The Young Duke

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We know not how it is, but love at first sight is a subject of constant
ridicule; but, somehow, we suspect that it has more to do with the
affairs of this world than the world is willing to own. Eyes meet which
have never met before, and glances thrill with expression which is
strange. We contrast these pleasant sights and new emotions with
hackneyed objects and worn sensations. Another glance and another
thrill, and we spring into each other's arms. What can be more natural?

Ah, that we should awake so often to truth so bitter! Ah, that charm
by charm should evaporate from the talisman which had enchanted our
existence!

And so it was with this sweet woman, whose feelings grow under the pen.
She had repaired to a splendid assembly to play her splendid part
with the consciousness of misery, without the expectation of hope.
She awaited without interest the routine which had been so often
uninteresting; she viewed without emotion the characters which had never
moved. A stranger suddenly appeared upon the stage, fresh as the morning
dew, and glittering like the morning star. All eyes await, all tongues
applaud him. His step is grace, his countenance hope, his voice music!
And was such a being born only to deceive and be deceived? Was he to run
the same false, palling, ruinous career which had filled so many hearts
with bitterness and dimmed the radiancy of so many eyes? Never! The
nobility of his soul spoke from his glancing eye, and treated the foul
suspicion with scorn. Ah, would that she had such a brother to warn, to
guide, to love!

So felt the Lady Aphrodite! So felt; we will not say so reasoned. When
once a woman allows an idea to touch her heart, it is miraculous with
what rapidity the idea is fathered by her brain. All her experience, all
her anguish, all her despair, vanished like a long frost, in an instant,
and in a night. She felt a delicious conviction that a knight had at
length come to her rescue, a hero worthy of an adventure so admirable.
The image of the young Duke filled her whole mind; she had no ear for
others' voices; she mused on his idea with the rapture of a votary on
the mysteries of a new faith.

Yet strange, when he at length approached her, when he addressed her,
when she replied to that mouth which had fascinated even before it had
spoken, she was cold, reserved, constrained. Some talk of the burning
cheek and the flashing eye of passion; but a wise man would not,
perhaps, despair of the heroine who, when he approaches her, treats him
almost with scorn, and trembles while she affects to disregard him.

Lady Aphrodite has returned home: she hurries to her apartment, she
falls in a sweet reverie, her head leans upon her hand. Her soubrette, a
pretty and chattering Swiss, whose republican virtue had been corrupted
by Paris, as Rome by Corinth, endeavours to divert Mer lady's ennui: she
excruciates her beautiful mistress with tattle about the admiration of
Lord B------and the sighs of Sir Harry. Her Ladyship reprimands her for
her levity, and the soubrette, grown sullen, revenges herself for her
mistress's reproof by converting the sleepy process of brushing into
lively torture.

The Duke of St. James called upon Lady Aphrodite Grafton the next
day, and at an hour when he trusted to find her alone. He was not
disappointed. More than once the silver-tongued pendule sounded during
that somewhat protracted but most agreeable visit. He was, indeed,
greatly interested by her, but he was an habitual gallant, and always
began by feigning more than he felt. She, on the contrary, who was
really in love, feigned much less. Yet she was no longer constrained,
though calm. Fluent, and even gay, she talked as well as listened, and
her repartees more than once called forth the resources of her guest.
She displayed a delicate and even luxurious taste, not only in her
conversation, but (the Duke observed it with delight) in her costume.
She had a passion for music and for flowers; she sang a romance, and she
gave him a rose. He retired perfectly fascinated.

CHAPTER IX.

_Old Friends Meet_

SIR LUCIUS GRAFTON called on the Duke of St. James. They did not
immediately swear an eternal friendship, but they greeted each other
with considerable warmth, talked of old times and old companions, and
compared their former sensations with their present. No one could be a
more agreeable companion than Sir Lucius, and this day he left a very
favourable impression with his young friend. From this day, too, the
Duke's visits at the Baronet's were frequent; and as the Graftons were
intimate with the Fitz-pompeys, scarcely a day elapsed without his
having the pleasure of passing a portion of it in the company of Lady
Aphrodite: his attentions to her were marked, and sometimes mentioned.
Lord Fitz-pompey was rather in a flutter. George did not ride so often
with Caroline, and never alone with her. This was disagreeable; but the
Earl was a man of the world, and a sanguine man withal. These things
will happen. It is of no use to quarrel with the wind; and, for
his part, he was not sorry that he had the honour of the Grafton
acquaintance; it secured Caroline her cousin's company; and as for
the _liaison_, if there were one, why it must end, and probably the
difficulty of terminating it might even hasten the catastrophe which he
had so much at heart. 'So, Laura, dearest! let the Graftons be asked to
dinner.'

In one of those rides to which Caroline was not admitted, for Lady
Aphrodite was present, the Duke of St. James took his way to the
Regent's Park, a wild sequestered spot, whither he invariably repaired
when he did not wish to be noticed; for the inhabitants of this pretty
suburb are a distinct race, and although their eyes are not unobserving,
from their inability to speak the language of London they are unable to
communicate their observations.

The spring sun was setting, and flung a crimson flush over the blue
waters and the white houses. The scene was rather imposing, and reminded
our hero of days of travel. A sudden thought struck him. Would it not be
delightful to build a beautiful retreat in this sweet and retired land,
and be able in an instant to fly from the formal magnificence of a
London mansion? Lady Aphrodite was charmed with the idea; for the
enamoured are always delighted with what is fanciful. The Duke
determined immediately to convert the idea into an object. To lose no
time was his grand motto. As he thought that Sir Carte had enough upon
his hands, he determined to apply to an artist whose achievements had
been greatly vaunted to him by a distinguished and noble judge.

M. Bijou de Millecolonnes, Chevalier of the Legion of Honour and member
of the Academy of St. Luke's, except in his title, was the antipodes
of Sir Carte Blanche. Sir Carte was all solidity, solemnity, and
correctness; Bijou de Millecolonnes all lightness, gaiety, and
originality. Sir Carte was ever armed with the Parthenon, Palladio,
and St. Peter's; Bijou de Millecolonnes laughed at the ancients, called
Palladio and Michel barbarians of the middle ages, and had himself
invented an order. Bijou was not so plausible as Sir Carte; but he was
infinitely more entertaining. Far from being servile, he allowed no one
to talk but himself, and made his fortune by his elegant insolence. How
singular it is that those who love servility are always the victims of
impertinence!

Gaily did Bijou de Millecolonnes drive his pea-green cabriolet to the
spot in question. He formed his plan in an instant. 'The occasional
retreat of a noble should be something picturesque and poetical. The
mind should be led to voluptuousness by exquisite associations, as well
as by the creations of art. It is thus their luxury is rendered more
intense by the reminiscences that add past experience to present
enjoyment! For instance, if you sail down a river, imitate the progress
of Cleopatra. And here, here, where the opportunity is so ample, what
think you of reviving the Alhambra?'

Splendid conception! The Duke already fancied himself a Caliph. 'Lose no
time, Chevalier! Dig, plant, build!'

Nine acres were obtained from the Woods and Forests; mounds were thrown
up, shrubs thrown in; the paths emulated the serpent; the nine acres
seemed interminable. All was surrounded by a paling eight feet high,
that no one might pierce the mystery of the preparations.

A rumour was soon current that the Zoological Society intended to keep
a Bengal tiger _au naturel_, and that they were contriving a residence
which would amply compensate him for his native jungle. The Regent's
Park was in despair, the landlords lowered their rents, and the
tenants petitioned the King. In a short time some hooded domes and some
Saracenic spires rose to sight, and the truth was then made known that
the young Duke of St. James was building a villa. The Regent's Park was
in rapture, the landlords raised their rents, and the tenants withdrew
their petition.

CHAPTER X. His Grace Entertains.

MR. DACRE again wrote to the Duke of St. James. He regretted that he had
been absent from home when his Grace had done him the honour of calling
at Castle Dacre. Had he been aware of that intended gratification, he
could with ease, and would with pleasure, have postponed his visit to
Norfolk. He also regretted that it would not be in his power to visit
London this season; and as he thought that no further time should be
lost in resigning the trust with which he had been so honoured, he
begged leave to forward his accounts to the Duke, and with them some
notes which he believed would convey some not unimportant information
to his Grace for the future management of his property. The young Duke
took a rapid glance at the sum total of his rental, crammed all the
papers into a cabinet with a determination to examine them the first
opportunity, and then rolled off to a morning concert of which he was
the patron.

The intended opportunity for the examination of the important papers
was never caught, nor was it surprising that it escaped capture. It is
difficult to conceive a career of more various, more constant, or more
distracting excitement than that in which the Duke of St. James was now
engaged. His life was an ocean of enjoyment, and each hour, like each
wave, threw up its pearl. How dull was the ball in which he did not
bound! How dim the banquet in which he did not glitter! His presence in
the Gardens compensated for the want of flowers; his vision in the Park
for the want of sun. In public breakfasts he was more indispensable
than pine-apples; in private concerts more noticed than an absent
prima donna. How fair was the dame on whom he smiled! How dark was the
tradesman on whom he frowned! Think only of prime ministers and princes,
to say nothing of princesses; nay! think only of managers of operas
and French actors, to say nothing of French actresses; think only of
jewellers, milliners, artists, horse-dealers, all the shoals who hurried
for his sanction; think only of the two or three thousand civilised
beings for whom all this population breathed, and who each of them had
claims upon our hero's notice! Think of the statesmen, who had so much
to ask and so much to give; the dandies to feed with and to be fed; the
dangerous dowagers and the desperate mothers; the widows, wild as early
partridges; the budding virgins, mild as a summer cloud and soft as an
opera hat! Think of the drony bores, with their dull hum; think of
the chivalric guardsmen, with their horses to sell and their bills to
discount; think of Willis, think of Crockford, think of White's, think
of Brooks', and you may form a faint idea how the young Duke had to
talk, and eat, and flirt, and cut, and pet, and patronise!

You think it impossible for one man to do all this. There is yet much
behind. You may add to the catalogue Melton and Newmarket; and if to
hunt without an appetite and to bet without an object will not sicken
you, why, build a yacht!

The Duke of St. James gave his first grand entertainment for the season.
It was like the assembly of the immortals at the first levee of Jove.
All hurried to pay their devoirs to the young king of fashion; and each
who succeeded in becoming a member of the Court felt as proud as a
peer with a new title, or a baronet with an old one. An air of
regal splendour, an almost imperial assumption, was observed in the
arrangements of the fete. A troop of servants in rich liveries filled
the hall; grooms lined the staircase; Spiridion, the Greek page, lounged
on an ottoman in an ante-chamber, and, with the assistance of six young
gentlemen in crimson-and-silver uniforms, announced the coming of
the cherished guests. Cartloads of pine-apples were sent up from the
Yorkshire Castle, and waggons of orange-trees from the Twickenham Villa.

A brilliant coterie, of which his Grace was a member, had amused
themselves a few nights before by representing in costume the Court of
Charles the First. They agreed this night to reappear in their splendid
dresses; and the Duke, who was Villiers, supported his character, even
to the gay shedding of a shower of diamonds. In his cap was observed an
hereditary sapphire, which blazed like a volcano, and which was rumoured
to be worth his rent-roll.

There was a short concert, at which the most celebrated Signora made
her debut; there was a single vaudeville, which a white satin play-bill,
presented to each guest as they entered the temporary theatre, indicated
to have been written for the occasion; there was a ball, in which
was introduced a new dance. Nothing for a moment was allowed to lag.
_Longueurs_ were skilfully avoided, and the excitement was so rapid that
every one had an appetite for supper.

A long gallery lined with bronzes and _bijouterie_, with cabinets and
sculpture, with china and with paintings, all purchased for the future
ornament of Hauteville House, and here stowed away in unpretending, but
most artificial, confusion, offered accommodation to all the guests.
To a table covered with gold, and placed in a magnificent tent upon the
stage, his Grace loyally led two princes of the blood and a child of
France. Madame de Protocoli, Lady Aphrodite Grafton, the Duchess of
Shropshire, and Lady Fitz-pompey, shared the honours of the pavilion,
and some might be excused for envying a party so brilliant and a
situation so distinguished. Yet Lady Aphrodite was an unwilling member
of it; and nothing but the personal solicitation of Sir Lucius would
have induced her to consent to the wish of their host.

A pink _carte_ succeeded to the satin play-bill. Vi-tellius might have
been pleased with the banquet. Ah, how shall we describe those soups,
which surely must have been the magical elixir! How paint those ortolans
dressed by the inimitable artist, a la St. James, for the occasion, and
which look so beautiful in death that they must surely have preferred
such an euthanasia even to flying in the perfumed air of an Auso-nian
heaven!

Sweet bird! though thou hast lost thy plumage, thou shalt fly to my
mistress! Is it not better to be nibbled by her than mumbled by a
cardinal? I, too, will feed on thy delicate beauty. Sweet bird! thy
companion has fled to my mistress; and now thou shalt thrill the nerves
of her master! Oh! doff, then, thy waistcoat of wine-leaves, pretty
rover! and show me that bosom more delicious even than woman's. What
gushes of rapture! What a flavour! How peculiar! Even how sacred I
Heaven at once sends both manna and quails. Another little wanderer!
Pray follow my example! Allow me. All Paradise opens! Let me die eating
ortolans to the sound of soft music!

Even the supper was brief, though brilliant; and again the cotillon and
the quadrille, the waltz and the galoppe! At no moment of his life had
the young Duke felt existence so intense. Wherever he turned his eye he
found a responding glance of beauty and admiration; wherever he turned
his ear the whispered tones were soft and sweet as summer winds. Each
look was an offering, each word adoration! His soul dilated; the glory
of the scene touched all his passions. He almost determined not again
to mingle in society; but, like a monarch, merely to receive the
world which worshipped him. The idea was sublime: was it even to him
impracticable? In the midst of his splendour he fell into a reverie, and
mused on his magnificence. He could no longer resist the conviction
that he was a superior essence, even to all around him. The world seemed
created solely for his enjoyment. Nor man nor woman could withstand him.
From this hour he delivered himself up to a sublime selfishness. With
all his passions and all his profusion, a callousness crept over his
heart. His sympathy for those he believed his inferiors and his vassals
was slight. Where we do not respect we soon cease to love; when we
cease to love, virtue weeps and flies. His soul wandered in dreams of
omnipotence.

This picture perhaps excites your dislike; perchance your contempt.
Pause! Pity him! Pity his fatal youth!

CHAPTER XI.

_Love at a Bazaar_

THE Lady Aphrodite at first refused to sit in the Duke's pavilion. Was
she, then, in the _habit_ of refusing? Let us not forget our Venus of
the Waters. Shall we whisper where the young Duke first dared to hope?
No, you shall guess. _Je vous le donne en trois_. The Gardens? The
opera? The tea-room? No! no! no! You are conceiving a locality much more
romantic. Already you have created the bower of a Parisina, where the
waterfall is even more musical than the birds, more lulling than the
evening winds; where all is pale, except the stars; all hushed, except
their beating pulses! Will this do? No! What think you, then, of a
_Bazaar_?

O thou wonderful nineteenth century! thou that believest in no miracles
and doest so many, hast thou brought this, too, about, that ladies'
hearts should be won, and gentlemen's also, not in courts of tourney or
halls of revel, but over a counter and behind a stall? We are, indeed, a
nation of shopkeepers!

The king of Otaheite, though a despot, was a reformer. He discovered
that the eating of bread-fruit was a barbarous custom, which would
infallibly prevent his people from being a great nation. He determined
to introduce French rolls. A party rebelled; the despot was energetic;
some were executed; the rest ejected. The vagabonds arrived in England.
As they had been banished in opposition to French rolls, they were
declared to be a British interest. They professed their admiration of
civil and religious liberty, and also of a subscription. When they had
drunk a great deal of punch, and spent all their money, they discovered
that they had nothing to eat, and would infallibly have been starved,
had not an Hibernian Marchioness, who had never been in Ireland, been
exceedingly shocked that men should die of hunger; and so, being one of
the bustlers, she got up a fancy sale and a _Sandwich Isle Bazaar_.

All the world was there and of course our hero. Never was the arrival of
a comet watched by astronomers who had calculated its advent with more
anxiety than was the appearance of the young Duke. Never did man pass
through such dangers. It was the fiery ordeal. St. Anthony himself was
not assailed by more temptations. Now he was saved from the lustre of
a blonde face by the superior richness of a blonde lace. He would
infallibly have been ravished by that ringlet had he not been nearly
reduced by that ring which sparkled on a hand like the white cat's. He
was only preserved from his unprecedented dangers by their number. No,
no! He had a better talisman: his conceit.

'Ah, Lady Balmont!' said his Grace to a smiling artist, who offered him
one of her own drawings of a Swiss cottage, 'for me to be a tenant, it
must be love and a cottage!'

'What! am I to buy this ring, Mrs. Abercroft? _Point de jour_. Oh!
dreadful phrase! Allow me to present it to you, for you are the only one
whom such words cannot make tremble.'

'This chain, Lady Jemima, for my glass! It will teach me where to direct
it.'

'Ah! Mrs. Fitzroy!' and he covered his face with affected fear. 'Can you
forgive me? Your beautiful note has been half an hour unanswered. The
box is yours for Tuesday.'

He tried to pass the next stall with a smiling bow, but he could not
escape. It was Lady de Courcy, a dowager, but not old. Once beautiful,
her charms had not yet disappeared. She had a pair of glittering eyes,
a skilfully-carmined cheek, and locks yet raven. Her eloquence made
her now as conspicuous as once did her beauty. The young Duke was her
constant object and her occasional victim. He hated above all things a
talking woman; he dreaded above all others Lady de Courcy.

He could not shirk. She summoned him by name so loud that crowds of
barbarians stared, and a man called to a woman, and said, 'My dear! make
haste; here's a Duke!'

Lady de Courcy was prime confidant of the Irish Marchioness. She
affected enthusiasm about the poor sufferers. She had learnt Otaheitan,
she lectured about the bread-fruit, and she played upon a barbarous
thrum-thrum, the only musical instrument in those savage wastes,
ironically called the Society Islands, because there is no society. She
was dreadful. The Duke in despair took out his purse, poured forth from
the pink and silver delicacy, worked by the slender fingers of Lady
Aphrodite, a shower of sovereigns, and fairly scampered off. At length
he reached the lady of his heart.

'I fear,' said the young Duke with a smile, and in a soft sweet voice,
'that you will never speak to me again, for I am a ruined man.'

A beam of gentle affection reprimanded him even for badinage on such a
subject.

'I really came here to buy up all your stock, but that gorgon, Lady de
Courcy, captured me, and my ransom has sent me here free, but a beggar.
I do not know a more ill-fated fellow than myself. Now, if you had only
condescended to take me prisoner, I might have saved my money; for I
should have kissed my chain.'

'My chains, I fear, are neither very alluring nor very strong.' She
spoke with a thoughtful air, and he answered her only with his eye.

'I must bear off something from your stall,' he resumed in a more rapid
and gayer tone, 'and, as I cannot purchase you must present. Now for a
gift!'

'Choose!'

'Yourself.'

'Your Grace is really spoiling my sale. See! poor Lord Bagshot. What a
valuable purchaser.'

'Ah! Bag, my boy!' said the Duke to a slang young nobleman whom he
abhorred, but of whom he sometimes made a butt, 'am I in your way? Here!
take this, and this, and this, and give me your purse. I'll pay Lady
Aphrodite.' And so the Duke again showered some sovereigns, and returned
the shrunken silk to its defrauded owner, who stared, and would have
remonstrated, but the Duke turned his back upon him.

'There now,' he continued to Lady Aphrodite; 'there is two hundred per
cent, profit for you. You are not half a _marchande_. I will stand here
and be your shopman. Well, Annesley,' said he, as that dignitary passed,
'what will you buy? I advise you to get a place. 'Pon my soul, 'tis
pleasant! Try Lady de Courcy. You know you are a favourite.'

'I assure your Grace,' said Mr. Annesley, speaking slowly, 'that that
story about Lady de Courcy is quite untrue and very rude. I never turn
my back on any woman; only my heel. We are on the best possible terms.
She is never to speak to me, and I am always to bow to her. But I really
must purchase. Where did you get that glass-chain, St. James? Lady Afy,
can you accommodate me?'

'Here is one prettier! But are you near-sighted, too, Mr. Annesley?'

'Very. I look upon a long-sighted man as a brute who, not being able to
see with his mind, is obliged to see with his body. The price of this?'

'A sovereign,' said the Duke; 'cheap; but we consider you as a friend.'

'A sovereign! You consider me a young Duke rather. Two shillings, and
that a severe price; a charitable price. Here is half-a-crown; give me
sixpence. I was not a minor. Farewell! I go to the little Pomfret. She
is a sweet flower, and I intend to wear her in my button-hole. Good-bye,
Lady Afy!'

The gay morning had worn away, and St. James never left his fascinating
position. Many a sweet and many a soft thing he uttered. Sometimes he
was baffled, but never beaten, and always returned to the charge with
spirit. He was confident, because he was reckless: the lady had less
trust in herself, because she was anxious. Yet she combated well, and
repressed the feelings which she could hardly conceal.

Many of her colleagues had already departed. She requested the Duke to
look after her carriage. A bold plan suddenly occurred to him, and he
executed it with rare courage and rarer felicity.

'Lady Aphrodite Grafton's carriage!'

'Here, your Grace!'

'Oh! go home. Your lady will return with Madame de Protocoli.'

He rejoined her.

'I am sorry, that, by some blunder, your carriage has gone. What could
you have told them?'

'Impossible! How provoking! How stupid!'

'Perhaps you told them that you would return with the Fitz-pompeys, but
they are gone; or Mrs. Aberleigh, and she is not here; or perhaps--but
they have gone too. Everyone has gone.'

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