THE CRISIS--PUBLIC AND PRIVATE.
Lady Montfort's carriage stopped at Colonel Morley's door just as Carr
Vipont was coming out. Carr, catching sight of her, bustled up to the
carriage window.
"My dear Lady Montfort!--not seen you for an age! What times we live in!
How suddenly THE CRISIS has come upon us! Sad loss in poor dear
Montfort; no wonder you mourn for him! Had his failings, true--who is
not mortal?--but always voted right; always to be relied on in times of
CRISIS! But this crotchety fellow, who has so unluckily, for all but
himself, walked into that property, is the loosest fish! And what is a
House divided against itself? Never was the Constitution in such peril!
--I say it deliberately!--and here is the Head of the Viponts humming and
haaing, and asking whether Guy Darrell will join the Cabinet. And if Guy
Darrell will not, we have no more chance of the Montfort interest than if
we were Peep-o'-day Boys. But excuse me; I must be off; every moment is
precious in times of CRISIS. Think, if we can't form a Cabinet by to-
morrow night--only think what may happen; the other fellows will come in,
and then--THE DELUGE!"
Carr is gone to find mops and Dame Partingtons to stave off the deluge.
Colonel Morley has obeyed Lady Montfort's summons, and has entered the
carriage. Before she can speak, however, he has rushed into the subject
of which he himself is full. "Only think--I knew it would be so when the
moment came; all depends upon Guy Darrell; Montfort, who seems always in
a fright lest a newspaper should fall on his head and crush him, says
that if Darrell, whom he chooses to favour just because the newspapers
do, declines to join, the newspapers will say the CRISIS is a job!
Fancy!--a job--the CRISIS! Lord Mowbray de l'Arco and Sir Josiah Snodge,
who are both necessary to a united government, but who unluckily detest
each other, refuse to sit in the same Cabinet, unless Darrell sit
between--to save them, I suppose, from the fate of the cats of Kilkenny.
Sir John Cautly, our crack county member, declares that if Darrell does
not come in, 'tis because the CRISIS is going too far! Harry Bold, our
most popular speaker, says, if Darrell stay out, 'tis a sign that the
CRISIS is a retrograde movement! In short, without Darrell the CRISIS
will be a failure, and the House of Vipont smashed--Lady Montfort--
smashed! I sent a telegram (oh, that I should live to see such a word
introduced into the English language!--but, as Carr says, what times
these are!) to Fawley this morning, entreating Guy to come up to town at
once. He answers by a line from Horace, which means, 'that he will see
me shot first.' I must go down to him; only waiting to know the result
of certain negotiations as to measures. I have but one hope. There is
a measure which Darrell always privately advocated--which he thoroughly
understands--which, placed in his hands, would be triumphantly carried;
one of those measures, Lady Montfort, which, if defective, shipwreck a
government; if framed as Guy Darrell could frame it, immortalise the
minister who concocts and carries them. This is all that Darrell needs
to complete his fame and career. This is at length an occasion to secure
a durable name in the history of his country; let him reject it, and I
shall tell him frankly that his life has been but a brilliant failure.
Since he has not a seat in Parliament, and usage requires the actual
possession of that qualification for a seat in the Cabinet, we must lose
his voice in the Commons. But we can arrange that; for if Darrell will
but join the government, and go--to the Lords, Sir Josiah Snodge, who has
a great deal of voice and a great deal of jealousy, will join too--head
the Vipont interest in the Commons--and speak to the country--speak every
night--and all night, too, if required. Yes; Darrell must take the
peerage--devote himself for a year or two to this great measure--to the
consolidation of his fame--to the redemption of the House of Vipont--and
to the Salvation of the Empire; and then, if he please, 'solve
senescentem'--that is, he may retire from harness, and browse upon
laurels for the rest of his days!"
Colonel Morley delivered himself of this long address without
interruption from a listener interested in every word that related to Guy
Darrell, and in every hope that could reunite him to the healthful
activities of life.
It was now Lady Montfort's turn to speak; though, after subjects so
momentous as the Crisis and its speculative consequences, private
affairs, relating to a poor little girl like Sophy--nay, the mere private
affairs of Darrell himself, seemed a pitiful bathos. Lady Montfort,
however, after a few words of womanly comment upon the only part of the
Colonel's discourse which touched her heart, hastened on to describe her
interview with Arabella, and the melaneboly condition of Darrell's once
formidable son-in-law. For that last, the Colonel evinced no more
compassionate feeling than any true Englishman, at the time I am writing,
would demonstrate for a murderous Sepoy tied to the mouth of a cannon.
"A very good riddance," said the Colonel, dryly. "Great relief to
Darrell, and to every one else whom that monster tormented and preyed on;
and with his life will vanish the only remaining obstacle in righting
poor Willy's good name. I hope to live to collect, from all parts of the
country, Willy's old friends and give them a supper, at which I suppose I
must not get drunk; though I should rather like it, than not! But I
interrupt you! go on."
Lady Montfort proceeded to state the substance of the papers she had
perused in reference to the mystery which had been the cause of so much
disquietude and bitterness.
The Colonel stretched out his hand eagerly for the documents--thus
quoted. He hurried his eye rapidly over the contents of the first paper
he lit on, and then said, pulling out his watch: "Well, I have half an
hour yet to spare in discussing these matters with you--may I order your
coachman to drive round the Regent's Park?--better than keeping it thus
at my door, with four old maids for opposite neighbours." The order was
given, and the Colonel again returned to the papers. Suddenly he looked
up--looked full into Lady Montfort's face, with a thoughtful, searching
gaze, which made her drop her own eyes! and she saw that he had been
reading Jasper's confession, relating to his device for breaking off her
engagement to Darrell, which in her hurry and excitement she had
neglected to abstract from the other documents. "Oh, not that paper--you
are not to read that," she cried, quickly covering the writing with her
hand.
"Too late, my dear cousin. I have read it. All is now clear. Lionel
was right; and I was right too, in my convictions, though Darrell put so
coolly aside my questions when I was last at Fawley. I am justified now
in all the pains I took to secure Lionel's marriage--in the cunning
cruelty of my letter to George! Know, Lady Montfort, that if Lionel had
sacrificed his happiness to respect for Guy's ancestor-worship, Guy
Darrell would have held himself bound in honour never to marry again.
He told me so--told me he should be a cheat if he took any step to rob
one from whom he had exacted such an offering-of the name, and the
heritage, for which the offering had been made. And I then resolved that
County Guy should not thus irrevocably shut the door on his own
happiness! Lady Montfort, you know that this man loves you--as, verily,
I believe, never other man in our cold century loved woman;--through
desertion--through change--amidst grief--amidst resentment--despite
pride;--dead to all other love--shrinking from all other ties--on,
constant on-carrying in the depth of his soul to the verge of age, secret
and locked up, the hopeless passion of his manhood. Do you not see that
it is through you, and you alone, that Guy Darrell has for seventeen
years been lost to the country he was intended to serve and to adorn? Do
you not feel that if he now reject this last opportunity to redeem years
so wasted, and achieve a fame that may indeed link his Ancestral Name to
the honours of Posterity, you, and you alone, are the cause?"
"Alas--alas--but what can I do?"
"Do!--ay, true. The poor fellow is old now; you cannot care for him!--
you still young, and so unluckily beautiful!--you, for whom young princes
might vie. True; you can have no feeling for Guy Darrell, except pity!"
"Pity! I hate the word!" cried Lady Montfort, with as much petulance as
if she had still been the wayward lively Caroline of old.
Again the Man of the World directed toward her face his shrewd eyes, and
dropped out, "See him!"
"But I have seen him. You remember I went to plead for Lionel and Sophy
--in vain!"
"Not in vain. George writes me word that he has informed you of
Darrell's consent to their marriage. And I am much mistaken if his
greatest consolation in the pang that consent must have cost him be not
the thought that it relieves you from the sorrow and remorse his refusal
had occasioned to you. Ah! there is but one person who can restore
Darrell to the world-and that is yourself!"
Lady Montfort shook her head drearily.
"If I had but an excuse--with dignity--with self-respect--to--to--!'
"An excuse! You have an absolute necessity to communicate with Darrell.
You have to give him these documents--to explain how you came by them.
Sophy is with him; you are bound to see her on a subject of such vital
importance to herself. Scruples of prudery! You, Caroline Lyndsay, the
friend of his daughter--you whose childhood was reared in his very house
--you whose mother owed to him such obligations--you to scruple in being
the first to acquaint him with information affecting him so nearly!
And why, forsooth? Because, ages ago, your hand was, it seems, engaged
to him, and you were deceived by false appearances, like a silly young
girl as you were."
Again Lady Montfort shook her head drearily--drearily. "Well," said the
Colonel, changing his tone, "I will grant that those former ties can't be
renewed now. The man now is as old as the hills, and you had no right to
expect that he would have suffered so much at being very naturally jilted
for a handsome young Marquess."
"Cease, sir, cease," cried Caroline, angrily. The Colonel coolly
persisted.
"I see now that such nuptials are out of the question. But has the world
come to such a pass that one can never at any age have a friend in a lady
unless she marry him? Scruple to accompany me--me your cousin--me your
nearest surviving relation--in order to take back the young lady you have
virtually adopted!--scruple to trust yourself for half an hour to that
tumbledown old Fawley! Are you afraid that the gossips will say you, the
Marchioness of Montfort, are running after a gloomy old widower, and
scheming to be mistress of a mansion more like a ghosttrap than a
residence for civilised beings? Or are you afraid that Guy Darrell will
be fool and fop enough to think you are come to force on him your hand?
Pooh, pooh! Such scruples would be in place if you were a portionless
forward girl, or if he were a conceited young puppy, or even a suspicious
old roue. But Guy Darrell--a man of his station, his character, his
years! And you, cousin Caroline, what are you? Surely, lifted above all
such pitiful crotchets by a rank amongst the loftiest gentlewomen of
England; ample fortune, a beauty that in itself is rank and wealth; and,
above all, a character that has passed with such venerated purity through
an ordeal in which every eye seeks a spot, every ear invites a scandal.
But as you will. All I say is, that Darrell's future may be in your
hands; that after to-morrow, the occasion to give at least noble
occupation and lasting renown to a mind that is devouring itself and
stifling its genius, may be irrevocably lost; and that I do believe, if
you said to-morrow to Guy Daxrell, 'You refused to hear me when I pleaded
for what you thought a disgrace to your name, and yet even that you at
last conceded to the voice of affection as if of duty--now hear me when I
plead by the side of your oldest friend on behalf of your honour, and in
the name of your forefathers,'--if You say THAT, he is won to his
country. You will have repaired a wrong; and, pray, will you have
compromised your dignity?"
Caroline had recoiled into the corner of the carriage, her mantle close
down round her breast, her veil lowered; but no sheltering garb or veil
could conceal her agitation.
The Colonel pulled the check-string. "Nothing so natural; you are the
widow of the Head of the House of Vipont. You are, or ought to be,
deeply interested in its fate. An awful CRISIS, long expected, has
occurred. The House trembles. A connection of that House can render it
an invaluable service; that connection is the man at whose hearth your
childhood was reared; and you go with me--me, who am known to be moving
heaven and earth for every vote that the House can secure, to canvass
this wavering connection for his support and assistance. Nothing, I say,
so natural; and yet you scruple to serve the House of Vipont--to save
your country! You may well be agitated. I leave you to your own
reflections. My time runs short; I will get out here. Trust me with
these documents. I will see to the rest of this long painful subject.
I will send a special report to you this evening, and you will reply by
a single line to the prayer I have ventured to address to you."