"My Novel" — Complete

CHAPTER X

“But do come; change your dress, return and dine with me; you will have just time, Harley. You will meet the most eminent men of our party; surely they are worth your study, philosopher that you affect to be.”

Thus said Audley Egerton to Lord L’Estrange, with whom he had been riding (after the toils of his office). The two gentlemen were in Audley’s library,—Mr. Egerton, as usual, buttoned up, seated in his chair, in the erect posture of a man who scorns “inglorious ease;” Harley, as usual, thrown at length on the sofa., his long hair in careless curls, his neckcloth loose, his habiliments flowing simplex mundit is, indeed, his grace all his own; seemingly negligent, never slovenly; at ease everywhere and with every one, even with Mr. Audley Egerton, who chilled or awed the ease out of most people.

“Nay, my dear Audley, forgive me. But your eminent men are all men of one idea, and that not a diverting one, politics! politics! politics! The storm in the saucer.”

“But what is your life, Harley?—the saucer without the storm?”

“Do you know, that’s very well said, Audley? I did not think you had so much liveliness of repartee. Life! life! it is insipid, it is shallow,—no launching Argosies in the saucer. Audley, I have the oddest fancy—”

“That of course,” said Audley, dryly; “you never had any other. What is the new one?”

HARLEY (with great gravity).—“Do you believe in Mesmerism?”

AUDLEY.—“Certainly not.”

HARLEY.—“If it were in the power of an animal magnetizer to get me out of my own skin into somebody’s else! That’s my fancy! I am so tired of myself,—so tired! I have run through all my ideas,—know every one of them by heart. When some pretentious impostor of an idea perks itself up and says, ‘Look at me,—I ‘m a new acquaintance,’ I just give it a nod, and say ‘Not at all, you have only got a new coat on; you are the same old wretch that has bored me these last twenty years; get away.’ But if one could be in a new skin, if I could be for half-an-hour your tall porter, or one of your eminent matter-of-fact men, I should then really travel into a new world.’ Every man’s brain must be a world in itself, eh? If I could but make a parochial settlement even in yours, Audley,—run over all your thoughts and sensations. Upon my life, I ‘ll go and talk to that French mesmerizer about it.”

[If, at the date in which Lord L’Estrange held this conversation with Mr. Egerton, Alfred de Musset had written his comedies, we should suspect that his lordship had plagiarized from one of them the whimsical idea that he here vents upon Audley. In repeating it, the author at least cannot escape from the charge of obligation to a writer whose humour is sufficiently opulent to justify the loan.]

AUDLEY (who does not seem to like the notion of having his thoughts and sensations rummaged, even by his friend, and even in fancy)—“Pooh, pooh, pooh! Do talk like a man of sense.”

HARLEY.—“Man of sense! Where shall I find a model? I don’t know a man of sense!—never met such a creature. Don’t believe it ever existed. At one time I thought Socrates must have been a man of sense: a delusion; he would stand gazing into the air, and talking to his Genius from sunrise to sunset. Is that like a man of sense? Poor Audley! how puzzled he looks! Well, I’ll try and talk sense to oblige you. And first” (here Harley raised himself on his elbow),—“first, is it true, as I have heard vaguely, that you are paying court to the sister of that infamous Italian traitor?”

“Madame di Negra? No: I am not paying court to her,” answered Audley, with a cold smile. “But she is very handsome; she is very clever; she is useful to me,—I need not say how or why; that belongs to my metier as a politician. But I think, if you will take my advice, or get your friend to take it, I could obtain from her brother, through my influence with her, some liberal concessions to your exile. She is very anxious to know where he is.”

“You have not told her?”

“No; I promised you I would keep that secret.”

“Be sure you do; it is only for some mischief, some snare, that she could desire such information. Concessions! pooh! This is no question of concessions, but of rights.”

“I think you should leave your friend to judge of that.”

“Well, I will write to him. Meanwhile, beware of this woman. I have heard much of her abroad, and she has the character of her brother for duplicity and—”

“Beauty,” interrupted Audley, turning the conversation with practised adroitness. “I am told that the count is one of the handsomest men in Europe, much handsomer than his sister still, though nearly twice her age. Tut, tut, Harley; fear not for me. I am proof against all feminine attractions. This heart is dead.”

“Nay, nay; it is not for you to speak thus,—leave that to me. But even I will not say it. The heart never dies. And you; what have you lost?—a wife; true: an excellent, noble-hearted woman. But was it love that you felt for her? Enviable man, have you ever loved?”

“Perhaps not, Harley,” said Audley, with a sombre aspect and in dejected accents; “very few men ever have loved, at least as you mean by the word. But there are other passions than love that kill the heart, and reduce us to mechanism.”

While Egerton spoke, Harley turned aside, and his breast heaved. There was a short silence; Audley was the first to break it.

“Speaking of my lost wife, I am sorry that you do not approve what I have done for her young kinsman, Randal Leslie.”

HARLEY (recovering himself with an effort).—“Is it true kindness to bid him exchange manly independence for the protection of an official patron?”

AUDLEV.—“I did not bid him. I gave him his choice. At his age, I should have chosen as he has done.”

HARLEY.—“I trust not; I think better of you. But answer me one question frankly, and then I will ask another. Do you mean to make this young man your heir?”

AUDLEY (with a slight embarrassment).—“Heir, pooh! I am young still. I may live as long as he—time enough to think of that.”

HARLEY.—“Then now to my second question. Have you told this youth plainly that he may look to you for influence, but not for wealth?”

AUDLEY (firmly).—“I think I have; but I shall repeat it more emphatically.”

HARLEY.—“Then I am satisfied as to your conduct, but not as to his. For he has too acute an intellect not to know what it is to forfeit independence; and, depend on it, he has made his calculations, and would throw you into the bargain in any balance that he could strike in his favour. You go by your experience in judging men; I by my instincts. Nature warns us as it does the inferior animals,—only we are too conceited, we bipeds, to heed her. My instincts of soldier and gentleman recoil from that old young man. He has the soul of the Jesuit. I see it in his eye, I hear it in the tread of his foot; volto sciolto he has not; i pensieri stretti he has. Hist! I hear now his step in the hall. I should know it from a thousand. That’s his very touch on the handle of the door.”

Randal Leslie entered. Harley—who, despite his disregard for forms, and his dislike to Randal, was too high-bred not to be polite to his junior in age or inferior in rank-rose and bowed. But his bright piercing eyes did not soften as they caught and bore down the deeper and more latent fire in Randal’s. Harley did not resume his seat, but moved to the mantelpiece, and leaned against it.

RANDAL.—“I have fulfilled your commissions, Mr. Egerton. I went first to Maida Hill, and saw Mr. Burley. I gave him the check, but he said it was too much, and he should return half to the banker; he will write the article as you suggested. I then—”

AUDLEY.—“Enough, Randal! we will not fatigue Lord L’Estrange with these little details of a life that displeases him,—the life political.”

HARLEY.—“But these details do not displease me; they reconcile me to my own life. Go on, pray, Mr. Leslie.”

Randal had too much tact to need the cautioning glance of Mr. Egerton. He did not continue, but said with a soft voice, “Do you think, Lord L’Estrange, that the contemplation of the mode of life pursued by others can reconcile a man to his own, if he had before thought it needed a reconciler?” Harley looked pleased, for the question was ironical; and if there was a thing in the world be abhorred, it was flattery.

“Recollect your Lucretius, Mr. Leslie, the Suave mare, etc., ‘pleasant from the cliff to see the mariners tossed on the ocean.’ Faith, I think that sight reconciles one to the cliff, though, before, one might have been teased by the splash from the spray, and deafened by the scream of the sea-gulls. But I leave you, Audley. Strange that I have heard no more of my soldier! Remember I have your promise when I come to claim it. Good-by, Mr. Leslie, I hope that Burley’s article will be worth the check.”

Lord L’Estrange mounted his horse, which was still at the door, and rode through the Park. But he was no longer now unknown by sight. Bows and nods saluted him on every side.

“Alas, I am found out, then,” said he to himself. “That terrible Duchess of Knaresborough, too—I must fly my country.” He pushed his horse into a canter, and was soon out of the Park. As he dismounted at his father’s sequestered house, you would have hardly supposed him the same whimsical, fantastic, but deep and subtle humourist that delighted in perplexing the material Audley, for his expressive face was unutterably serious. But the moment he came into the presence of his parents, the countenance was again lighted and cheerful. It brightened the whole room like sunshine.

CHAPTER XI

“Mr. Leslie,” said Egerton, when Harley had left the library, “you did not act with your usual discretion in touching upon matters connected with politics in the presence of a third party.”

“I feel that already, sir; my excuse is, that I held Lord L’Estrange to be your most intimate friend.”

“A public man, Mr. Leslie, would ill serve his country if he were not especially reserved towards his private friends—when they do not belong to his party.”

“But pardon me my ignorance. Lord Lansmere is so well known to be one of your supporters, that I fancied his son must share his sentiments, and be in your confidence.”

Egerton’s brows slightly contracted, and gave a stern expression to a countenance always firm and decided. He however answered in a mild tone,

“At the entrance into political life, Mr. Leslie, there is nothing in which a young man of your talents should be more on his guard than thinking for himself; he will nearly always think wrong. And I believe that is one reason why young men of talent disappoint their friends, and remain so long out of office.”

A haughty flush passed over Randal’s brow, and faded away quickly; he bowed in silence.

Egerton resumed, as if in explanation, and even in kindly apology,

“Look at Lord L’Estrange himself. What young man could come into life with brighter auspices? Rank, wealth, high animal spirits (a great advantage those same spirits, Mr. Leslie), courage, self-possession, scholarship as brilliant perhaps as your own; and now see how his life is wasted! Why? He always thought fit to think for himself. He could never be broken into harness, and never will be. The state coach, Mr. Leslie, requires that all the horses should pull together.”

“With submission, sir,” answered Randal, “I should think that there were other reasons why Lord L’Estrange, whatever be his talents—and of these you must be indeed an adequate judge—would never do anything in public life.”

“Ay, and what?” said Egerton, quickly.

“First,” said Randal, shrewdly, “private life has done too much for him. What could public life give to one who needs nothing? Born at the top of the social ladder, why should he put himself voluntarily at the last step, for the sake of climbing up again? And secondly, Lord L’Estrange seems to me a man in whose organization sentiment usurps too large a share for practical existence.”

“You have a keen eye,” said Audley, with some admiration,—“keen for one so young. Poor Harley!”

Mr. Egerton’s last words were said to himself. He resumed quickly,

“There is something on my mind, my young friend. Let us be frank with each other. I placed before you fairly the advantages and disadvantages of the choice I gave you. To take your degree with such honours as no doubt you would have won, to obtain your fellowship, to go to the Bar, with those credentials in favour of your talents,—this was one career. To come at once into public life, to profit by my experience, avail yourself of my interest, to take the chances of rise or fall with a party,—this was another. You chose the last. But in so doing, there was a consideration which might weigh with you, and on which, in stating your reasons for your option, you were silent.”

“What is that, sir?”

“You might have counted on my fortune, should the chances of party fail you: speak, and without shame if so; it would be natural in a young man, who comes from the elder branch of the House whose heiress was my wife.”

“You wound me, Mr. Egerton,” said Randal, turning away.

Mr. Egerton’s cold glance followed Randal’s movements; the face was hid from the glance, and the statesman’s eye rested on the figure, which is often as self-betraying as the countenance itself. Randal baffled Mr. Egerton’s penetration,—the young man’s emotion might be honest pride and pained and generous feeling, or it might be something else. Egerton continued slowly,

“Once for all, then, distinctly and emphatically, I say, never count upon that; count upon all else that I can do for you, and forgive me when I advise harshly or censure coldly; ascribe this to my interest in your career. Moreover, before decision becomes irrevocable, I wish you to know practically all that is disagreeable or even humiliating in the first subordinate steps of him who, without wealth or station, would rise in public life. I will not consider your choice settled till the end of a year at least,—your name will be kept on the college books till then; if on experience you should prefer to return to Oxford, and pursue the slower but surer path to independence and distinction, you can. And now give me your hand, Mr. Leslie, in sign that you forgive my bluntness: it is time to dress.”

Randal, with his face still averted, extended his hand. Mr. Egerton held it a moment, then dropping it, left the room. Randal turned as the door closed; and there was in his dark face a power of sinister passion, that justified all Harley’s warnings. His lips moved, but not audibly; then as if struck by a sudden thought, he followed Egerton into the hall.

“Sir,” said he, “I forgot to say, that on returning from Maida Hill, I took shelter from the rain under a covered passage, and there I met unexpectedly with your nephew, Frank Hazeldean.”

“Ah!” said Egerton, indifferently, “a fine young man; in the Guards. It is a pity that my brother has such antiquated political notions; he should put his son into parliament, and under my guidance; I could push him. Well, and what said Frank?”

“He invited me to call on him. I remember that you once rather cautioned me against too intimate an acquaintance with those who have not got their fortunes to make.”

“Because they are idle, and idleness is contagious. Right,—better not to be too intimate with a young Guardsman.”

“Then you would not have me call on him, sir? We were rather friends at Eton; and if I wholly reject his overtures, might he not think that you—”

“I!” interrupted Egerton. “Ah, true; my brother might think I bore him a grudge; absurd. Call then, and ask the young man here. Yet still, I do not advise intimacy.” Egerton turned into his dressing-room. “Sir,” said his valet, who was in waiting, “Mr. Levy is here,—he says by appointment; and Mr. Grinders is also just come from the country.”

“Tell Mr. Grinders to come in first,” said Egerton, seating himself. “You need not wait; I can dress without you. Tell Mr. Levy I will see him in five minutes.”

Mr. Grinders was steward to Audley Egerton.

Mr. Levy was a handsome man, who wore a camellia in his button-hole; drove, in his cabriolet, a high-stepping horse that had cost L200; was well known to young men of fashion, and considered by their fathers a very dangerous acquaintance.

CHAPTER XII

As the company assembled in the drawing-rooms, Mr. Egerton introduced Randal Leslie to his eminent friends in a way that greatly contrasted the distant and admonitory manner which he had exhibited to him in private. The presentation was made with that cordiality and that gracious respect, by which those who are in station command notice for those who have their station yet to win.

“My dear lord, let me introduce to you a kinsman of my late wife’s” (in a whisper),—“the heir to the elder branch of her family. Stanmore, this is Mr. Leslie, of whom I spoke to you. You, who were so distinguished at Oxford, will not like him the worse for the prizes he gained there. Duke, let me present to you Mr. Leslie. The duchess is angry with me for deserting her balls; I shall hope to make my peace, by providing myself with a younger and livelier substitute. Ah, Mr. Howard, here is a young gentleman just fresh from Oxford, who will tell us all about the new sect springing up there. He has not wasted his time on billiards and horses.”

Leslie was received with all that charming courtesy which is the To Kalon of an aristocracy.

After dinner, conversation settled on politics. Randal listened with attention, and in silence, till Egerton drew him gently out; just enough, and no more,—just enough to make his intelligence evident, and without subjecting him to the charge of laying down the law. Egerton knew how to draw out young men,—a difficult art. It was one reason why he was so peculiarly popular with the more rising members of his party.

The party broke up early.

“We are in time for Almack’s,” said Egerton, glancing at the clock, “and I have a voucher for you; come.”

Randal followed his patron into the carriage. By the way Egerton thus addressed him,

“I shall introduce you to the principal leaders of society; know them and study them: I do not advise you to attempt to do more,—that is, to attempt to become the fashion. It is a very expensive ambition: some men it helps, most men it ruins. On the whole, you have better cards in your hands. Dance or not as it pleases you; don’t flirt. If you flirt people will inquire into your fortune,—an inquiry that will do you little good; and flirting entangles a young man into marrying. That would never do. Here we are.”

In two minutes more they were in the great ballroom, and Randal’s eyes were dazzled with the lights, the diamonds, the blaze of beauty. Audley presented him in quick succession to some dozen ladies, and then disappeared amidst the crowd. Randal was not at a loss: he was without shyness; or if he had that disabling infirmity, he concealed it. He answered the languid questions put to him with a certain spirit that kept up talk, and left a favourable impression of his agreeable qualities. But the lady with whom he got on the best was one who had no daughters out, a handsome and witty woman of the world,—Lady Frederick Coniers.

“It is your first ball at Almack’s then, Mr. Leslie?”

“My first.”

“And you have not secured a partner? Shall I find you one? What do you think of that pretty girl in pink?”

“I see her—but I cannot think of her.”

“You are rather, perhaps, like a diplomatist in a new court, and your first object is to know who is who.”

“I confess that on beginning to study the history of my own day I should like to distinguish the portraits that illustrate the memoir.”

“Give me your arm, then, and we will come into the next room. We shall see the different notabilites enter one by one, and observe without being observed. This is the least I can do for a friend of Mr. Egerton’s.”

“Mr. Egerton, then,” said Randal,—as they threaded their way through the space without the rope that protected the dancers,—“Mr. Egerton has had the good fortune to win your esteem even for his friends, however obscure?”

“Why, to say truth, I think no one whom Mr. Egerton calls his friend need long remain obscure, if he has the ambition to be otherwise; for Mr. Egerton holds it a maxim never to forget a friend nor a service.”

“Ah, indeed!” said Randal, surprised.

“And therefore,” continued Lady Frederick, “as he passes through life, friends gather round him. He will rise even higher yet. Gratitude, Mr. Leslie, is a very good policy.”

“Hem,” muttered Mr. Leslie.

They had now gained the room where tea and bread and butter were the homely refreshments to the habitues of what at that day was the most exclusive assembly in London. They ensconced themselves in a corner by a window, and Lady Frederick performed her task of cicerone with lively ease, accompanying each notice of the various persons who passed panoramically before them with sketch and anecdote, sometimes good-natured, generally satirical, always graphic and amusing.

By and by Frank Hazeldean, having on his arm a young lady of haughty air and with high though delicate features, came to the tea-table.

“The last new Guardsman,” said Lady Frederick; “very handsome, and not yet quite spoiled. But he has got into a dangerous set.”

RANDAL.—“The young lady with him is handsome enough to be dangerous.”

LADY FREDERICK (laughing).—“No danger for him there,—as yet at least. Lady Mary (the Duke of Knaresborough’s daughter) is only in her second year. The first year, nothing under an earl; the second, nothing under a baron. It will be full four years before she comes down to a commoner. Mr. Hazeldean’s danger is of another kind. He lives much with men who are not exactly mauvais ton, but certainly not of the best taste. Yet he is very young; he may extricate himself,—leaving half his fortune behind him. What, he nods to you! You know him?”

“Very well; he is nephew to Mr. Egerton.”

“Indeed! I did not know that. Hazeldean is a new name in London. I heard his father was a plain country gentleman, of good fortune, but not that he was related to Mr. Egerton.”

“Half-brother.”

“Will Mr. Egerton pay the young gentleman’s debts? He has no sons himself.”

RANDAL.—“Mr. Egerton’s fortune comes from his wife, from my family,—from a Leslie, not from a Hazeldean.” Lady Frederick turned sharply, looked at Randal’s countenance with more attention than she had yet vouchsafed to it, and tried to talk of the Leslies. Randal was very short there.

An hour afterwards, Randal, who had not danced, was still in the refreshment-room, but Lady Frederick had long quitted him. He was talking with some old Etonians who had recognized him, when there entered a lady of very remarkable appearance, and a murmur passed through the room as she appeared.

She might be three or four and twenty. She was dressed in black velvet, which contrasted with the alabaster whiteness of her throat and the clear paleness of her complexion, while it set off the diamonds with which she was profusely covered. Her hair was of the deepest jet, and worn simply braided. Her eyes, too, were dark and brilliant, her features regular and striking; but their expression, when in repose, was not prepossessing to such as love modesty and softness in the looks of woman. But when she spoke and smiled, there was so much spirit and vivacity in the countenance, so much fascination in the smile, that all which might before have marred the effect of her beauty strangely and suddenly disappeared.

“Who is that very handsome woman?” asked Randal. “An Italian,—a Marchesa something,” said one of the Etonians.

“Di Negra,” suggested another, who had been abroad: “she is a widow; her husband was of the great Genoese family of Negra,—a younger branch of it.”

Several men now gathered thickly around the fair Italian. A few ladies of the highest rank spoke to her, but with a more distant courtesy than ladies of high rank usually show to foreigners of such quality as Madame di Negra. Ladies of rank less elevated seemed rather shy of her,—that might be from jealousy. As Randal gazed at the marchesa with more admiration than any woman, perhaps, had before excited in him, he heard a voice near him say,

“Oh, Madame di Negra is resolved to settle amongst us, and marry an Englishman.”

“If she can find one sufficiently courageous,” returned a female voice.

“Well, she’s trying hard for Egerton, and he has courage enough for anything.”

The female voice replied, with a laugh, “Mr Egerton knows the world too well, and has resisted too many temptations to be—”

“Hush! there he is.”

Egerton came into the room with his usual firm step and erect mien. Randal observed that a quick glance was exchanged between him and the marchesa; but the minister passed her by with a bow.

Still Randal watched, and, ten minutes afterwards, Egerton and the marchesa were seated apart in the very same convenient nook that Randal and Lady Frederick had occupied an hour or so before.

“Is this the reason why Mr. Egerton so insultingly warns me against counting on his fortune?” muttered Randal. “Does he mean to marry again?”

Unjust suspicion!—for, at that moment, these were the words that Audley Egerton was dropping forth from his lips of bronze,

“Nay, dear madam, do not ascribe to my frank admiration more gallantry than it merits. Your conversation charms me, your beauty delights me; your society is as a holiday that I look forward to in the fatigues of my life. But I have done with love, and I shall never marry again.”

“You almost pique me into trying to win, in order to reject you,” said the Italian, with a flash from her bright eyes.

“I defy even you,” answered Audley, with his cold hard smile. “But to return to the point. You have more influence, at least, over this subtle ambassador; and the secret we speak of I rely on you to obtain me. Ah, Madam, let us rest friends. You see I have conquered the unjust prejudices against you; you are received and feted everywhere, as becomes your birth and your attractions. Rely on me ever, as I on you. But I shall excite too much envy if I stay here longer, and am vain enough to think that I may injure you if I provoke the gossip of the ill-natured. As the avowed friend, I can serve you; as the supposed lover, No—” Audley rose as he said this, and, standing by the chair, added carelessly, “—propos, the sum you do me the honour to borrow will be paid to your bankers to-morrow.”

“A thousand thanks! my brother will hasten to repay you.”

Audley bowed. “Your brother, I hope, will repay me in person, not before. When does he come?”

“Oh, he has again postponed his visit to London; he is so much needed in Vienna. But while we are talking of him, allow me to ask if your friend, Lord L’Estrange, is indeed still so bitter against that poor brother of mine?”

“Still the same.”

“It is shameful!” cried the Italian, with warmth; “what has my brother ever done to him that he should actually intrigue against the count in his own court?”

“Intrigue! I think you wrong Lord L’Estrange; he but represented what he believed to be the truth, in defence of a ruined exile.”

“And you will not tell me where that exile is, or if his daughter still lives?”

“My dear marchesa, I have called you friend, therefore I will not aid L’Estrange to injure you or yours. But I call L’Estrange a friend also; and I cannot violate the trust that—” Audley stopped short, and bit his lip. “You understand me,” he resumed, with a more genial smile than usual; and he took his leave.

The Italian’s brows met as her eye followed him; then, as she too rose, that eye encountered Randal’s.

“That young man has the eye of an Italian,” said the marchesa to herself, as she passed by him into the ballroom.