The Daltons; Or, Three Roads In Life. Volume I

“Purvis, my Lord; don’t you remember him? He’s one of the Ricketts’s set.”

“To be sure I do. How are you, Purvis? You look so young and so fresh, I could not persuade myself it could be my old acquaintance.”

“I ‘ve taken to homoe-homoe-homoe-homo – ” Here he opened his mouth wide, and gasped till he grew black in the face.

“What’s the word? Give it him, Haggy. It’s all up with him,” said the Viscount.

“Homoeopathy, eh?”

“Just so. Homeo-hom – ”

“Confound it, man, can’t you be satisfied? when you’re once over the fence, you need n’t go back to leap it. And how is the dear what’s her name Agathe? no, Zoe, how is she?”

“Quite well, my Lord, and would be cha-cha-cha-rmed to see you.”

“Living in that queer humbug still, eh?”

“In the Vill-ino, my Lord, you mean?”

“Egad! she seems the only thing left; like the dog on the wreck, eh, Haggy?”

“Just so, my Lord,” said the other, with a complacent laugh.

“What a mass of old crockery she must have got together by this time!” said the Viscount, yawning with a terrible recollection of her tiresomeness.

“You came out with a yacht, my Lord?” asked Haggerstone.

“Pretty well, for a man that they call ru-ru-ruined,” said Purvis, laughing.

Norwood turned a look of angry indignation at him, and then, as if seeing the unworthiness of the object, merely said,

“A yacht is the only real economy nowadays. You get rid at once of all trains of servants, household, stable people; even the bores of your acquaintance you cut off. By-by, Purvis.” And, with a significant wink at Haggerstone, he passed across the street, in time to overtake Onslow, who was just passing.

“I think I ga-ga-gave it him there,” cried Purvis, with an hysteric giggle of delight; who, provided that he was permitted to fire his shot, never cared how severely he was himself riddled by the enemy’s fire. Meanwhile, the Viscount and his friend were hastening forward to the Mazzarini Palace, as totally forgetful of Purvis as though that valuable individual had never existed.

We may take this opportunity to mention, that when the rumors which attributed a grand breach of honorable conduct to Lord Norwood had arrived at Florence, Sir Stafford, who never had any peculiar affection for the Viscount, declared himself in the very strongest terms on the subject of his offending, and took especial pains to show the marked distinction between occasions of mere wasteful extravagance and instances of fraudulent and dishonest debt.

It was in vain he was told that the rigid rule of English morality is always relaxed abroad, and that the moral latitude is very different in London and Naples. He was old-fashioned enough to believe that honor is the same in all climates; and having received from England a very detailed and specific history of the noble Lord’s misdoings, he firmly resolved not to receive him.

With all George Onslow’s affection and respect for his father, he could not help feeling that this was a mere prejudice, one of the lingering remnants of a past age; a sentiment very respectable, perhaps, but totally inapplicable to present civilization, and quite impracticable in society. In fact, as he said himself, “Who is to be known, if this rule be acted on? What man or, further still, what woman of fashionable life will stand this scrutiny? To attempt such exclusiveness, one should retire to some remote provincial town, some fishing-village of patriarchal simplicity; and, even there, what security was there against ignoble offendings? How should, he stand the ridicule of his club and his acquaintance if he attempted to assume such a standard?” These arguments were strengthened by his disbelief, or rather his repugnance to believe the worst of Norwood; and furthermore, supported by Lady Hester’s open scorn for all such “hypocritical trumpery,” and her avowal that the Viscount should be received, by her, at least. Exactly as of old, George Onslow’s mind was in a state of oscillation and doubt now leaning to this side, now inclining to that when the question was decided for him, as it so often is in like cases, by a mere accident; for, as he loitered along the street, he suddenly felt an arm introduced within his own. He turned hastily round and saw Norwood, who, with, all his customary coolness, asked after each member of the family, and at once proposed to pay them a visit.

Of all men living, none were less suited than Onslow for assuming any part, or taking any decisive line, which could possibly be avoided, or even postponed. He hated, besides, to do an ungracious thing anywhere, or to any one. It might be, thought he, that Norwood’s scrape could all be explained away. Perhaps, after all, the thing is a mere trifle; and if he were to take the decided line of cutting a man without due cause, the consequences might be most injurious. These, and fifty such-like scruples, warred within him, and so engaged his attention that he actually heard not one word of all that “town gossip” which Norwood was retailing for his amusement. At last, while following out his own thoughts, George came to the resolution of finding out at once the precise position in which Norwood stood, and to this end asked the last news from Newmarket.

Norwood’s coolness never forsook him at a question whose very suddenness was somewhat awkward.

“Bad enough,” said he, with an easy laugh. “We have all of us been ‘hit hard.’ Knolesby has lost heavily. Burchester, too, has had a smasher; and I myself have not escaped. In fact, George, the ‘Legs’ have had it all their own way. I suppose you heard something about it out here?”

“Why, yes; there were reports – ”

“Oh, hang reports, man! Never trust to old women’s tales. And that confounded fellow, Haggerstone, I ‘m certain, has been spreading all kinds of stories. But the facts are simple enough.”

“I ‘m heartily glad you say so; for, to tell you the truth, Norwood, my father is one of the prejudiced about this affair, and I ‘m dying to be able to give him a full explanation of the whole.”

“Ah, Sir Stafford, too, among the credulous!” said Norwood, slowly. “I could scarcely have supposed so. No matter; only I did fancy that he was not exactly the person to form hasty conclusions against any man’s character. However, you may tell him for, as for myself, I ‘ll not condescend to explain to any one but you the thing is a very simple one. There was a mare of Hopeton’s, a Brockdon filly, entered for the Slingsby, and a number of us agreed to ‘go a heavy thing’ upon her against the field. A bold coup always, George, that backing against the field. Never do it, my boy, and particularly when you ‘ve a set of rascally foreign Legs banded against you, Poles and Hungarian fellows, George; the downiest coves ever you met, and who, in their confounded jargon, can sell you before your own face. Nothing like John Bull, my boy. Straight, frank, and open John forever! Hit him hard and he ‘ll hit you again; but no treachery, no stab in the dark. Oh, no, no! The turf in England was another thing before these Continental rascals came amongst us. I was always against admitting them within the ring. I black-balled a dozen of them at the Club. But see what perseverance does; they’re all in now. There’s no John-Bull feeling among our set, and we ‘re paying a smart price for it. Never trust those German fellows, George. Out of England there is no truth, no honor. But, above all, don’t back against the field; there are so many dodges against you; so many ‘dark horses’ come out fair. That ‘s it, you see; that ‘s the way I got it so heavily; for when Ruxton came and told me that ‘Help-me-Over’ was dead lame, I believed him. A fetlock lameness is no trifle, you know; and there was a swelling as large as my hand around the coronet. The foreign fellows can manage that in the morning, and the horse will run to win the same day. I saw it myself. Ah, John Bull forever! No guile, no deceit in him. Mind me, George, I make this confession for you alone. I ‘ll not stoop to repeat it. If any man dare to insinuate anything to my discredit, I ‘ll never give myself the trouble of one word of explanation, but nail him to it, twelve paces, and no mistake. I don’t think my right hand has forgot its cunning. Have him out at once, George; parade him on the spot, my boy; that ‘s the only plan. What! is this your quarter?” asked he, as they stopped at the entrance of the spacious palace. “I used to know this house well of old. It was the Embassy in Templeton’s time. Very snug it used to be. Glad to see you ‘ve banished all those maimed old deities that used to line the staircase, and got rid of that tiresome tapestry, too. Pretty vases those; fresh-looking that conservatory, they ‘re always strong in camellias in Florence. This used to be the billiard-room. I think you’ve made a good alteration; it looks better as a salon. Ah, I like this, excellent taste that chintz furniture; just the thing for Italy, and exactly what nobody thought of before!”

“I’ll see if my Lady be visible,” said George, as he threw the “Morning Post” to his friend, and hastily quitted the chamber.

Norwood was no sooner left alone than he proceeded to take a leisurely survey of the apartment, in the course of which his attention was arrested by a water-color drawing, representing a young girl leaning over a balcony, and which he had no difficulty in at once guessing to be Kate Dalton. There was something in the character of her beauty an air of almost daring haughtiness that seemed to strike his fancy; for, as he gazed, he drew himself up to his full height, and seemed to assume in his own features the proud expression of the portrait.

“With a hundred thousand and that face one might make you a viscountess, and yet not do badly, either,” said he to himself; and then, as if satisfied that he had given time enough to a mere speculative thought, he turned over the visiting-cards to see the names of the current acquaintance: “Midchekoff, Estrolenka, Janini, Tiverton, Latrobe, the old set; the Ricketts, too, and Haggerstone. What can have brought them here? Oh, there must have been a ball, for here are shoals of outsiders, the great Smith-Brown-and-Thompson community; and here, on the very smallest of pasteboards, in the very meekest of literals, have we our dear friend ‘Albert Jekyl.’ He ‘ll tell me all I want to know,” said Norwood, as he threw himself back on the comfortable depth of a well-cushioned chair, and gave way to a pleasant revery.

When George Ouslow had informed Lady Hester of Norwood’s arrival, he hastened to Sir Stafford’s apartment to tell him how completely the Viscount had exonerated himself from any charge that might be made to his discredit; not, indeed, that George understood one syllable of the explanation, nor could trace anything like connection between the disjointed links of the narrative. He could only affirm his own perfect conviction in Norwood’s honor, and hoped an equal degree of faith from his father. Fortunately for his powers of persuasiveness, they were not destined to be so sorely tried; for Sir Stafford had just walked out, and George, too eager to set all right about Norwood, took his hat and followed, in the hope of overtaking him.

Lady Hester was already dressed, and about to enter the drawing-room, when George told her that Norwood was there; and yet she returned to her room and made some changes in her toilet, slight, and perhaps too insignificant to record, but yet of importance enough to occupy some time, and afford her an interval for thoughts which, whatever their nature, served to flush her cheek and agitate her deeply.

It is an awkward thing, at any time, to meet with the person to whom you once believed you should have been married; to see, on the terms of mere common acquaintance, the individual with whose fate and fortune you at one time fancied your own was indissolubly bound up, for weal or woe, for better or for worse. To exchange the vapid commonplaces of the world; to barter the poor counters of that petty game called society, with her or him with whom you have walked in all the unbounded confidence of affection, speculating on a golden future, or glorying in a delicious dream of present bliss; to touch with ceremonious respect that hand you have so often held fast within your own; to behold with respectful distance that form beside which you have sat for hours, lost in happy fancies; to stand, as it were, and trace out with the eye some path in life we might have followed, wondering whither it would have led us, if to some higher pinnacle of gratified ambition, if to disappointments darker than those we have ever known, speculating on a future which is already become a past, and canvassing within our hearts the follies that have misled and the faults that have wrecked us! Such are among the inevitable reminiscences of meeting; and they are full of a soft and touching sorrow, not all unpleasing, either, as they remind us of our youth and its buoyancy. Far otherwise was the present case. Whatever might have been the bold confidence with which Lady Hester protested her belief in Norwood’s honor, her own heartfelt knowledge of the man refuted the assertion. She knew thoroughly that he was perfectly devoid of all principle, and merely possessed that conventional degree of fair dealing indispensable to association with his equals. That he would do anything short of what would subject him to disgrace she had long seen; and perhaps the unhappy moment had come when even this restraint was no longer a barrier. And yet, with all this depreciating sense of the man, would it be believed she had once loved him! ay, with as sincere an affection as she was capable of feeling for anything.

‘T is true, time and its consequences had effaced much of this feeling. His own indifference had done something, her new relations with the world had done more; and if she ever thought of him now, it was with a degree of half terror that there lived one man who had so thoroughly read all the secrets of her heart, and knew every sentiment of her nature.

Norwood was sitting in a chair as she entered, amusing himself with the gambols of a little Blenheim spaniel, whose silver collar bore the coronet of the Russian prince. He never perceived Lady Hester until she was close beside him, and in an easy, half-indifferent tone, said,

“How d’ ye do, my Lord?”

“What, Hester!” said he, starting up, and taking her hand in both his own.

She withdrew it languidly, and seating herself, not upon the sofa to which he wished to lead her, but in a chair, asked when he had arrived, and by what route.

“I came out in a yacht; stopping a few days at Gibraltar, and a week at Malta.”

“Had you pleasant weather?”

“After we got clear of the Channel, excellent weather.”

“You came alone, I suppose?”

“Quite alone.”

“How do you get on without your dear friend Effingdale, or your ‘familiar,’ Upton?”

Norwood colored a little at a question the drift of which he felt thoroughly, but tried with a laugh to evade an answer.

“Are they in England? I thought I read their names at the Newmarket meeting?” asked she, after waiting in vain for a reply.

“Yes; they were both at Newmarket,” replied he, shortly.

“Was it a good meeting?”

“I can scarcely say so,” rejoined he, attempting a laugh. “My book turned out very unfortunately.”

“I heard so,” was the short reply; and in a tone so dry and significant that a dead silence followed.

“Pretty spaniel, that,” said Norwood, trying a slight sortie into the enemy’s camp. “A present, I suppose, from Midchekoff?”

“Yes.”

“It is not clean bred, however, no more than his late master. Have you seen much of the Prince?”

“He comes here every evening, after the Opera.”

“What a bore that must be he is a most insufferable proser.”

“I must say I disagree with you; I reckon him excessively agreeable.”

“How changed you must be, Hes – Lady Hester.”

“I believe I am, my Lord.”

“And yet you look the same the very same as when we sauntered for hours through the old woods at Dipsley.” She blushed deeply; less, perhaps, at the words, than at the look which accompanied them.

“Is this your newly found niece or cousin?” said Norwood, as he pointed to the portrait of Kate Dal ton.

“Yes. Is n’t she pretty?”

“The picture is.”

“She is much handsomer, however, a charming creature in every respect, as you will confess when you see her.”

“And for what high destiny is she meant? Is she to be a Russian Princess, a Duchessa of Italy, or the goodwife of an untitled Englishman?”

“She may have her choice, I believe, of either of the three – .”

“Happy girl!” said he half scornfully; “and when may I hope to behold so much excellence?”

“To-day, if you like to dine here.”

“I should like it much but but – ”

“But what?”

“It’s better to be frank at once, Hester,” said he, boldly, “and say that I feel you are grown very cold and distant toward me. This is not your old manner, this not exactly the reception I looked for. Now, if you have any cause for this, would it not be better and fairer to speak it out openly than continue to treat me in this slighting fashion? You are silent, so there is something; pray let’s hear it.”

“What of Newmarket?” said she, in a low voice, so faint as almost to be a whisper.

“So that’s it,” said he, as he folded his arms and looked steadfastly at her.

There was something in the cold and steady gaze he bestowed upon her that abashed, if not actually alarmed, Lady Hester. She had seen the same look once or twice before, and always as the prelude to some terrible evidence of his temper.

“Lady Hester,” said he, in a low, distinct, and very slow voice, as though he would not have her lose a word he spoke, “the explanation which a man would ask for at the peril of his life ought not, in common justice, to be quite costless to a lady. It is perfectly possible that you may not care for the price, be it so; only I warn you that if you wish for any information on the subject you allude to, I will inquire whether – ”

Here he dropped his voice, and whispered two or three words rapidly in her ear, after which she lay back, pale, sick, and almost fainting, without strength to speak or even to move.

“Do not say, or still less feel, that this contest is of my provoking. Never was any man less in the humor to provoke hostilities, and particularly from old friends. I have just had bad luck, the very worst of bad luck. I have lost everything but my head; and even that, cool and calculating as it is, may go too if I be pushed too far. Now you have a frank and free confession from me. I have told you more than I would to any other living, more, perhaps, than I ought even to you.”

“Then what do you intend to do here?” asked she, faintly.

“Wait wait patiently for awhile. Fix upon anyone that I can discover mutters a syllable to my discredit, and shoot him as I would a dog.”

“There may be some who, without openly discussing, will shun your society, and avoid your intercourse.”

“Sir Stafford, for instance,” said he, with an insolent laugh. She nodded slightly, and he went on: “My Lady’s influence will, I am certain, set me right in that quarter.”

“I may be unequal to the task.”

“You can at least try, madam.”

“I have tried, Norwood. I have gone the length of declaring that I disbelieved every story against you, that I reposed the most implicit faith in your honor, and that I would certainly receive you and admit your visits as heretofore.”

“And, of course, you’ll keep your word?”

“If you exact it.”

“Of course I shall! Hester, this is no time for quibbling. I ‘ve got into a mess, the worst of all the bad scrapes which have ever befallen me. A little time and a little management will pull me through but I must have both; nor is it in such a place, and with such a society as this, a man need fear investigation. I came here, as formerly one went to live ‘within the rules.’ Let me, at least, have the benefit of the protection for condescending to the locality.”

“Sir Stafford, my Lady,” said a servant, throwing open the door; and the old Baronet entered hastily, and, without deigning to notice Lord Norwood, walked straight up to Lady Hester, and said a few words in a low voice.

Affecting to occupy himself with the books upon the table, Norwood watched the dialogue with keen but stealthy glances, and then, as the other turned suddenly round, said,

“How d’ ye do, Sir Stafford? I am glad to see you looking so well.”

“I thank you, my Lord; I am perfectly well,” said he, with a most repelling coldness.

“You are surprised to see me in Florence, for certain,” said the other, with a forced laugh.

“Very much surprised to see you here, my Lord,” was the abrupt reply.

“Ha! ha! ha! I thought so!” cried Norwood, laughing, and pretending not to feel the point of the remark. “But, nowadays, one flits about the world in slippers and dressing-gown, and travelling inflicts no fatigue. I only left England ten days ago.”

“The post comes in seven, my Lord,” said Sir Stafford. “I have had letters this morning, written this day week, and which give the last events in Town Life up to the very hour.”

“Indeed! and what’s the news, then?” said he, negligently.

“If your Lordship will favor me with your company for a few minutes, I may be able to enlighten you,” said Sir Stafford, moving towards the door.

“With the greatest pleasure. Good-bye, Lady Hester,” said he, rising. “You said seven o’clock dinner, I think?”

“Yes,” replied she, but in a voice almost inarticulate from shame and terror.

“Now, Sir Stafford, I ‘m at your orders,” said the Viscount, gayly, as he left the room, followed by the old man, whose crimson cheek and flashing eye bespoke the passion which was struggling within him.

Of the two who now entered Sir Stafford’s library, it must be owned that Lord Norwood was, by many degrees, the more calm and collected. No one, to have looked at him, could possibly have supposed that any question of interest, not to say of deep moment, awaited him; and as he carried his eyes over the well-filled shelves and the hand some fittings of the chamber, nothing could be more naturally spoken than the few complimentary expressions on Sir Stafford’s good taste and judgment.

“I shall not ask you to be seated, my Lord,” said the old Baronet, whose tremulous lip and shaking cheek showed how deep-felt was his agitation. “The few moments of interview I have requested will be, I have no doubt, too painful to either of us, nor could we desire to prolong them. To me, I own, they are very, very painful.”

These hurried, broken, and unconnected sentences fell from him as he searched for a letter among a number of others that littered the table.

Lord Norwood bowed coldly, and, without making any reply, turned his back to the fire, and waited in patience.

“I have, I fear, mislaid the letter,” said Sir Stafford, whose nervous anxiety had now so completely mastered him that he threw the letters and papers on every side without perceiving it.

The Viscount made no sign, but suffered the search to proceed without remark.

“It was a letter from Lord Effingdale,” continued the Baronet, still busied in the pursuit, “a letter written after the Newmarket settling, my Lord; and if I should be unfortunate enough not to find it, I must only trust to my memory for its contents.”

Lord Norwood gave another bow, slighter and colder than the former, as though to say that he acquiesced perfectly, without knowing in what.

“Ah! here it is! here it is!” cried Sir Stafford, at last detecting the missing document, which he hastily opened and ran his eyes over. “This letter, my Lord,” continued he, “announces that, in consequence of certain defalcations on your part, the members of the ‘Whip Club’ have erased your Lordship’s name from their list, and declared you incapacitated from either entering a horse, or naming a winner for the stakes in future. There, there, my Lord, is the paragraph, coupled with what you will doubtless feel to be a very severe but just comment on the transaction.”

Norwood took the letter and read it leisurely, as leisurely and calmly as though the contents never concerned him, and then, folding it up, laid it on the chimney-piece beside him.

“Poor Effingdale!” said he, smiling; “he ought to spell better, considering that his mother was a governess. He writes ‘naming’ with an ‘e.’ Didn’t you remark that?”

But as Sir Stafford paid no attention to the criticism, he went on: