The Young Duke

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'But her cousin; is he not a talisman? She loves him.'

'Pooh! a cousin! Is not the name an answer? She loves him as she loves
her pony; because he was her companion when she was a child, and kissed
her when they gathered strawberries together. The pallid, moonlight
passion of a cousin, and an absent one, too, has but a sorry chance
against the blazing beams that shoot from the eyes of a new lover. Would
to Heaven that I had not to go down to my boobies at Cleve! I should
like nothing better than to amuse myself an autumn at Dallington with
the little Dacre, and put an end to such an unnatural and irreligious
connection. She is a splendid creature! Bring her to town next season.'

'But to the point. You wish me, I imagine, to act the same part with the
lady as you have done with the gentleman. I am to step in, I suppose,
as the confidential counsellor on all subjects of sweet May. I am to
preserve her from a youth whose passions are so impetuous and whose
principles are so unformed.'

'Admirable Bertha! You read my thoughts.'

'But suppose I endanger, instead of advance, your plans. Suppose, for
instance, I captivate his Grace. As extraordinary things have happened,
as you know. High place must be respected, and the coronet of a Duchess
must not be despised.'

'All considerations must yield to you, as do all men,' said Sir Lucius,
with ready gallantry, but not free from anxiety.

'No, no; there is no danger of that. I am not going to play traitress
to my system, even for the Duke of St. James; therefore, anything that
occurs between us shall be merely an incident _pour passer le temps
seulement_, and to preserve our young friend from the little Dacre. I
have no doubt he will behave very well, and that I shall send him safe
to Cleve Park in a fortnight with a good character. I would recommend
you, however, not to encourage any unreasonable delay.'

'Certainly not; but I must, of course, be guided by circumstances.' Sir
Lucius observed truly. There were other considerations besides getting
rid of his spouse which cemented his friendship with the young Duke. It
will be curious if lending a few thousands to the husband save our hero
from the wife. There is no such thing as unmixed evil. A man who loses
his money gains, at least, experience, and sometimes something better.
But what the Duke of St. James gained is not yet to be told.

'And you like Lachen?' asked Mrs. Dallington.

'Very much.'

'I formed her with great care, but you must keep her in good humour.'

'That is not difficult. _Elle est tres jolie_; and pretty women, like
yourself, are always good-natured.'

'But has she really worked herself into the confidence of the virtuous
Aphrodite?'

'Entirely. And the humour is, that Lachen has persuaded her that Lachen
herself is on the best possible terms with my confidential valet, and
can make herself at all times mistress of her master's secrets. So it is
always in my power, apparently without taking the slightest interest in
Afy's conduct, to regulate it as I will. At present she believes that my
affairs are in a distracted state, and that I intend to reside solely on
the Continent, and to bear her off from her Cupidon. This thought haunts
her rest, and hangs heavy on her waking mind. I think it will do the
business.'

'We have been too long absent. Let us return.'

'I accompany you, my charming friend. What should I do without such an
ally? I only wish that I could assist you in a manner equally friendly.
Is there no obdurate hero who wants a confidential adviser to dilate
upon your charms, or to counsel him to throw himself at your feet; or
are that beautiful in face and lovely form, as they must always be,
invincible?'

'I assure you quite disembarrassed of any attentions whatever. But, I
suppose, when I return to Athens, I must get Platonic again.'

'Let me be the philosopher!'

'No, no; we know each other too well. I have been free ever since that
fatal affair of young Darrell, and travel has restored my spirits a
little. They say his brother is just as handsome. He was expected at
Vienna, but I could not meet him, although I suppose, as I made him a
Viscount, I am rather popular than not with him.'

'Pooh! pooh! think not of this. No one blames you. You are still a
universal favourite. But I would recommend you, nevertheless, to take me
as your cavalier.'

'You are too generous, or too bold. No, man! I am tired of flirtation,
and really think, for variety's sake, I must fall in love. After all,
there is nothing like the delicious dream, though it be but a dream.
Spite of my discretion, I sometimes tremble lest I should end by making
myself a fool, with some grand passion. You look serious. Fear not for
the young Duke. He is a dazzling gentleman, but not a hero exactly to my
taste.'

CHAPTER VII.

_At Castle Dacre_

THE moment that was to dissolve the spell which had combined and
enchanted so many thousands of human beings arrived. Nobles and
nobodies, beauties and blacklegs, dispersed in all directions. The Duke
of Burlington carried off the French princes and the Protocolis, the
Bloomerlys and the Vaticans, to his Paradise of Marringworth. The
Fitz-pompeys cantered off with the Shropshires; omen of felicity to
the enamoured St. Maurice and the enamouring Sophy. Annesley and Squib
returned to their pates. Sir Lucius and Lady Aphrodite, neither of them
with tempers like summer skies, betook their way to Cambridgeshire, like
Adam and Eve from the glorious garden. The Duke of St. James, after a
hurried visit to London, found himself, at the beginning of October, on
his way to Dacre.

As his carriage rolled on he revelled in delicious fancies. The young
Duke built castles not only at Hauteville, but in less substantial
regions. Reverie, in the flush of our warm youth, generally indulges in
the future. We are always anticipating the next adventure and clothe the
coming heroine with a rosy tint. When we advance a little on our limited
journey, and an act or two of the comedy, the gayest in all probability,
are over, the wizard Memory dethrones the witch Imagination, and 'tis
the past on which the mind feeds in its musings. 'Tis then we ponder
on each great result which has stolen on us without the labour of
reflection; 'tis then we analyse emotions which, at the time, we could
not comprehend, and probe the action which passion inspired, and which
prejudice has hitherto defended. Alas! who can strike these occasional
balances in life's great ledger without a sigh! Alas! how little do
they promise in favour of the great account! What whisperings of final
bankruptcy! what a damnable consciousness of present insolvency! My
friends! what a blunder is youth! Ah! why does Truth light her torch but
to illume the ruined temple of our existence! Ah! why do we know we are
men only to be conscious of our exhausted energies!

And yet there is a pleasure in a deal of judgment which your judicious
man alone can understand. It is agreeable to see some younkers falling
into the same traps which have broken our own shins; and, shipwrecked
on the island of our hopes, one likes to mark a vessel go down full in
sight. 'Tis demonstration that we are not branded as Cains among the
favoured race of man. Then giving advice: that _is_ delicious, and
perhaps repays one all. It is a privilege your grey-haired signors
solely can enjoy; but young men now-a-days may make some claims to it.
And, after all, experience is a thing that all men praise. Bards sing
its glories, and proud Philosophy has long elected it her favourite
child. 'Tis the '_ro Kaxav_', in spite of all its ugliness, and the
_elixir vitae_, though we generally gain it with a shattered pulse.

No more! no more! it is a bitter cheat, the consolation of blunderers,
the last refuge of expiring hopes, the forlorn battalion that is to
capture the citadel of happiness; yet, yet impregnable! Oh! what is
wisdom, and what is virtue, without youth! Talk not to me of knowledge
of mankind; give, give me back the sunshine of the breast which they
o'erclouded! Talk not to me of proud morality; oh! give me innocence!

Amid the ruins of eternal Rome I scribble pages lighter than the wind,
and feed with fancies volumes which will be forgotten ere I can hear
that they are even published. Yet am I not one insensible to the magic
of my memorable abode, and I could pour my passion o'er the land; but I
repress my thoughts, and beat their tide back to their hollow caves!

The ocean of my mind is calm, but dim, and ominous of storms that may
arise. A cloud hangs heavy o'er the horizon's verge, and veils the
future. Even now a star appears, steals into light, and now again
'tis gone! I hear the proud swell of the growing waters; I hear the
whispering of the wakening winds; but reason lays her trident on the
cresting waves, and all again is hushed.

For I am one, though young, yet old enough to know ambition is a demon;
and I fly from what I fear. And fame has eagle wings, and yet she mounts
not so high as man's desires. When all is gained, how little then is
won! And yet to gain that little how much is lost! Let us once aspire
and madness follows. Could we but drag the purple from the hero's heart;
could we but tear the laurel from the poet's throbbing brain, and read
their doubts, their dangers, their despair, we might learn a greater
lesson than we shall ever acquire by musing over their exploits or
their inspiration. Think of unrecognised Caesar, with his wasting youth,
weeping over the Macedonian's young career! Could Pharsalia compensate
for those withering pangs? View the obscure Napoleon starving in
the streets of Paris! What was St. Helena to the bitterness of
such existence? The visions of past glory might illumine even that
dark-imprisonment; but to be conscious that his supernatural energies
might die away without creating their miracles: can the wheel or the
rack rival the torture of such a suspicion? Lo! Byron bending o'er his
shattered lyre, with inspiration in his very rage. And the pert taunt
could sting even this child of light! To doubt of the truth of the
creed in which you have been nurtured is not so terrific as to doubt
respecting the intellectual vigour on whose strength you have staked
your happiness. Yet these were mighty ones; perhaps the records of the
world will not yield us threescore to be their mates! Then tremble, ye
whose cheek glows too warmly at their names! Who would be more than man
should fear lest he be less.

Yet there is hope, there should be happiness, for them, for all. Kind
Nature, ever mild, extends her fond arms to her truant children, and
breathes her words of solace. As we weep on her indulgent and maternal
breast, the exhausted passions, one by one, expire like gladiators in
yon huge pile that has made barbarity sublime. Yes! there is hope and
joy; and it is here!

Where the breeze wanders through a perfumed sky, and where the beautiful
sun illumines beauty.

On the poet's farm and on the conqueror's arch thy beam is lingering!
It lingers on the shattered porticoes that once shrouded from thy
o'erpowering glory the lords of earth; it lingers upon the ruined
temples that even in their desolation are yet sacred! 'Tis gone, as
if in sorrow! Yet the woody lake still blushes with thy warm kiss; and
still thy rosy light tinges the pine that breaks the farthest heaven!

A heaven all light, all beauty, and all love! What marvel men should
worship in these climes? And lo! a small and single cloud is sailing in
the immaculate ether, burnished with twilight, like an Olympian chariot
from above, with the fair vision of some graceful god!

It is the hour that poets love; but I crush thoughts that rise from out
my mind, like nymphs from out their caves, when sets the sun. Yes, 'tis
a blessing here to breathe and muse. And cold his clay, indeed, who does
not yield to thy Ausonian beauty! Clime where the heart softens and the
mind expands! Region of mellowed bliss! O most enchanting land!

But we are at the park gates.

They whirled along through a park which would have contained half a
hundred of those Patagonian paddocks of modern times which have usurped
the name. At length the young Duke was roused from his reverie
by Carlstein, proud of his previous knowledge, leaning over and
announcing--

'Chateau de Dacre, your Grace!'

The Duke looked up. The sun, which had already set, had tinged with a
dying crimson the eastern sky, against which rose a princely edifice.
Castle Dacre was the erection of Vanbrugh, an imaginative artist,
whose critics we wish no bitterer fate than not to live in his splendid
creations. A spacious centre, richly ornamented, though broken, perhaps,
into rather too much detail, was joined to wings of a corresponding
magnificence by fanciful colonnades. A terrace, extending the whole
front, was covered with orange trees, and many a statue, and many an
obelisk, and many a temple, and many a fountain, were tinted with
the warm twilight. The Duke did not view the forgotten scene of youth
without emotion. It was a palace worthy of the heroine on whom he had
been musing. The carriage gained the lofty portal. Luigi and Spiridion,
who had preceded their master, were ready to receive the Duke, who was
immediately ushered to the rooms prepared for his reception. He was
later than he had intended, and no time was to be unnecessarily lost in
his preparation for his appearance.

His Grace's toilet was already prepared: the magical dressing-box
had been unpacked, and the shrine for his devotions was covered
with richly-cut bottles of all sizes, arranged in all the elegant
combinations which the picturesque fancy of his valet could devise,
adroitly intermixed with the golden instruments, the china vases, and
the ivory and rosewood brushes, which were worthy even of Delcroix's
exquisite inventions.

The Duke of St. James was master of the art of dress, and consequently
consummated that paramount operation with the decisive rapidity of one
whose principles are settled. He was cognisant of all effects, could
calculate in a second all consequences, and obtained his result with
that promptitude and precision which stamp the great artist. For a
moment he was plunged in profound abstraction, and at the same time
stretched his legs after his drive. He then gave his orders with the
decision of Wellington on the arrival of the Prussians, and the battle
began.

His Grace had a taste for magnificence in costume; but he was handsome,
young, and a duke. Pardon him. Yet to-day he was, on the whole, simple.
Confident in a complexion whose pellucid lustre had not yielded to a
season of dissipation, his Grace did not dread the want of relief which
a white face, a white cravat, and a white waistcoat would seem to imply.

A hair chain set in diamonds, worn in memory of the absent Aphrodite,
and to pique the present Dacre, is annexed to a glass, which reposes
in the waistcoat pocket. This was the only weight that the Duke of St.
James ever carried. It was a bore, but it was indispensable.

It is done. He stops one moment before the long pier-glass, and shoots
a glance which would have read the mind of Talleyrand. It will do.
He assumes the look, the air that befit the occasion: cordial, but
dignified; sublime, but sweet. He descends like a deity from Olympus to
a banquet of illustrious mortals.

CHAPTER VIII.

_'Fair Women and Brave Men.'_

MR. DACRE received him with affection: his daughter with a cordiality
which he had never yet experienced from her. Though more simply dressed
than when she first met his ardent gaze, her costume again charmed his
practised eye. 'It must be her shape,' thought the young Duke; 'it is
magical!'

The rooms were full of various guests, and some of these were presented
to his Grace, who was, of course, an object of universal notice, but
particularly by those persons who pretended not to be aware of his
entrance. The party assembled at Castle Dacre consisted of some thirty
or forty persons, all of great consideration, but of a different
character from any with whom the Duke of St. James had been acquainted
during his short experience of English society. They were not what are
called fashionable people. We have no princes and no ambassadors, no
duke who is a gourmand, no earl who is a jockey, no manoeuvring mothers,
no flirting daughters, no gambling sons, for your entertainment. There
is no superfine gentleman brought down specially from town to gauge
the refinement of the manners of the party, and to prevent them, by
his constant supervision and occasional sneer, from losing any of the
beneficial results of their last campaign. We shall sadly want, too,
a Lady Patroness to issue a decree or quote her code of consolidated
etiquette. We are not sure that Almack's will ever be mentioned: quite
sure that Maradan has never yet been heard of. The Jockey Club may be
quoted, but Crockford will be a dead letter. As for the rest, Boodle's
is all we can promise; miserable consolation for the bow-window. As for
buffoons and artists, to amuse a vacant hour or sketch a vacant face, we
must frankly tell you at once that there is not one. Are you frightened?
Will you go on? Will you trust yourself with these savages? Try. They
are rude, but they are hospitable.

The party, we have said, were all persons of great consideration; some
were noble, most were rich, all had ancestors. There were the Earl
and Countess of Faulconcourt. He looked as if he were fit to reconquer
Palestine, and she as if she were worthy to reward him for his valour.
Misplaced in this superior age, he was _sans peur_ and she _sans
reproche_. There was Lord Mildmay, an English peer and a French colonel.
Methinks such an incident might have been a better reason for a late
measure than an Irishman being returned a member of our Imperial
Parliament. There was our friend Lord St. Jerome; of course his
stepmother, yet young, and some sisters, pretty as nuns. There were some
cousins from the farthest north, Northumbria's bleakest bound, who came
down upon Yorkshire like the Goths upon Italy, and were revelling in
what they considered a southern clime.

There was an M.P. in whom the Catholics had hopes. He had made a great
speech; not only a great speech, but a great impression. His matter
certainly was not new, but well arranged, and his images not singularly
original, but appositely introduced; in short, a bore, who, speaking
on a subject in which a new hand is indulged, and connected with the
families whose cause he was pleading, was for once courteously listened
to by the very men who determined to avenge themselves for their
complaisance by a cough on the first opportunity. But the orator was
prudent; he reserved himself, and the session closed with his fame yet
full-blown.

Then there were country neighbours in great store, with wives that
were treasures, and daughters fresh as flowers. Among them we would
particularise two gentlemen. They were great proprietors, and Catholics
and Baronets, and consoled themselves by their active maintenance of the
game-laws for their inability to regulate their neighbours by any other.
One was Sir Chetwode Chetwode of Chetwode; the other was Sir Tichborne
Tichborne of Tichborne. It was not easy to see two men less calculated
to be the slaves of a foreign and despotic power, which we all know
Catholics are. Tall, and robust, and rosy, with hearts even stouter
than their massy frames, they were just the characters to assemble in
Runnymede, and probably, even at the present day, might have imitated
their ancestors, even in their signatures. In disposition they were
much the same, though they were friends. In person there were some
differences, but they were slight. Sir Chetwode's hair was straight and
white; Sir Tichborne's brown and curly. Sir Chetwode's eyes were blue;
Sir Tichborne's grey.

Sir Chetwode's nose was perhaps a snub; Sir Tichborne's was certainly a
bottle. Sir Chetwode was somewhat garrulous, and was often like a man at
a play, in the wrong box! Sir Tichborne was somewhat taciturn; but when
he spoke, it was always to the purpose, and made an impression, even if
it were not new. Both were kind hearts; but Sir Chetwode was jovial,
Sir Tichborne rather stern. Sir Chetwode often broke into a joke; Sir
Tichborne sometimes backed into a sneer. .

A few of these characters were made known by Mr. Dacre to his young
friend, but not many, and in an easy way; those that stood nearest.
Introduction is a formality and a bore, and is never resorted to by your
well-bred host, save in a casual way. When proper people meet at proper
houses, they give each other credit for propriety, and slide into an
acquaintance by degrees. The first day they catch a name; the next, they
ask you whether you are the son of General----. 'No; he was my uncle.'
'Ah! I knew him well. A worthy soul!' And then the thing is settled. You
ride together, shoot, or fence, or hunt. A game of billiards will do no
great harm; and when you part, you part with a hope that you may meet
again.

Lord Mildmay was glad to meet with the son of an old friend. He knew the
late Duke well, and loved him better. It is pleasant to hear our fathers
praised. We, too, may inherit their virtues with their lands, or
cash, or bonds; and, scapegraces as we are, it is agreeable to find a
precedent for the blood turning out well. And, after all, there is no
feeling more thoroughly delightful than to be conscious that the kind
being from whose loins we spring, and to whom we cling with an innate
and overpowering love, is viewed by others with regard, with reverence,
or with admiration. There is no pride like the pride of ancestry, for it
is a blending of all emotions. How immeasurably superior to the herd is
the man whose father only is famous! Imagine, then, the feelings of
one who can trace his line through a thousand years of heroes and of
princes!

'Tis dinner! hour that I have loved as loves the bard the twilight; but
no more those visions rise that once were wont to spring in my quick
fancy. The dream is past, the spell is broken, and even the lore on
which I pondered in my first youth is strange as figures in Egyptian
tombs.

No more, no more, oh! never more to me, that hour shall bring its
rapture and its bliss! No more, no more, oh! never more for me, shall
Flavour sit upon her thousand thrones, and, like a syren with a sunny
smile, win to renewed excesses, each more sweet! My feasting days are
over: me no more the charms of fish, or flesh, still less of fowl, can
make the fool of that they made before. The fricandeau is like a dream
of early love; the fricassee, with which I have so often flirted, is
like the tattle of the last quadrille; and no longer are my dreams
haunted with the dark passion of the rich ragout. Ye soups! o'er whose
creation I have watched, like mothers o'er their sleeping child! Ye
sauces! to which I have even lent a name, where are ye now? Tickling,
perchance, the palate of some easy friend, who quite forgets the boon
companion whose presence once lent lustre even to his ruby wine and
added perfume to his perfumed hock!

Our Duke, however, had not reached the age of retrospection. He pecked
as prettily as any bird. Seated on the right hand of his delightful
hostess, nobody could be better pleased; supervised by his jaeger, who
stood behind his chair, no one could be better attended. He smiled,
with the calm, amiable complacency of a man who feels the world is quite
right.

CHAPTER IX.

_The Chatelaine of Castle Dacre_

HOW is your Grace's horse, Sans-pareil?' asked Sir Chetwode Chetwode
of Chetwode of the Duke of St. James, shooting at the same time a sly
glance at his opposite neighbour, Sir Tichborne Tichborne of Tichborne.

'Quite well, sir,' said the Duke in his quietest tone, but with an air
which, he flattered himself, might repress further inquiry.

'Has he got over his fatigue?' pursued the dogged Baronet, with a short,
gritty laugh, that sounded like a loose drag-chain dangling against the
stones. 'We all thought the Yorkshire air would not agree with him.'

'Yet, Sir Chetwode, that could hardly be your opinion of Sanspareil,'
said Miss Dacre, 'for I think, if I remember right, I had the pleasure
of making you encourage our glove manufactory.'

Sir Chetwode looked a little confused. The Duke of St. James, inspirited
by his fair ally, rallied, and hoped Sir Chetwode did not back his steed
to a fatal extent. 'If,' continued he, 'I had had the slightest idea
that any friend of Miss Dacre was indulging in such an indiscretion, I
certainly would have interfered, and have let him known that the horse
was not to win.'

'Is that a fact?' asked Sir Tichborne Tichborne of Tichborne, with a
sturdy voice.

'Can a Yorkshireman doubt it?' rejoined the Duke. 'Was it possible for
anyone but a mere Newmarket dandy to have entertained for a moment the
supposition that anyone but May Dacre should be the Queen of the St.
Leger?'

'I have heard something of this before,' said Sir Tichborne, 'but I did
not believe it. A young friend of mine consulted me upon the subject.
"Would you advise me," said he, "to settle?" "Why," said I, "if you
can prove any bubble, my opinion is, don't; but if you cannot prove
anything, my opinion is, do."'

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