Godolphin Part 9

"And for him, too!" cried the more chivalrous Oxonian.

"Humph!" said the officer.

"I heard," renewed the Oxonian, "that she was to be married to young G.o.dolphin. He was staying here a short time ago. They rode and walked together. What a lucky fellow he has been. I don't know any one I should so much like to see."

"Hus.h.!.+" said a third person, looking at G.o.dolphin.

Percy moved on. Accomplished and self-collected as he usually was, he could not wholly conceal the h.e.l.l within. His brow grew knit and gloomy: he scarcely returned the salutations he received; and moving out of the crowd, he stole to a seat behind a large pillar, and, scarcely seen by any one, fixed his eyes on the form and movements of Miss Vernon.

It so happened that he had placed himself in the vicinity of the d.u.c.h.ess of Winstoun, and within hearing of the conversation that I am about to record.

The dance being over, Lord Erpingham led Constance to a seat close by Lady Margaret Midgecombe. The d.u.c.h.ess had formed her plan of attack; and, rising as she saw Constance within reach, approached her with an air that affected civility.

"How do you do, Miss Vernon? I am happy to see you looking so well. What truth in the report, eh?" And the d.u.c.h.ess showed her teeth--videlicet, smiled.

"What report does your grace allude to?"

"Nay, nay; I am sure Lord Erpingham has heard it as well as myself; and I wish for your sake (a slight emphasis), indeed, for both your sakes, that it may be true."

"To wait till the d.u.c.h.ess of Winstoun speaks intelligibly would be a waste of her time and my own," said the haughty Constance, with the rudeness in which she then delighted, and for which she has since become known. Rut the d.u.c.h.ess was not to be offended until she had completed her manoeuvre.

"Well, now," said she, turning to Lord Erpingham, "I appeal to you; is not Miss Vernon to be married very soon to Mr. G.o.dolphin? I am sure (with an affected good-nature and compa.s.sion that stung Constance to the quick), I am sure I _hope_ so."

"Upon my word you amaze me," said Lord Erpingham, opening to their fullest extent the large, round, hazel eyes for which he was so justly celebrated. "I never heard this before."

"Oh! a secret as yet?" said the d.u.c.h.ess; "very well! I can keep a secret."

Lady Margaret looked down, and laughed prettily.

"I thought till now," said Constance, with grave composure, "that no person could be more contemptible than one who collects idle reports: I now find I was wrong: a person infinitely more contemptible is one who invents them."

The rude d.u.c.h.ess beat at her own weapons, blushed with anger even through her rouge: but Constance turned away, and, still leaning on Lord Erpingham's arm, sought another seat;--that seat, on the opposite side of the pillar behind which G.o.dolphin sat, was still within his hearing.

"Upon my word, Miss Vernon," said Erpingham, "I admire your spirit.

Nothing like setting down those absurd people who try to tease one, and think one dares not retort. But pray--I hope I'm not impertinent--pray, may I ask if this rumour have any truth in it?"

"Certainly not," said Constance, with great effort, but in a clear tone.

"No: I should have thought not--I should have thought not. G.o.dolphin's much too poor--much too poor for you. Miss Vernon is not born to marry for love in a cottage,--is she?"

Constance sighed.

That soft, low tone thrilled to G.o.dolphin's very heart. He bent forward: he held his breath: he thirsted for her voice; for some tone, some word in answer; it came not at that moment.

"You remember," renewed the earl,--"you remember Miss L----? no: she was before your time. Well! she married S----, much such another fellow as G.o.dolphin. He had not a s.h.i.+lling: but he lived well: had a house in Mayfair; gave dinners; hunted at Melton, and so forth: in short, he played high. She had about ten thousand pounds. They married, and lived for two years so comfortably, you have no idea. Every one envied them.

They did not keep a close carriage, but he used to drive her out to dinners in his French cabriolet.(1) There was no show--no pomp: everything deuced neat, though; quite love in a cottage--only the cottage was in Curzon Street. At length, however, the cards turned; S---- lost everything; owed more than he could ever pay: we were forced to cut him; and his relation, Lord ----, coming into the ministry a year afterwards, got him a place in the Customs. They live at Brompton: he wears a pepper-and-salt coat, and she a mob-cap, with pink ribands: they have five hundred a year, and ten children. Such was the fate of S----'s wife; such may be the fate of G.o.dolphin's. Oh, Miss Vernon could not marry _him!_"

"You are right, Lord Erpingham," said Constance with emphasis; "but you take too much licence in expressing your opinion."

Before Lord Erpingham could stammer forth his apology they heard a slight noise behind: they turned; G.o.dolphin had risen. His countenance, always inclined to a calm severity--for thought is usually severe in its outward aspect--bent now on both the speakers with so dark and menacing an aspect that the stout earl felt his heart stand still for a moment; and Constance was appalled as if it had been the apparition, and not the living form, of her lover that she beheld. But scarcely had they seen this expression of countenance ere it changed. With a cold and polished smile, a relaxed brow and profound inclination of his form G.o.dolphin greeted the two: and pa.s.sing from his seat with a slow step glided among the crowd and vanished.

What a strange thing, after all, is a great a.s.sembly! An immense mob of persons, who feel for each other the profoundest indifference--met together to join in amus.e.m.e.nts which the large majority of them consider wearisome beyond conception. How unintellectual, how uncivilised, such a scene, and such actors! What a remnant of barbarous times, when people danced because they had nothing to say! Were there nothing ridiculous in dancing, there would be nothing ridiculous in seeing wise men dance. But that sight would be ludicrous because of the disparity between the mind and the occupation. However, we have some excuse; we go to these a.s.semblies to sell our daughters, or flirt with our neighbours' wives.

A ballroom is nothing more or less than a great market-place of beauty.

For my part, were I a buyer, I should like making my purchases in a less public mart.

"Come, G.o.dolphin, a gla.s.s of champagne," cried the young Lord Belvoir, as they sat near each other at the splendid supper.

"With all my heart; but not from that bottle! We must have a new one; for this gla.s.s is pledged to Lady Delmour, and I would not drink to her health but from the first sparkle! Nothing tame, nothing insipid, nothing that has lost its first freshness, can be dedicated to one so beautiful and young."

The fresh bottle was opened, and G.o.dolphin bowed over his gla.s.s to Lord Belvoir's sister-a Beauty and a Blue. Lady Delmour admired G.o.dolphin, and she was flattered by a compliment that no one wholly educated in England would have had the gallant courage to utter across a crowded table.

"You have been dancing?" said she.

"No!"

"What then?"

"What then?" said G.o.dolphin. "Ah, Lady Delmour, do not ask." The look that accompanied the word, supplied them with a meaning. "Need I add,"

said he, in a lower voice, "that I have been thinking of the most beautiful person present?"

"Pooh," said Lady Delmour, turning away her head. Now, that _pooh_ is a very significant word. On the lips of a man of business, it denotes contempt for romance; on the lips of a politician it rebukes a theory.

With that monosyllable, a philosopher ma.s.sacres a fallacy: by those four letters a rich man gets rid of a beggar. But in the rosy mouth of a woman the harshness vanishes, the disdain becomes encouragement. "Pooh!"

says the lady when you tell her she is handsome; but she smiles when she says it. With the same reply she receives your protestation of love, and blushes as she receives. With men it is the sternest, with women the softest, exclamation in the language.

"Pooh!" said Lady Delmour, turning away her head:--and G.o.dolphin was in singular spirits. What a strange thing that we should call such hilarity from our gloom! The stroke induces the flash; excite the nerves by jealousy, by despair, and with the proud you only trace the excitement by the mad mirth and hysterical laughter it creates. G.o.dolphin was charming comme un amour, and the young countess was delighted with his gallantry.

"Did you ever love?" asked she, tenderly, as they sat alone after supper.

"Alas, yes!" said he.

"How often?"

"Read Marmontel's story of the Four Phials: I have no other answer."

"Oh, what a beautiful tale that is! The whole history of a man's heart is contained in it."

While G.o.dolphin was thus talking with Lady Delmour, his whole soul was with Constance; of her only he thought, and on her he thirsted for revenge. There is a curious phenomenon in love, showing how much vanity has to do with even the best species of it; when, for your mistress to prefer another, changes all your affection into hatred:--is it the loss of the mistress, or her preference to the other? The last, to be sure: for if the former, you would only grieve--but jealousy does not make you grieve, it makes you enraged; it does not sadden, it stings. After all, as we grow old, and look back on the "master pa.s.sion," how we smile at the fools it made of us--at the importance we attach to it--of the millions that have been governed by it! When we examine the pa.s.sion of love, it is like examining the character of some great roan; we are astonished to perceive the littlenesses that belong to it. We ask in wonder, "How come such effects from such a cause?"

G.o.dolphin continued talking sentiment with Lady Delmour, until her lord, who was very fond of his carriage horses, came up and took her away; and then, perhaps glad to be relieved, Percy sauntered into the ballroom, where, though the crowd was somewhat thinned, the dance was continued with that spirit which always seems to increase as the night advances.

For my own part, I now and then look late in at a ball as a warning and grave memento of the flight of time. No amus.e.m.e.nt belongs of right so essentially to the young, in their first youth,--to the unthinking, the intoxicated,--to those whose blood is an elixir.

"If Constance be woman," said G.o.dolphin to himself, as he returned to the ballroom, "I will yet humble her to my will. I have not learned the science so long, to be now foiled in the first moment I have seriously wished to triumph."

As this thought inspired and excited him, he moved along at some distance from, but carefully within the sight of Constance. He paused by Lady Margaret Midgecombe. He addressed her. Notwithstanding the insolence and the ignorance of the d.u.c.h.ess of Winstoun, he was well received by both mother and daughter. Some persons there are, in all times and in all spheres, who command a certain respect, bought neither by riches, rank, nor even scrupulous morality of conduct. They win it by the reputation that talent alone can win them, and which yet is not always the reputation of talent. No man, even in the frivolous societies of the great, obtains homage without certain qualities, which, had they been happily directed, would have conducted him to fame. Had the attention of a Grammont, or of a ----, been early turned towards what ought to be the objects desired, who can doubt that, instead of the heroes of a circle, they might have been worthy of becoming names of posterity?

Thus the genius of G.o.dolphin had drawn around him an eclat which made even the haughtiest willing to receive and to repay his notice; and Lady Margaret actually blushed with pleasure when he asked her to dance.

A foreign dance, then only very partially known in England, had been called for: few were acquainted with it,--those only who had been abroad; and as the movements seemed to require peculiar grace of person, some even among those few declined, through modesty, the exhibition.