to attract him. He would
tell you Talmudical stories about our mother Eve and the Queen of Sheba,
which would have astonished you. There was not a free lady of Greece,
Leontium and Phryne, Lais, Danae, and Lamia, the Egyptian girl Thonis,
respecting whom he could not tell you as many diverting tales as if they
were ladies of Loretto; not a nook of Athenseus, not an obscure scholiast,
not a passage in a Greek orator, that could throw light on these
personages, which was not at his command. What stories he would tell you
about Marc Antony and the actress Cytheris in their chariot drawn by
tigers! What a character would he paint of that Flora who gave her gardens
to the Roman people! It would draw tears to your eyes. No man was ever so
learned in the female manners of the last centuries of polytheism as
Sidonia. You would have supposed that he had devoted his studies
peculiarly to that period if you had not chanced to draw him to the
Italian middle ages. And even these startling revelations were almost
eclipsed by his anecdotes of the Court of Henry III. of France, with every
character of which he was as familiar as with the brilliant groups that at
this moment filled the saloons of Madame de R----d.

CHAPTER III.

The image of Edith Millbank was the last thought of Coningsby, as he sank
into an agitated slumber. To him had hitherto in general been accorded the
precious boon of dreamless sleep. Homer tells us these phantasms come from
Jove; they are rather the children of a distracted soul. Coningsby this
night lived much in past years, varied by painful perplexities of the
present, which he could neither subdue nor comprehend. The scene flitted
from Eton to the castle of his grandfather; and then he found himself
among the pictures of the Rue de Tronchet, but their owner bore the
features of the senior Millbank. A beautiful countenance that was
alternately the face in the mysterious picture, and then that of Edith,
haunted him under all circumstances. He woke little refreshed; restless,
and yet sensible of some secret joy.

He woke to think of her of whom he had dreamed. The light had dawned on
his soul. Coningsby loved.

Ah! what is that ambition that haunts our youth, that thirst for power or
that lust of fame that forces us from obscurity into the sunblaze of the
world, what are these sentiments so high, so vehement, so ennobling? They
vanish, and in an instant, before the glance of a woman!

Coningsby had scarcely quitted her side the preceding eve. He hung upon
the accents of that clear sweet voice, and sought, with tremulous
fascination, the gleaming splendour of those soft dark eyes. And now he
sat in his chamber, with his eyes fixed on vacancy. All thoughts and
feelings, pursuits, desires, life, merge in one absorbing sentiment.

It is impossible to exist without seeing her again, and instantly. He had
requested and gained permission to call on Lady Wallinger; he would not
lose a moment in availing himself of it. As early as was tolerably
decorous, and before, in all probability, they could quit their hotel,
Coningsby repaired to the Rue de Rivoli to pay his respects to his new
friends.

As he walked along, he indulged in fanciful speculations which connected
Edith and the mysterious portrait of his mother. He felt himself, as it
were, near the fulfilment of some fate, and on the threshold of some
critical discovery. He recalled the impatient, even alarmed, expressions
of Rigby at Montem six years ago, when he proposed to invite young
Millbank to his grandfather's dinner; the vindictive feud that existed
between the two families, and for which political opinion, or even party
passion, could not satisfactorily account; and he reasoned himself into a
conviction, that the solution of many perplexities was at hand, and that
all would be consummated to the satisfaction of every one, by his
unexpected but inevitable agency.

Coningsby found Sir Joseph alone. The worthy Baronet was at any rate no
participator in Mr. Millbank's vindictive feelings against Lord Monmouth.
On the contrary, he had a very high respect for a Marquess, whatever might
be his opinions, and no mean consideration for a Marquess' grandson.

Sir Joseph had inherited a large fortune made by commerce, and had
increased it by the same means. He was a middle-class Whig, had faithfully
supported that party in his native town during the days they wandered in
the wilderness, and had well earned his share of the milk and honey when
they had vanquished the promised land. In the springtide of Liberalism,
when the world was not analytical of free opinions, and odious
distinctions were not drawn between Finality men and progressive
Reformers, Mr. Wallinger had been the popular leader of a powerful body of
his fellow-citizens, who had returned him to the first Reformed
Parliament, and where, in spite of many a menacing registration, he had
contrived to remain. He had never given a Radical vote without the
permission of the Secretary of the Treasury, and was not afraid of giving
an unpopular one to serve his friends. He was not like that distinguished
Liberal, who, after dining with the late Whig Premier, expressed his
gratification and his gratitude, by assuring his Lordship that he might
count on his support on all popular questions.

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