in the morning of the young duke’s departure for twickenham, as miss dacre and lady caroline st. maurice were sitting together at the house of the former, and moralising over the last night’s ball, mr. arundel dacre was announced.
‘you have just arrived in time to offer your congratulations, arundel, on an agreeable event,’ said miss dacre. ‘lord st. maurice is about to lead to the hymeneal altar ——’
‘lady sophy wrekin; i know it.’
‘how extremely diplomatic! the attaché in your very air. i thought, of course, i was to surprise you; but future ambassadors have such extraordinary sources of information.’
‘mine is a simple one. the duchess, imagining, i suppose, that my attentions were directed to the wrong lady, warned me some weeks past. however, my congratulations shall be duly paid. lady caroline st. maurice, allow me to express ——’
‘all that you ought to feel,’ said miss dacre. ‘but men at the present day pride themselves on insensibility.’
‘do you think i am insensible, lady caroline?’ asked arundel.
‘i must protest against unfair questions,’ said her ladyship.
‘but it is not unfair. you are a person who have now seen me more than once, and therefore, according to may, you ought to have a perfect knowledge of my character. moreover, you do not share the prejudices of my family. i ask you, then, do you think i am so heartless as may would insinuate?’
‘does she insinuate so much?’
‘does she not call me insensible, because i am not in raptures that your brother is about to marry a young lady, who, for aught she knows, may be the object of my secret adoration?’
‘arundel, you are perverse,’ said miss dacre.
‘no, may; i am logical.’
‘i have always heard that logic is much worse than wilfulness,’ said lady caroline.
‘but arundel always was both,’ said miss dacre. ‘he is not only unreasonable, but he will always prove that he is right. here is your purse, sir!’ she added with a smile, presenting him with the result of her week’s labour.
‘this is the way she always bribes me, lady caroline. do you approve of this corruption?’
‘i must confess, i have a slight though secret kindness for a little bribery. mamma is now on her way to mortimer’s, on a corrupt embassy. the nouvelle mariée, you know, must be reconciled to her change of lot by quite a new set of playthings. i can give you no idea of the necklace that our magnificent cousin, in spite of his wound, has sent sophy.’
‘but then, such a cousin!’ said miss dacre. ‘a young duke, like the young lady in the fairy tale, should scarcely ever speak without producing brilliants.’
‘sophy is highly sensible of the attention. as she amusingly observed, except himself marrying her, he could scarcely do more. i hear the carriage. adieu, love! good morning, mr. dacre.’
‘allow me to see you to your carriage. i am to dine at fitz-pompey house today, i believe.’
arundel dacre returned to his cousin, and, seating himself at the table, took up a book, and began reading it the wrong side upwards; then he threw down a ball of silk, then he cracked a knitting-needle, and then with a husky sort of voice and a half blush, and altogether an air of infinite confusion, he said, ‘this has been an odd affair, may, of the duke of st. james and sir lucius grafton?’
‘a very distressing affair, arundel.’
‘how singular that i should have been his second, may?’
‘could he have found anyone more fit for that office, arundel?’
‘i think he might. i must say this: that, had i known at the time the cause of the fray, i should have refused to accompany him.’
she was silent, and he resumed:
‘an opera singer, at the best! sir lucius grafton showed more discrimination. peacock piggott was just the character for his place, and i think my principal, too, might have found a more congenial spirit. what do you think, may?’
‘really, arundel, this is a subject of which i know nothing.’
‘indeed! well, it is odd, may; but do you know i have a queer suspicion that you know more about it than anybody else.’
‘i! arundel?’ she exclaimed, with marked confusion.
‘yes, you, may,’ he repeated with firmness, and looked her in the face with a glance which would read her soul. ‘ay! i am sure you do.’
‘who says so?’
‘oh! do not fear that you have been betrayed. no one says it; but i know it. we future ambassadors, you know, have such extraordinary sources of information.’
‘you jest, arundel, on a grave subject.’
‘grave! yes, it is grave, may dacre. it is grave that there should be secrets between us; it is grave that our house should have been insulted; it is grave that you, of all others, should have been outraged; but oh! it is much more grave, it is bitter, that any other arm than this should have avenged the wrong.’ he rose from his chair, he paced the room in agitation, and gnashed his teeth with a vindictive expression that he tried not to suppress.
‘o! my cousin, my dear, dear cousin! spare me!’ she hid her face in her hands, yet she continued speaking in a broken voice: ‘i did it for the best. it was to suppress strife, to prevent bloodshed. i knew your temper, and i feared for your life; yet i told my father; i told him all: and it was by his advice that i have maintained throughout the silence which i, perhaps too hastily, at first adopted.’
‘my own dear may! spare me! i cannot mark a tear from you without a pang. how i came to know this you wonder. it was the delirium of that person who should not have played so proud a part in this affair, and who is yet our friend; it was his delirium that betrayed all. in the madness of his excited brain he reacted the frightful scene, declared the outrage, and again avenged it. yet, believe me, i am not tempted by any petty feeling of showing i am not ignorant of what is considered a secret to declare all this. i know, i feel your silence was for the best; that it was prompted by sweet and holy feelings for my sake. believe me, my dear cousin, if anything could increase the infinite affection with which i love you, it would be the consciousness that at all times, whenever my image crosses your mind, it is to muse for my benefit, or to extenuate my errors.
‘dear may, you, who know me better than the world, know well my heart is not a mass of ice; and you, who are ever so ready to find a good reason even for my most wilful conduct, and an excuse for my most irrational, will easily credit that, in interfering in an affair in which you are concerned, i am not influenced by an unworthy, an officious, or a meddling spirit. no, dear may! it is because i think it better for you that we should speak upon this subject that i have ventured to treat upon it. perhaps i broke it in a crude, but, credit me, not in an unkind, spirit. i am well conscious i have a somewhat ungracious manner; but you, who have pardoned it so often, will excuse it now. to be brief, it is of your companion to that accursed fête that i would speak.’
‘mrs. dallington?’
‘surely she. avoid her, may. i do not like that woman. you know i seldom speak at hazard; if i do not speak more distinctly now, it is because i will never magnify suspicions into certainties, which we must do even if we mention them. but i suspect, greatly suspect. an open rupture would be disagreeable, would be unwarrantable, would be impolitic. the season draws to a close. quit town somewhat earlier than usual, and, in the meantime, receive her, if necessary; but, if possible, never alone. you have many friends; and, if no other, lady caroline st. maurice is worthy of your society.’
he bent down his head and kissed her forehead: she pressed his faithful hand.
‘and now, dear may, let me speak of a less important object, of myself. i find this borough a mere delusion. every day new difficulties arise; and every day my chance seems weaker. i am wasting precious time for one who should be in action. i think, then, of returning to vienna, and at once. i have some chance of being appointed secretary of embassy, and i then shall have achieved what was the great object of my life, independence.’
‘this is always a sorrowful subject to me, arundel. you have cherished such strange, do not be offended if i say such erroneous, ideas on the subject of what you call independence, that i feel that upon it we can consult neither with profit to you nor satisfaction to myself. independence! who is independent, if the heir of dacre bow to anyone? independence! who can be independent, if the future head of one of the first families in this great country, will condescend to be the secretary even of a king?’
‘we have often talked of this, may, and perhaps i have carried a morbid feeling to some excess; but my paternal blood flows in these veins, and it is too late to change. i know not how it is, but i seem misplaced in life. my existence is a long blunder.’
‘too late to change, dearest arundel! oh! thank you for those words. can it, can it ever be too late to acknowledge error? particularly if, by that very acknowledgment, we not only secure our own happiness, but that of those we love and those who love us?’
‘dear may! when i talk with you, i talk with my good genius; but i am in closer and more constant converse with another mind, and of that i am the slave. it is my own. i will not conceal from you, from whom i have concealed nothing, that doubts and dark misgivings of the truth and wisdom of my past feelings and my past career will ever and anon flit across my fancy, and obtrude themselves upon my consciousness. your father — yes! i feel that i have not been to him what nature intended, and what he deserved.’
‘o arundel!’ she said, with streaming eyes, ‘he loves you like a son. yet, yet be one!’
he seated himself on the sofa by her side, and took her small hand and bathed it with his kisses.
‘my sweet and faithful friend, my very sister! i am overpowered with feelings to which i have hitherto been a stranger. there is a cause for all this contest of my passions. it must out. my being has changed. the scales have fallen from my sealed eyes, and the fountain of my heart o’erflows. life seems to have a new purpose, and existence a new cause. listen to me, listen; and if you can, may, comfort me!’
