The Young Duke
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Benjamin Disraeli >> The Young Duke
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'Very just! very true!' were murmured by many in the neighbourhood of
the oracle; by no one with more personal sincerity than Lady Tichborne
herself.
'I will write to my young friend,' continued the Baronet.
'Oh, no!' said Miss Dacre. 'His Grace's candour must not be abused. I
have no idea of being robbed of my well-earned honours. Sir Tichborne,
private conversation must be respected, and the sanctity of domestic
life must not be profaned. If the tactics of Doncaster are no longer to
be fair war, why, half the families in the Riding will be ruined!'
'Still,'--said Sir Tichborne.
But Mr. Dacre, like a deity in a Trojan battle, interposed, and asked
his opinion of a keeper.
'I hope you are a sportsman,' said Miss Dacre to the Duke, 'for this is
the palace of Nimrod!'
'I have hunted; it was not very disagreeable. I sometimes shoot; it is
not very stupid.'
'Then, in fact, I perceive that you are a heretic. Lord Faulconcourt,
his Grace is moralising on the barbarity of the chase.'
'Then he has never had the pleasure of hunting in company with Miss
Dacre.'
'Do you indeed follow the hounds?' asked the Duke.
'Sometimes do worse, ride over them; but Lord Faulconcourt is fast
emancipating me from the trammels of my frippery foreign education,
and I have no doubt that, in another season, I shall fling off quite in
style.'
'You remember Mr. Annesley?' asked the Duke.
'It is difficult to forget him. He always seemed to me to think that the
world was made on purpose for him to have the pleasure of "cutting" it.'
'Yet he was your admirer!'
'Yes, and once paid me a compliment. He told me it was the only one that
he had ever uttered.'
'Oh, Charley, Charley! this is excellent. We shall have a tale when we
meet. What was the compliment?'
'It would be affectation in me to pretend that I have forgotten it.
Nevertheless, you must excuse me.'
'Pray, pray let me have it!'
'Perhaps you will not like it?'
'Now, I must hear it.'
'Well then, he said that talking to me was the only thing that consoled
him for having to dine with you and to dance with Lady Shropshire.'
'Charles is jealous,' drawled the Duke.
'Of her Grace?' asked Miss Dacre, with much anxiety.
'No; but Charles is aged, and once, when he dined with me, was taken for
my uncle.'
The ladies retired, and the gentlemen sat barbarously long. Sir Chetwode
Chetwode of Chetwode and Sir Tichborne Tichborne of Tichborne were two
men who drank wine independent of fashion, and exacted, to the last
glass, the identical quantity which their fathers had drunk half a
century before, and to which they had been used almost from their
cradle. The only subject of conversation was sporting. Terrible shots,
more terrible runs, neat barrels, and pretty fencers. The Duke of St.
James was not sufficiently acquainted with the geography of the mansion
to make a premature retreat, an operation which is looked upon with an
evil eye, and which, to be successful, must be prompt and decisive,
and executed with supercilious nonchalance. So he consoled himself by
a little chat with Lord Mildmay, who sat smiling, handsome, and
mustachioed, with an empty glass, and who was as much out of water as he
was out of wine. The Duke was not very learned in Parisian society; but
still, with the aid of the Duchess de Berri and the Duchess de Duras,
Leontine Fay, and Lady Stuart de Rothesay, they got on, and made out the
time until Purgatory ceased and Paradise opened.
For Paradise it was, although there were there assembled some thirty or
forty persons not less dull than the majority of our dull race, and in
those little tactics that make society less burdensome perhaps even less
accomplished. But a sunbeam will make even the cloudiest day break into
smiles; a bounding fawn will banish monotony even from a wilderness; and
a glass of claret, or perchance some stronger grape, will convert even
the platitude of a goblet of water into a pleasing beverage, and so May
Dacre moved among her guests, shedding light, life, and pleasure.
She was not one who, shrouded in herself, leaves it to chance or fate
to amuse the beings whom she has herself assembled within her halls.
Nonchalance is the _metier_ of your modern hostess; and so long as
the house be not on fire, or the furniture not kicked, you may be
even ignorant who is the priestess of the hospitable fane in which you
worship.
They are right; men shrink from a fussy woman. And few can aspire to
regulate the destinies of their species, even in so slight a point as an
hour's amusement, without rare powers. There is no greater sin than to
be _trop prononcee_. A want of tact is worse than a want of virtue.
Some women, it is said, work on pretty well against the tide without the
last: I never knew one who did not sink who ever dared to sail without
the first.
Loud when they should be low, quoting the wrong person, talking on
the wrong subject, teasing with notice, excruciating with attentions,
disturbing a tete-a-tete in order to make up a dance; wasting eloquence
in persuading a man to participate in amusement whose reputation depends
on his social sullenness; exacting homage with a restless eye, and
not permitting the least worthy knot to be untwined without their
divinityships' interference; patronising the meek, anticipating the
slow, intoxicated with compliment, plastering with praise, that you in
return may gild with flattery; in short, energetic without elegance,
active without grace, and loquacious without wit; mistaking bustle
for style, raillery for badinage, and noise for gaiety, these are the
characters who mar the very career they think they are creating, and who
exercise a fatal influence on the destinies of all those who have the
misfortune to be connected with them.
Not one of these was she, the lady of our tale. There was a quiet
dignity lurking even under her easiest words and actions which made you
feel her notice a compliment: there was a fascination in her calm smile
and in her sunlit eye which made her invitation to amusement itself
a pleasure. If you refused, you were not pressed, but left to that
isolation which you appeared to admire; if you assented, you were
rewarded with a word which made you feel how sweet was such society!
Her invention never flagged, her gaiety never ceased; yet both were
spontaneous, and often were unobserved. All felt amused, and all were
unconsciously her agents. Her word and her example seemed, each instant,
to call forth from her companions new accomplishments, new graces, new
sources of joy and of delight. All were surprised that they were so
agreeable.
CHAPTER X.
_Love's Young Dream_
MORNING came, and the great majority of the gentlemen rose early as
Aurora. The chase is the favourite pastime of man and boy; yet some
preferred plundering their host's preserves, by which means their
slumbers were not so brief and their breakfast less disturbed. The
_battue_, however, in time, called forth its band, and then one by one,
or two by two, or sometimes even three, leaning on each other's arms
and smiling in each other's faces, the ladies dropped into the
breakfast-room at Castle Dacre. There, until two o'clock, a lounging
meal might always be obtained, but generally by twelve the coast was
clear; for our party were a natural race of beings, and would have
blushed if flaming noon had caught them napping in their easy couches.
Our bright bird, May Dacre, too, rose from her bower, full of the memory
of the sweetest dreams, and fresh as lilies ere they kiss the sun.
She bends before her ivory crucifix, and gazes on her blessed mother's
face, where the sweet Florentine had tinged with light a countenance
Too fair for worship, too divine for love!
And innocence has prayed for fresh support, and young devotion told her
holy beads. She rises with an eye of mellowed light, and her soft cheek
is tinted with the flush that comes from prayer. Guard over her, ye
angels! wheresoe'er and whatsoe'er ye are! For she shall be your meet
companion in an after-day. Then love your gentle friend, this sinless
child of clay!
The morning passed as mornings ever pass where twenty women, for the
most part pretty, are met together. Some read, some drew, some worked,
all talked. Some wandered in the library, and wondered why such great
books were written. One sketched a favourite hero in the picture
gallery, a Dacre, who had saved the State or Church, had fought at
Cressy, or flourished at Windsor: another picked a flower out of the
conservatory, and painted its powdered petals. Here, a purse, half-made,
promised, when finished quite, to make some hero happy. Then there was
chat about the latest fashions, caps and bonnets, _seduisantes_, and
sleeves. As the day grew' old, some rode, some walked, some drove. A
pony-chair was Lady Faulconcourt's delight, whose arm was roundly turned
and graced the whip; while, on the other hand, Lady St. Jerome rather
loved to try the paces of an ambling nag, because her figure was of the
sublime; and she looked not unlike an Amazonian queen, particularly when
Lord Mildmay was her Theseus.
He was the most consummate, polished gentleman that ever issued from the
court of France. He did his friend Dacre the justice to suppose that he
was a victim to his barbarous guests; but for the rest of the galloping
crew, who rode and shot all day, and in the evening fell asleep just
when they were wanted, he shrugged his shoulders, and he thanked his
stars! In short, Lord Mildmay was the ladies' man; and in their morning
dearth of beaux, to adopt their unanimous expression, 'quite a host!'
Then there was archery for those who could draw a bow or point an
arrow; and we are yet to learn the sight that is more dangerous for your
bachelor to witness, or the ceremony which more perfectly develops all
that the sex would wish us to remark, than this 'old English' custom.
With all these resources, all was, of course, free and easy as the air.
Your appearance was your own act. If you liked, you might have remained,
like a monk or nun, in your cell till dinner-time, but no later. Privacy
and freedom are granted you in the morning, that you may not exhaust
your powers of pleasing before night, and that you may reserve for those
favoured hours all the new ideas that you have collected in the course
of your morning adventures.
But where was he, the hero of our tale? Fencing? Craning? Hitting?
Missing? Is he over, or is he under? Has he killed, or is he killed? for
the last is but the chance of war, and pheasants have the pleasure
of sometimes seeing as gay birds as themselves with plumage quite as
shattered. But there is no danger of the noble countenance of the Duke
of St. James bearing to-day any evidence of the exploits of himself or
his companions. His Grace was in one of his sublime fits, and did not
rise. Luigi consoled himself for the bore of this protracted attendance
by diddling the page-in-waiting at dominos.
The Duke of St. James was in one of his sublime fits. He had commenced
by thinking of May Dacre, and he ended by thinking of himself. He was
under that delicious and dreamy excitement which we experience when the
image of a lovely and beloved object begins to mix itself up with our
own intense self-love. She was the heroine rather of an indefinite
reverie than of definite romance. Instead of his own image alone playing
about his fancy, her beautiful face and springing figure intruded their
exquisite presence. He no longer mused merely on his own voice and wit:
he called up her tones of thrilling power; he imagined her in all the
triumph of her gay repartee. In his mind's eye, he clearly watched all
the graces of her existence. She moved, she gazed, she smiled. Now he
was alone, and walking with her in some rich wood, sequestered,
warm, solemn, dim, feeding on the music of her voice, and gazing with
intenseness on the wakening passion of her devoted eye. Now they rode
together, scudded over champaign, galloped down hills, scampered through
valleys, all life, and gaiety, and vivacity, and spirit. Now they were
in courts and crowds; and he led her with pride to the proudest kings.
He covered her with jewels; but the world thought her brighter than his
gems. Now they met in the most unexpected and improbable manner: now
they parted with a tenderness which subdued their souls even more than
rapture. Now he saved her life: now she blessed his existence. Now his
reverie was too vague and misty to define its subject. It was a stream
of passion, joy, sweet voices, tender tones, exulting hopes, beaming
faces, chaste embraces, immortal transports!
It was three o'clock, and for the twentieth time our hero made an effort
to recall himself to the realities of life. How cold, how tame, how
lifeless, how imperfect, how inconsecutive, did everything appear! This
is the curse of reverie. But they who revel in its pleasures must bear
its pains, and are content. Yet it wears out the brain, and unfits us
for social life. They who indulge in it most are the slaves of solitude.
They wander in a wilderness, and people it with their voices. They sit
by the side of running waters, with an eye more glassy than the stream.
The sight of a human being scares them more than a wild beast does a
traveller; the conduct of life, when thrust upon their notice, seems
only a tissue of adventures without point; and, compared with the
creatures of their imagination, human nature seems to send forth only
abortions.
'I must up,' said the young Duke; 'and this creature on whom I have
lived for the last eight hours, who has, in herself, been to me the
universe, this constant companion, this cherished friend, whose voice
was passion and whose look was love, will meet me with all the formality
of a young lady, all the coldness of a person who has never even thought
of me since she saw me last. Damnable delusion! To-morrow I will get up
and hunt.'
He called Luigi, and a shower-bath assisted him in taking a more healthy
view of affairs. Yet his faithful fancy recurred to her again. He must
indulge it a little. He left off dressing and flung himself in a chair.
'And yet,' he continued, 'when I think of it again, there surely can
be no reason that this should not turn into a romance of real life. I
perceived that she was a little piqued when we first met at Don-caster.
Very natural! Very flattering! I should have been piqued. Certainly,
I behaved decidedly ill. But how, in the name of Heaven, was I to know
that she was the brightest little being that ever breathed! Well, I am
here now! She has got her wish. And I think an evident alteration has
already taken place. But she must not melt too quickly. She will not;
she will do nothing but what is exquisitely proper. How I do love this
child! I dote upon her very image. It is the very thing that I have
always been wanting. The women call me inconstant. I have never been
constant. But they will not listen to us without we feign feelings, and
then they upbraid us for not being influenced by them. I have sighed, I
have sought, I have wept, for what I now have found. What would she give
to know what is passing in my mind! By Heavens! there is no blood in
England that has a better chance of being a Duchess!'
CHAPTER XI.
_Le Roi S'Amuse_
A CANTER is the cure for every evil, and brings the mind back to itself
sooner than all the lessons of Chrysippus and Crantor. It is the only
process that at the same time calms the feelings and elevates the
spirits, banishes blue devils and raises one to the society of 'angels
ever bright and fair.' It clears the mind; it cheers the heart. It is
the best preparation for all enterprises, for it puts a man in good
humour both with the world and himself; and, whether you are going to
make a speech or scribble a scene, whether you are about to conquer the
world or yourself, order your horse. As you bound along, your wit will
brighten and your eloquence blaze, your courage grow more adamantine,
and your generous feelings burn with a livelier flame. And when the
exercise is over the excitement does not cease, as when it grows from
music, for your blood is up, and the brilliancy of your eye is fed by
your bubbling pulses. Then, my young friend, take my advice: rush into
the world, and triumph will grow out of your quick life, like Victory
bounding from the palm of Jove!
Our Duke ordered his horses, and as he rattled along recovered from the
enervating effects of his soft reverie. On his way home he fell in with
Mr. Dacre and the two Baronets, returning on their hackneys from a hard
fought field.
'Gay sport?' asked his Grace.
'A capital run. I think the last forty minutes the most splitting thing
we have had for a long time!' answered Sir Chetwode. 'I only hope Jack
Wilson will take care of poor Fanny. I did not half like leaving her.
Your Grace does not join us?'
'I mean to do so; but I am, unfortunately, a late riser.'
'Hem!' said Sir Tichborne. The monosyllable meant much.
'I have a horse which I think will suit your Grace,' said Mr. Dacre,
'and to which, in fact, you are entitled, for it bears the name of your
house. You have ridden Hauteville, Sir Tichborne?'
'Yes; fine animal!'
'I shall certainly try his powers,' said the Duke. 'When is your next
field-day?'
'Thursday,' said Sir Tichborne; 'but we shall be too early for you, I am
afraid,' with a gruff smile.
'Oh, no!' said the young Duke, who saw his man; 'I assure you I have
been up to-day nearly two hours. Let us get on.'
The first person that his Grace's eye met, when he entered the room in
which they assembled before dinner, was Mrs. Dallington Vere.
Dinner was a favourite moment with the Duke of St. James during this
visit at Castle Dacre, since it was the only time in the day that,
thanks to his rank, which he now doubly valued, he could enjoy a
tete-a-tete with its blooming mistress.
'I am going to hunt,' said the Duke, 'and I am to ride Hauteville. I
hope you will set me an example on Thursday, and that I shall establish
my character with Sir Tichborne.'
'I am to lead on that day a bold band of archers. I have already too
much neglected my practising, and I fear that my chance of the silver
arrow is slight.'
'I have betted upon you with everybody,' said the Duke of St. James.
'Remember Doncaster! I am afraid that May Dacre will again be the
occasion of your losing your money.'
'But now I am on the right side. Together we must conquer.'
'I have a presentiment that our union will not be a fortunate one.'
'Then I am ruined,' said his Grace with rather a serious tone.
'I hope you have not really staked anything upon such nonsense?' said
Miss Dacre.
'I have staked everything,' said his Grace.
'Talking of stakes,' said Lord St. Jerome, who pricked up his ears at
a congenial subject, 'do you know what they are going to do about that
affair of Anderson's?'
'What does he say for himself?' asked Sir Chetwode.
'He says that he had no intention of embezzling the money, but that, as
he took it for granted the point could never be decided, he thought it
was against the usury laws to allow money to lie idle.'
'That fellow has always got an answer,' said Sir Tichborne. 'I hate men
who have always got an answer. There is no talking common sense with
them.'
The Duke made his escape to-day, and, emboldened by his illustrious
example, Charles Faulcon, Lord St. Jerome, and some other heroes
followed, to the great disgust of Sir Chetwode and Sir Tichborne.
As the evening glided on conversation naturally fell upon the amusements
of society.
'I am sure we are tired of dancing every night,' said Miss Dacre. 'I
wonder if we could introduce any novelty. What think you, Bertha? You
can always suggest.'
'You remember the _tableaux vivants_?' said Mrs. Dallington Vere.
'Beautiful! but too elaborate a business, I fear, for us. We want
something more impromptu. The _tableaux_ are nothing without brilliant
and accurate costume, and to obtain that we must work at least for a
week, and then, after all, in all probability, a failure. _Ils sont trop
recherches_,' she said, lowering her voice to Mrs. Dallington, '_pour
nous ici_. They must spring out of a society used to such exhibitions.'
'I have a costume dress here,' said the Duke of
St. James.
'And I have a uniform,' said Lord Mildmay.
'And then,' said Mrs. Dallington, 'there are cashmeres, and scarfs, and
jewels to be collected. I see, however, you think it impossible.'
'I fear so. However, we will think of it. In the meantime, what shall we
do now? Suppose we act a fairy tale?'
'None of the girls can act,' said Mrs. Dallington, with a look of kind
pity.
'Let us teach them. That itself will be an amusement. Suppose we act
Cinderella? There is the music of Cendrillon, and you can compose, when
necessary, as you go on. Clara Howard!' said May Dacre, 'come here,
love! We want you to be Cinderella in a little play.'
'I act! oh! dear May! How can you laugh at me so! I cannot act.'
'You will not have to speak. Only just move about as I direct you while
Bertha plays music.'
'Oh! dear May, I cannot, indeed! I never did act. Ask Eugenia!'
'Eugenia! If you are afraid, I am sure she will faint. I asked you
because I thought you were just the person for it.'
'But only think,' said poor Clara, with an imploring voice, 'to act,
May! Why, acting is the most difficult thing in the world. Acting is
quite a dreadful thing. I know many ladies who will not act.'
'But it is not acting, Clara. Well! I will be Cinderella, and you shall
be one of the sisters.'
'No, dear May!'
'Well, then, the Fairy?' 'No, dear, dear, dear May!'
'Well, Duke of St. James, what am I to do with this rebellious troop?'
'Let me be Cinderella!'
'It is astonishing,' said Miss Dacre, 'the difficulty which you
encounter in England, if you try to make people the least amusing or
vary the regular dull routine, which announces dancing as the beautiful
of diversions and cards as the sublime.'
'We are barbarians,' said the Duke. 'We were not,' said May Dacre. 'What
are _tableaux_, or acted charades, or romances, to masques, which were
the splendid and various amusement of our ancestors. Last Christmas we
performed "Comus" here with great effect; but then we had Arundel, and
he is an admirable actor.'
'Curse Arundel!' thought the Duke. 'I had forgotten him.'
'I do not wonder,' said Mrs. Dallington Vere, 'at people objecting to
act regular plays, for, independently of the objections, not that
I think anything of them myself, which are urged against "private
theatricals," the fact is, to get up a play is a tremendous business,
and one or two is your bound. But masques, where there is so little
to learn by rote, a great consideration, where music and song are so
exquisitely introduced, where there is such an admirable opportunity
for brilliant costume, and where the scene may be beautiful without
change--such an important point--I cannot help wondering that this
national diversion is not revived.'
'Suppose we were to act a romance without the costume?' said the Duke.
'Let us consider it a rehearsal. And perhaps the Misses Howard will have
no objection to sing?'
'It is difficult to find a suitable romance,' said Miss Dacre. 'All our
modern English ones are too full of fine poetry. We tried once an old
ballad, but it was too long. Last Christmas we got up a good many, and
Arundel, Isabella, and myself used to scribble some nonsense for the
occasion. But I am afraid they are all either burnt or taken away. I
will look in the music-case.'
She went to the music-case with the Duke and Mrs. Dallington.
'No,' she continued; 'not one, not a single one. But what are these?'
She looked at some lines written in pencil in a music-book. 'Oh! here is
something; too slight, but it will do. You see,' she continued, reading
it to the Duke, 'by the introduction of the same line in every verse,
describing the same action, a back-scene is, as it were, created, and
the story, if you can call it such, proceeds in front. Really, I think,
we might make something of this.'
Mr. Dacre and some others were at whist. The two Baronets were together,
talking over the morning's sport. Ecarte covered a flirtation between
Lord Mildmay and Lady St. Jerome. Miss Dacre assembled her whole troop;
and, like a manager with a new play, read in the midst of them the
ballad, and gave them directions for their conduct. A japan screen was
unfolded at the end of the room. Two couches indicated the limits of
the stage. Then taking her guitar, she sang with a sweet voice and arch
simplicity these simpler lines:--
I.
Childe Dacre stands in his father's hall,
While all the rest are dancing;
Childe Dacre gazes on the wall,
While brightest eyes are glancing.
Then prythee tell me, gentles gay!
What makes our Childe so dull to-day?
Each verse was repeated.
In the background they danced a cotillon.
In the front, the Duke of St. James, as Childe Dacre, leant against the
wall, with arms folded and eyes fixed; in short, in an attitude which
commanded great applause.
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