Lady Monmouth took up again her French novel; but her eyes soon glanced

over the page, unattached by its contents. Her own existence was too

interesting to find any excitement in fiction. It was nearly three years

since her marriage; that great step which she ever had a conviction was

to lead to results still greater. Of late she had often been filled with

a presentiment that they were near at hand; never more so than on

this day. Irresistible was the current of associations that led her to

meditate on freedom, wealth, power; on a career which should at the same

time dazzle the imagination and gratify her heart. Notwithstanding the

gossip of Paris, founded on no authentic knowledge of her husband’s

character or information, based on the haphazard observations of the

floating multitude, Lucretia herself had no reason to fear that her

influence over Lord Monmouth, if exerted, was materially diminished. But

satisfied that he had formed no other tie, with her ever the test of

her position, she had not thought it expedient, and certainly would have

found it irksome, to maintain that influence by any ostentatious means.

She knew that Lord Monmouth was capricious, easily wearied, soon palled;

and that on men who have no affections, affection has no hold. Their

passions or their fancies, on the contrary, as it seemed to her, are

rather stimulated by neglect or indifference, provided that they are not

systematic; and the circumstance of a wife being admired by one who is

not her husband sometimes wonderfully revives the passion or renovates

the respect of him who should be devoted to her.

The health of Lord Monmouth was the subject which never was long absent

from the vigilance or meditation of Lucretia. She was well assured that

his life was no longer secure. She knew that after their marriage he had

made a will, which secured to her a large portion of his great wealth in

case of their having no issue, and after the accident at Paris all

hope in that respect was over. Recently the extreme anxiety which Lord

Monmouth had evinced about terminating the abeyance of the barony to

which his first wife was a co-heiress in favour of his grandson, had

alarmed Lucretia. To establish in the land another branch of the house

of Coningsby was evidently the last excitement of Lord Monmouth, and

perhaps a permanent one. If the idea were once accepted, notwithstanding

the limit to its endowment which Lord Monmouth might at the first start

contemplate, Lucretia had sufficiently studied his temperament to be

convinced that all his energies and all his resources would ultimately

be devoted to its practical fulfilment. Her original prejudice against

Coningsby and jealousy of his influence had therefore of late been

considerably aggravated; and the intelligence that for the first time

there was a misunderstanding between Coningsby and her husband filled

her with excitement and hope. She knew her Lord well enough to feel

assured that the cause for displeasure in the present instance could not

be a light one; she resolved instantly to labour that it should not

be transient; and it so happened that she had applied for aid in this

endeavour to the very individual in whose power it rested to accomplish

all her desire, while in doing so he felt at the same time he was

defending his own position and advancing his own interests.

Lady Monmouth was now waiting with some excitement the return of Mr.

Rigby. His interview with his patron was of unusual length. An hour, and

more than an hour, had elapsed. Lady Monmouth again threw aside the book

which more than once she had discarded. She paced the room, restless

rather than disquieted. She had complete confidence in Rigby’s ability

for the occasion; and with her knowledge of Lord Monmouth’s character,

she could not contemplate the possibility of failure, if the

circumstances were adroitly introduced to his consideration. Still time

stole on: the harassing and exhausting process of suspense was acting

on her nervous system. She began to think that Rigby had not found

the occasion favourable for the catastrophe; that Lord Monmouth, from

apprehension of disturbing Rigby and entailing explanations on himself,

had avoided the necessary communication; that her skilful combination

for the moment had missed. Two hours had now elapsed, and Lucretia, in a

state of considerable irritation, was about to inquire whether Mr. Rigby

were with his Lordship when the door of her boudoir opened, and that

gentleman appeared.

‘How long you have been!’ exclaimed Lady Monmouth. ‘Now sit down and

tell me what has passed.’

Lady Monmouth pointed to the seat which Flora had occupied.

‘I thank your Ladyship,’ said Mr. Rigby, with a somewhat grave and yet

perplexed expression of countenance, and seating himself at some little

distance from his companion, ‘but I am very well here.’

There was a pause. Instead of responding to the invitation of Lady

Monmouth to communicate with his usual readiness and volubility, Mr.

Rigby was silent, and, if it were possible to use such an expression

with regard to such a gentleman, apparently embarrassed.

‘Well,’ said Lady Monmouth, ‘does he know about the Millbanks?’

‘Everything,’ said Mr. Rigby.

‘And what did he say?’

‘His Lordship was greatly shocked,’ replied Mr. Rigby, with a pious

expression of features. ‘Such monstrous ingratitude! As his Lordship

very justly observed, “It is impossible to say what is going on under my

own roof, or to what I can trust.”’

‘But he made an exception in your favour, I dare say, my dear Mr.

Rigby,’ said Lady Monmouth.

‘Lord Monmouth was pleased to say that I possessed his entire

confidence,’ said Mr. Rigby, ‘and that he looked to me in his

difficulties.’

‘Very sensible of him. And what is to become of Mr. Coningsby?’

‘The steps which his Lordship is about to take with reference to the

establishment generally,’ said Mr. Rigby, ‘will allow the connection

that at present subsists between that gentleman and his noble relative,

now that Lord Monmouth’s eyes are open to his real character, to

terminate naturally, without the necessity of any formal explanation.’

‘But what do you mean by the steps he is going to take in his

establishment generally?’

‘Lord Monmouth thinks he requires change of scene.’

‘Oh! is he going to drag me abroad again?’ exclaimed Lady Monmouth, with

great impatience.

‘Why, not exactly,’ said Mr. Rigby, rather demurely.

‘I hope he is not going again to that dreadful castle in Lancashire.’

‘Lord Monmouth was thinking that, as you were tired of Paris, you might

find some of the German Baths agreeable.’

‘Why, there is nothing that Lord Monmouth dislikes so much as a German

bathing-place!’

‘Exactly,’ said Mr. Rigby.

‘Then how capricious in him wanting to go to them?’

‘He does not want to go to them!’

‘What do you mean, Mr. Rigby?’ said Lady Monmouth, in a lower voice, and

looking him full in the face with a glance seldom bestowed.

There was a churlish and unusual look about Rigby. It was as if

malignant, and yet at the same time a little frightened, he had screwed

himself into doggedness.

‘I mean what Lord Monmouth means. He suggests that if your Ladyship were

to pass the summer at Kissengen, for example, and a paragraph in the

_Morning Post_ were to announce that his Lordship was about to join you

there, all awkwardness would be removed; and no one could for a moment

take the liberty of supposing, even if his Lordship did not ultimately

reach you, that anything like a separation had occurred.’

‘A separation!’ said Lady Monmouth.

‘Quite amicable,’ said Mr. Rigby. ‘I would never have consented to

interfere in the affair, but to secure that most desirable point.’

‘I will see Lord Monmouth at once,’ said Lucretia, rising, her natural

pallor aggravated into a ghoul-like tint.

‘His Lordship has gone out,’ said Mr. Rigby, rather stubbornly.

‘Our conversation, sir, then finishes; I wait his return.’ She bowed

haughtily.

‘His Lordship will never return to Monmouth House again.’

Lucretia sprang from the sofa.

‘Miserable craven!’ she exclaimed. ‘Has the cowardly tyrant fled? And

he really thinks that I am to be crushed by such an instrument as this!

Pah! He may leave Monmouth House, but I shall not. Begone, sir!’

‘Still anxious to secure an amicable separation,’ said Mr. Rigby, ‘your

Ladyship must allow me to place the circumstances of the case fairly

before your excellent judgment. Lord Monmouth has decided upon a course:

you know as well as I that he never swerves from his resolutions. He has

left peremptory instructions, and he will listen to no appeal. He has

empowered me to represent to your Ladyship that he wishes in every way

to consider your convenience. He suggests that everything, in short,

should be arranged as if his Lordship were himself unhappily no more;

that your Ladyship should at once enter into your jointure, which

shall be made payable quarterly to your order, provided you can find

it convenient to live upon the Continent,’ added Mr. Rigby, with some

hesitation.

‘And suppose I cannot?’

‘Why, then, we will leave your Ladyship to the assertion of your

rights.’

‘We!’

‘I beg your Ladyship’s pardon. I speak as the friend of the family, the

trustee of your marriage settlement, well known also as Lord Monmouth’s

executor,’ said Mr. Rigby, his countenance gradually regaining its

usual callous confidence, and some degree of self-complacency, as he

remembered the good things which he enumerated.

‘I have decided,’ said Lady Monmouth. ‘I will assert my rights. Your

master has mistaken my character and his own position. He shall rue the

day that he assailed me.’

‘I should be sorry if there were any violence,’ said Mr. Rigby,

‘especially as everything is left to my management and control. An

office, indeed, which I only accepted for your mutual advantage.

I think, upon reflection, I might put before your Ladyship some

considerations which might induce you, on the whole, to be of opinion

that it will be better for us to draw together in this business, as we

have hitherto, indeed, throughout an acquaintance now of some years.’

Rigby was assuming all his usual tone of brazen familiarity.

‘Your self-confidence exceeds even Lord Monmouth’s estimate of it,’ said

Lucretia.

‘Now, now, you are unkind. Your Ladyship mistakes my position. I am

interfering in this business for your sake. I might have refused the

office. It would have fallen to another, who would have fulfilled

it without any delicacy and consideration for your feelings. View my

interposition in that light, my dear Lady Monmouth, and circumstances

will assume altogether a new colour.’

‘I beg that you will quit the house, sir.’

Mr. Rigby shook his head. ‘I would with pleasure, to oblige you, were

it in my power; but Lord Monmouth has particularly desired that I should

take up my residence here permanently. The servants are now my servants.

It is useless to ring the bell. For your Ladyship’s sake, I wish

everything to be accomplished with tranquillity, and, if possible,

friendliness and good feeling. You can have even a week for the

preparations for your departure, if necessary. I will take that upon

myself. Any carriages, too, that you desire; your jewels, at least all

those that are not at the bankers’. The arrangement about your jointure,

your letters of credit, even your passport, I will attend to myself;

only too happy if, by this painful interference, I have in any way

contributed to soften the annoyance which, at the first blush, you may

naturally experience, but which, like everything else, take my word,

will wear off.’

‘I shall send for Lord Eskdale,’ said Lady Monmouth. ‘He is a

gentleman.’

‘I am quite sure,’ said Mr. Rigby, ‘that Lord Eskdale will give you the

same advice as myself, if he only reads your Ladyship’s letters,’ he

added slowly, ‘to Prince Trautsmansdorff.’

‘My letters?’ said Lady Monmouth.

‘Pardon me,’ said Rigby, putting his hand in his pocket, as if to guard

some treasure, ‘I have no wish to revive painful associations; but I

have them, and I must act upon them, if you persist in treating me as

a foe, who am in reality your best friend; which indeed I ought to be,

having the honour of acting as trustee under your marriage settlement,

and having known you so many years.’

‘Leave me for the present alone,’ said Lady Monmouth. ‘Send me my

servant, if I have one. I shall not remain here the week which you

mention, but quit at once this house, which I wish I had never entered.

Adieu! Mr. Rigby, you are now lord of Monmouth House, and yet I cannot

help feeling you too will be discharged before he dies.’

Mr. Rigby made Lady Monmouth a bow such as became the master of the

house, and then withdrew.

CHAPTER VII.

A paragraph in the _Morning Post_, a few days after his interview with

his grandfather, announcing that Lord and Lady Monmouth had quitted town

for the baths of Kissengen, startled Coningsby, who called the same day

at Monmouth House in consequence. There he learnt more authentic details

of their unexpected movements. It appeared that Lady Monmouth had

certainly departed; and the porter, with a rather sceptical visage,

informed Coningsby that Lord Monmouth was to follow; but when, he could

not tell. At present his Lordship was at Brighton, and in a few days was

about to take possession of a villa at Richmond, which had for some time

been fitting up for him under the superintendence of Mr. Rigby, who, as

Coningsby also learnt, now permanently resided at Monmouth House. All

this intelligence made Coningsby ponder. He was sufficiently acquainted

with the parties concerned to feel assured that he had not learnt the

whole truth. What had really taken place, and what was the real cause of

the occurrences, were equally mystical to him: all he was convinced of

was, that some great domestic revolution had been suddenly effected.

Coningsby entertained for his grandfather a sincere affection. With the

exception of their last unfortunate interview, he had experienced from

Lord Monmouth nothing but kindness both in phrase and deed. There was

also something in Lord Monmouth, when he pleased it, rather fascinating

to young men; and as Coningsby had never occasioned him any feelings but

pleasurable ones, he was always disposed to make himself delightful to

his grandson. The experience of a consummate man of the world, advanced

in life, detailed without rigidity to youth, with frankness and

facility, is bewitching. Lord Monmouth was never garrulous: he was

always pithy, and could be picturesque. He revealed a character in a

sentence, and detected the ruling passion with the hand of a master.

Besides, he had seen everybody and had done everything; and though, on

the whole, too indolent for conversation, and loving to be talked to,

these were circumstances which made his too rare communications the more

precious.

With these feelings, Coningsby resolved, the moment that he learned that

his grandfather was established at Richmond, to pay him a visit. He

was informed that Lord Monmouth was at home, and he was shown into a

drawing-room, where he found two French ladies in their bonnets, whom he

soon discovered to be actresses. They also had come down to pay a visit

to his grandfather, and were by no means displeased to pass the interval

that must elapse before they had that pleasure in chatting with his

grandson. Coningsby found them extremely amusing; with the finest

spirits in the world, imperturbable good temper, and an unconscious

practical philosophy that defied the devil Care and all his works. And

well it was that he found such agreeable companions, for time flowed on,

and no summons arrived to call him to his grandfather’s presence, and

no herald to announce his grandfather’s advent. The ladies and Coningsby

had exhausted badinage; they had examined and criticised all the

furniture, had rifled the vases of their prettiest flowers; and

Clotilde, who had already sung several times, was proposing a duet to

Ermengarde, when a servant entered, and told the ladies that a carriage

was in attendance to give them an airing, and after that Lord Monmouth

hoped they would return and dine with him; then turning to Coningsby, he

informed him, with his lord’s compliments, that Lord Monmouth was sorry

he was too much engaged to see him.

Nothing was to be done but to put a tolerably good face upon it.

‘Embrace Lord Monmouth for me,’ said Coningsby to his fair friends, ‘and

tell him I think it very unkind that he did not ask me to dinner with

you.’

Coningsby said this with a gay air, but really with a depressed spirit.

He felt convinced that his grandfather was deeply displeased with him;

and as he rode away from the villa, he could not resist the strong

impression that he was destined never to re-enter it. Yet it was decreed

otherwise. It so happened that the idle message which Coningsby had left

for his grandfather, and which he never seriously supposed for a moment

that his late companions would have given their host, operated entirely

in his favour. Whatever were the feelings with respect to Coningsby at

the bottom of Lord Monmouth’s heart, he was actuated in his refusal to

see him not more from displeasure than from an anticipatory horror of

something like a scene. Even a surrender from Coningsby without terms,

and an offer to declare himself a candidate for Darlford, or to do

anything else that his grandfather wished, would have been disagreeable

to Lord Monmouth in his present mood. As in politics a revolution is

often followed by a season of torpor, so in the case of Lord Monmouth

the separation from his wife, which had for a long period occupied his

meditation, was succeeded by a vein of mental dissipation. He did not

wish to be reminded by anything or any person that he had still in

some degree the misfortune of being a responsible member of society.

He wanted to be surrounded by individuals who were above or below the

conventional interests of what is called ‘the World.’ He wanted to hear

nothing of those painful and embarrassing influences which from our

contracted experience and want of enlightenment we magnify into such

undue importance. For this purpose he wished to have about him persons

whose knowledge of the cares of life concerned only the means of

existence, and whose sense of its objects referred only to the sources

of enjoyment; persons who had not been educated in the idolatry of

Respectability; that is to say, of realising such an amount of what is

termed character by a hypocritical deference to the prejudices of the

community as may enable them, at suitable times, and under convenient

circumstances and disguises, to plunder the public. This was the

Monmouth Philosophy.

With these feelings, Lord Monmouth recoiled at this moment from

grandsons and relations and ties of all kinds. He did not wish to be

reminded of his identity, but to swim unmolested and undisturbed in

his Epicurean dream. When, therefore, his fair visitors; Clotilde, who

opened her mouth only to breathe roses and diamonds, and Ermengarde, who

was so good-natured that she sacrificed even her lovers to her friends;

saw him merely to exclaim at the same moment, and with the same voices

of thrilling joyousness,--

‘Why did not you ask him to dinner?’

And then, without waiting for his reply, entered with that rapidity of

elocution which Frenchwomen can alone command into the catalogue of his

charms and accomplishments, Lord Monmouth began to regret that he really

had not seen Coningsby, who, it appeared, might have greatly contributed

to the pleasure of the day. The message, which was duly given,

however, settled the business. Lord Monmouth felt that any chance of

explanations, or even allusions to the past, was out of the question;

and to defend himself from the accusations of his animated guests, he

said,

‘Well, he shall come to dine with you next time.’

There is no end to the influence of woman on our life. It is at the

bottom of everything that happens to us. And so it was, that, in spite

of all the combinations of Lucretia and Mr. Rigby, and the mortification

and resentment of Lord Monmouth, the favourable impression he casually

made on a couple of French actresses occasioned Coningsby, before a

month had elapsed since his memorable interview at Monmouth House, to

receive an invitation again to dine with his grandfather.

The party was agreeable. Clotilde and Ermengarde had wits as sparkling

as their eyes. There was a manager of the Opera, a great friend of

Villebecque, and his wife, a splendid lady, who had been a prima donna

of celebrity, and still had a commanding voice for a chamber; a Carlist

nobleman who lived upon his traditions, and who, though without a sou,

could tell of a festival given by his family, before the revolution,

which had cost a million of francs; and a Neapolitan physician, in whom

Lord Monmouth had great confidence, and who himself believed in the

elixir vitae, made up the party, with Lucian Gay, Coningsby, and Mr.

Rigby. Our hero remarked that Villebecque on this occasion sat at the

bottom of the table, but Flora did not appear.

In the meantime, the month which brought about this satisfactory and

at one time unexpected result was fruitful also in other circumstances

still more interesting. Coningsby and Edith met frequently, if to

breathe the same atmosphere in the same crowded saloons can be described

as meeting; ever watching each other’s movements, and yet studious never

to encounter each other’s glance. The charms of Miss Millbank had

become an universal topic, they were celebrated in ball-rooms, they were

discussed at clubs: Edith was the beauty of the season. All admired her,

many sighed even to express their admiration; but the devotion of Lord

Beaumanoir, who always hovered about her, deterred them from a rivalry

which might have made the boldest despair. As for Coningsby, he passed

his life principally with the various members of the Sydney family, and

was almost daily riding with Lady Everingham and her sister, generally

accompanied by Lord Henry and his friend Eustace Lyle, between whom,

indeed, and Coningsby there were relations of intimacy scarcely less

inseparable. Coningsby had spoken to Lady Everingham of the rumoured

marriage of her elder brother, and found, although the family had not

yet been formally apprised of it, she entertained little doubt of

its ultimate occurrence. She admired Miss Millbank, with whom her

acquaintance continued slight; and she wished, of course, that her

brother should marry and be happy. ‘But Percy is often in love,’ she

would add, ‘and never likes us to be very intimate with his inamoratas.

He thinks it destroys the romance; and that domestic familiarity may

compromise his heroic character. However,’ she added, ‘I really believe

that will be a match.’

On the whole, though he bore a serene aspect to the world, Coningsby

passed this month in a state of restless misery. His soul was brooding

on one subject, and he had no confidant: he could not resist the spell

that impelled him to the society where Edith might at least be seen, and

the circle in which he lived was one in which her name was frequently

mentioned. Alone, in his solitary rooms in the Albany, he felt all his

desolation; and often a few minutes before he figured in the world,

apparently followed and courted by all, he had been plunged in the

darkest fits of irremediable wretchedness.

He had, of course, frequently met Lady Wallinger, but their salutations,

though never omitted, and on each side cordial, were brief. There seemed

to be a tacit understanding between them not to refer to a subject

fruitful in painful reminiscences.

The season waned. In the fulfilment of a project originally formed

in the playing-fields of Eton, often recurred to at Cambridge, and

cherished with the fondness with which men cling to a scheme of early

youth, Coningsby, Henry Sydney, Vere, and Buckhurst had engaged some

moors together this year; and in a few days they were about to quit town

for Scotland. They had pressed Eustace Lyle to accompany them, but he,

who in general seemed to have no pleasure greater than their society,

had surprised them by declining their invitation, with some vague

mention that he rather thought he should go abroad.

It was the last day of July, and all the world were at a breakfast

given, at a fanciful cottage situate in beautiful gardens on the banks

of the Thames, by Lady Everingham. The weather was as bright as the

romances of Boccaccio; there were pyramids of strawberries, in bowls

colossal enough to hold orange-trees; and the choicest band filled the

air with enchanting strains, while a brilliant multitude sauntered on

turf like velvet, or roamed in desultory existence amid the quivering

shades of winding walks.

‘My fête was prophetic,’ said Lady Everingham, when she saw Coningsby.

‘I am glad it is connected with an incident. It gives it a point.’

‘You are mystical as well as prophetic. Tell me what we are to

celebrate.’

‘Theresa is going to be married.’

‘Then I, too, will prophesy, and name the hero of the romance, Eustace

Lyle.’

‘You have been more prescient than I,’ said Lady Everingham, ‘perhaps

because I was thinking too much of some one else.’

‘It seems to me an union which all must acknowledge perfect. I hardly

know which I love best. I have had my suspicions a long time; and when

Eustace refused to go to the moors with us, though I said nothing, I was

convinced.’

‘At any rate,’ said Lady Everingham, sighing, with a rather smiling

face, ‘we are kinsfolk, Mr. Coningsby; though I would gladly have wished

to have been more.’

‘Were those your thoughts, dear lady? Ever kind to me! Happiness,’ he

added, in a mournful tone, ‘I fear can never be mine.’

‘And why?’

‘Ah! ‘tis a tale too strange and sorrowful for a day when, like Seged,

we must all determine to be happy.’

‘You have already made me miserable.’

‘Here comes a group that will make you gay,’ said Coningsby as he

moved on. Edith and the Wallingers, accompanied by Lord Beaumanoir, Mr.

Melton, and Sir Charles Buckhurst, formed the party. They seemed profuse

in their congratulations to Lady Everingham, having already learnt the

intelligence from her brother.

Coningsby stopped to speak to Lady St. Julians, who had still a daughter

to marry. Both Augustina, who was at Coningsby Castle, and Clara

Isabella, who ought to have been there, had each secured the right man.

But Adelaide Victoria had now appeared, and Lady St. Julians had a great

regard for the favourite grandson of Lord Monmouth, and also for the

influential friend of Lord Vere and Sir Charles Buckhurst. In case

Coningsby did not determine to become her son-in-law himself, he might

counsel either of his friends to a judicious decision on an inevitable

act.

‘Strawberries and cream?’ said Lord Eskdale to Mr. Ormsby, who seemed

occupied with some delicacies.

‘Egad! no, no, no; those days are passed. I think there is a little

easterly wind with all this fine appearance.’

‘I am for in-door nature myself,’ said Lord Eskdale. ‘Do you know, I do

not half like the way Monmouth is going on? He never gets out of that

villa of his. He should change his air more. Tell him.’

‘It is no use telling him anything. Have you heard anything of Miladi?’

‘I had a letter from her to-day: she writes in good spirits. I am sorry

it broke up, and yet I never thought it would last so long.’

‘I gave them two years,’ said Mr. Ormsby. ‘Lord Monmouth lived with his

first wife two years. And afterwards with the Mirandola at Milan, at

least nearly two years; it was a year and ten months. I must know,

for he called me in to settle affairs. I took the lady to the baths at

Lucca, on the pretence that Monmouth would meet us there. He went to

Paris. All his great affairs have been two years. I remember I wanted

to bet Cassilis, at White’s, on it when he married; but I thought, being

his intimate friend; the oldest friend he has, indeed, and one of his

trustees; it was perhaps as well not to do it.’

‘You should have made the bet with himself,’ said Lord Eskdale, ‘and

then there never would have been a separation.’

‘Hah, hah, hah! Do you know, I feel the wind?’

About an hour after this, Coningsby, who had just quitted the Duchess,

met, on a terrace by the river, Lady Wallinger, walking with Mrs. Guy

Flouncey and a Russian Prince, whom that lady was enchanting. Coningsby

was about to pass with some slight courtesy, but Lady Wallinger stopped

and would speak to him, on slight subjects, the weather and the fête,

but yet adroitly enough managed to make him turn and join her. Mrs.

Guy Flouncey walked on a little before with her Russian admirer. Lady

Wallinger followed with Coningsby.

‘The match that has been proclaimed to-day has greatly surprised me,’

said Lady Wallinger.

‘Indeed!’ said Coningsby: ‘I confess I was long prepared for it. And it

seems to me the most natural alliance conceivable, and one that every

one must approve.’

‘Lady Everingham seems much surprised at it.’

‘Ah! Lady Everingham is a brilliant personage, and cannot deign to

observe obvious circumstances.’

‘Do you know, Mr. Coningsby, that I always thought you were engaged to

Lady Theresa?’

‘I!’

‘Indeed, we were informed more than a month ago that you were positively

going to be married to her.’

‘I am not one of those who can shift their affections with such

rapidity, Lady Wallinger.’

Lady Wallinger looked distressed. ‘You remember our meeting you on the

stairs at ---- House, Mr. Coningsby?’

‘Painfully. It is deeply graven on my brain.’

‘Edith had just been informed that you were going to be married to Lady

Theresa.’

‘Not surely by him to whom she is herself going to be married?’ said

Coningsby, reddening.

‘I am not aware that she is going to be married to any one. Lord

Beaumanoir admires her, has always admired her. But Edith has given

him no encouragement, at least gave him no encouragement as long as she

believed; but why dwell on such an unhappy subject, Mr. Coningsby? I

am to blame; I have been to blame perhaps before, but indeed I think it

cruel, very cruel, that Edith and you are kept asunder.’

‘You have always been my best, my dearest friend, and are the most

amiable and admirable of women. But tell me, is it indeed true that

Edith is not going to be married?’

At this moment Mrs. Guy Flouncey turned round, and assuring Lady

Wallinger that the Prince and herself had agreed to refer some point

to her about the most transcendental ethics of flirtation, this deeply

interesting conversation was arrested, and Lady Wallinger, with

becoming suavity, was obliged to listen to the lady’s lively appeal of

exaggerated nonsense and the Prince’s affected protests, while Coningsby

walked by her side, pale and agitated, and then offered his arm to Lady

Wallinger, which she accepted with an affectionate pressure. At the end

of the terrace they met some other guests, and soon were immersed in the

multitude that thronged the lawn.

‘There is Sir Joseph,’ said Lady Wallinger, and Coningsby looked up,

and saw Edith on his arm. They were unconsciously approaching them. Lord

Beaumanoir was there, but he seemed to shrink into nothing to-day before

Buckhurst, who was captivated for the moment by Edith, and hearing

that no knight was resolute enough to try a fall with the Marquess, was

impelled by his talent for action to enter the lists. He had talked down

everybody, unhorsed every cavalier. Nobody had a chance against him:

he answered all your questions before you asked them; contradicted

everybody with the intrepidity of a Rigby; annihilated your anecdotes by

historiettes infinitely more piquant; and if anybody chanced to make a

joke which he could not excel, declared immediately that it was a Joe

Miller. He was absurd, extravagant, grotesque, noisy; but he was young,

rattling, and interesting, from his health and spirits. Edith was

extremely amused by him, and was encouraging by her smile his spiritual

excesses, when they all suddenly met Lady Wallinger and Coningsby.

The eyes of Edith and Coningsby met for the first time since they so

cruelly encountered on the staircase of ---- House. A deep, quick blush

suffused her face, her eyes gleamed with a sudden coruscation; suddenly

and quickly she put forth her hand.

Yes! he presses once more that hand which permanently to retain is the

passion of his life, yet which may never be his! It seemed that for the

ravishing delight of that moment he could have borne with cheerfulness

all the dark and harrowing misery of the year that had passed away since

he embraced her in the woods of Hellingsley, and pledged his faith by

the waters of the rushing Darl.

He seized the occasion which offered itself, a moment to walk by her

side, and to snatch some brief instants of unreserved communion.

‘Forgive me!’ she said.

‘Ah! how could you ever doubt me?’ said Coningsby.

‘I was unhappy.’

‘And now we are to each other as before?’

‘And will be, come what come may.’

END OF BOOK VIII.

BOOK IX.

CHAPTER I.

It was merry Christmas at St. Geneviève. There was a yule log blazing

on every hearth in that wide domain, from the hall of the squire to the

peasant’s roof. The Buttery Hatch was open for the whole week from noon

to sunset; all comers might take their fill, and each carry away as much

bold beef, white bread, and jolly ale as a strong man could bear in

a basket with one hand. For every woman a red cloak, and a coat of

broadcloth for every man. All day long, carts laden with fuel and warm

raiment were traversing the various districts, distributing comfort and

dispensing cheer. For a Christian gentleman of high degree was Eustace

Lyle.

Within his hall, too, he holds his revel, and his beauteous bride

welcomes their guests, from her noble parents to the faithful tenants of

the house. All classes are mingled in the joyous equality that becomes

the season, at once sacred and merry. There are carols for the eventful

eve, and mummers for the festive day.

The Duke and Duchess, and every member of the family, had consented this

year to keep their Christmas with the newly-married couple. Coningsby,

too, was there, and all his friends. The party was numerous, gay,

hearty, and happy; for they were all united by sympathy.

They were planning that Henry Sydney should be appointed Lord of

Misrule, or ordained Abbot of Unreason at the least, so successful had

been his revival of the Mummers, the Hobby-horse not forgotten.

Their host had entrusted to Lord Henry the restoration of many old

observances; and the joyous feeling which this celebration of Christmas

had diffused throughout an extensive district was a fresh argument in

favour of Lord Henry’s principle, that a mere mechanical mitigation of

the material necessities of the humbler classes, a mitigation which must

inevitably be limited, can never alone avail sufficiently to ameliorate

their condition; that their condition is not merely ‘a knife and fork

question,’ to use the coarse and shallow phrase of the Utilitarian

school; that a simple satisfaction of the grosser necessities of our

nature will not make a happy people; that you must cultivate the heart

as well as seek to content the belly; and that the surest means to

elevate the character of the people is to appeal to their affections.

There is nothing more interesting than to trace predisposition. An

indefinite, yet strong sympathy with the peasantry of the realm had been

one of the characteristic sensibilities of Lord Henry at Eton. Yet a

schoolboy, he had busied himself with their pastimes and the details of

their cottage economy. As he advanced in life the horizon of his views

expanded with his intelligence and his experience; and the son of one of

the noblest of our houses, to whom the delights of life are offered with

fatal facility, on the very threshold of his career he devoted his

time and thought, labour and life, to one vast and noble purpose, the

elevation of the condition of the great body of the people.

‘I vote for Buckhurst being Lord of Misrule,’ said Lord Henry: ‘I will

be content with being his gentleman usher.’

‘It shall be put to the vote,’ said Lord Vere.

‘No one has a chance against Buckhurst,’ said Coningsby.

‘Now, Sir Charles,’ said Lady Everingham, ‘your absolute sway is about

to commence. And what is your will?’

‘The first thing must be my formal installation,’ said Buckhurst. ‘I

vote the Boar’s head be carried in procession thrice round the hall, and

Beau shall be the champion to challenge all who may question my right.

Duke, you shall be my chief butler, the Duchess my herb-woman. She is to

walk before me, and scatter rosemary. Coningsby shall carry the Boar’s

head; Lady Theresa and Lady Everingham shall sing the canticle; Lord

Everingham shall be marshal of the lists, and put all in the stocks who

are found sober and decorous; Lyle shall be the palmer from the Holy

Land, and Vere shall ride the Hobby-horse. Some must carry cups of

Hippocras, some lighted tapers; all must join in chorus.’

He ceased his instructions, and all hurried away to carry them into

effect. Some hastily arrayed themselves in fanciful dresses, the ladies

in robes of white, with garlands of flowers; some drew pieces of armour

from the wall, and decked themselves with helm and hauberk; others waved

ancient banners. They brought in the Boar’s head on a large silver dish,

and Coningsby raised it aloft. They formed into procession, the Duchess

distributing rosemary; Buckhurst swaggering with all the majesty of

Tamerlane, his mock court irresistibly humorous with their servility;

and the sweet voice of Lady Everingham chanting the first verse of the

canticle, followed in the second by the rich tones of Lady Theresa:

I.

Caput Apri defero

Reddens laudes Domino.

The Boar’s heade in hande bring I,

With garlandes gay and rosemary:

I pray you all singe merrily,

Qui estis in convivio.

II.

Caput Apri defero

Reddens laudes Domino.

The Boar’s heade I understande

Is the chief servyce in this lande

Loke whereever it be fande,

Servite cum cantico.

The procession thrice paraded the hall. Then they stopped; and the Lord

of Misrule ascended his throne, and his courtiers formed round him

in circle. Behind him they held the ancient banners and waved their

glittering arms, and placed on a lofty and illuminated pedestal the

Boar’s head covered with garlands. It was a good picture, and the Lord

of Misrule sustained his part with untiring energy. He was addressing

his court in a pompous rhapsody of merry nonsense, when a servant

approached Coningsby, and told him that he was wanted without.

Our hero retired unperceived. A despatch had arrived for him from

London. Without any prescience of its purpose, he nevertheless broke

the seal with a trembling hand. His presence was immediately desired in

town: Lord Monmouth was dead.

CHAPTER II.

This was a crisis in the life of Coningsby; yet, like many critical

epochs, the person most interested in it was not sufficiently aware

of its character. The first feeling which he experienced at the

intelligence was sincere affliction. He was fond of his grandfather; had

received great kindness from him, and at a period of life when it was

most welcome. The neglect and hardships of his early years, instead of

leaving a prejudice against one who, by some, might be esteemed their

author, had by their contrast only rendered Coningsby more keenly

sensible of the solicitude and enjoyment which had been lavished on his

happy youth.

The next impression on his mind was undoubtedly a natural and reasonable

speculation on the effect of this bereavement on his fortunes. Lord

Monmouth had more than once assured Coningsby that he had provided for

him as became a near relative to whom he was attached, and in a manner

which ought to satisfy the wants and wishes of an English gentleman. The

allowance which Lord Monmouth had made him, as considerable as usually

accorded to the eldest sons of wealthy peers, might justify him in

estimating his future patrimony as extremely ample. He was aware,

indeed, that at a subsequent period his grandfather had projected for

him fortunes of a still more elevated character. He looked to Coningsby

as the future representative of an ancient barony, and had been

purchasing territory with the view of supporting the title. But

Coningsby did not by any means firmly reckon on these views being

realised. He had a suspicion that in thwarting the wishes of his

grandfather in not becoming a candidate for Darlford, he had at the

moment arrested arrangements which, from the tone of Lord Monmouth’s

communication, he believed were then in progress for that purpose;

and he thought it improbable, with his knowledge of his grandfather’s

habits, that Lord Monmouth had found either time or inclination to

resume before his decease the completion of these plans. Indeed there

was a period when, in adopting the course which he pursued with respect

to Darlford, Coningsby was well aware that he perilled more than the

large fortune which was to accompany the barony. Had not a separation

between Lord Monmouth and his wife taken place simultaneously with

Coningsby’s difference with his grandfather, he was conscious that the

consequences might have been even altogether fatal to his prospects; but

the absence of her evil influence at such a conjuncture, its permanent

removal, indeed, from the scene, coupled with his fortunate though not

formal reconciliation with Lord Monmouth, had long ago banished from his

memory all those apprehensions to which he had felt it impossible at the

time to shut his eyes. Before he left town for Scotland he had made a

farewell visit to his grandfather, who, though not as cordial as in

old days, had been gracious; and Coningsby, during his excursion to the

moors, and his various visits to the country, had continued at intervals

to write to his grandfather, as had been for some years his custom. On

the whole, with an indefinite feeling which, in spite of many a rational

effort, did nevertheless haunt his mind, that this great and sudden

event might exercise a vast and beneficial influence on his worldly

position, Coningsby could not but feel some consolation in the

affliction which he sincerely experienced, in the hope that he might at

all events now offer to Edith a home worthy of her charms, her virtues,

and her love.

Although he had not seen her since their hurried yet sweet

reconciliation in the gardens of Lady Everingham, Coningsby was never

long without indirect intelligence of the incidents of her life; and the

correspondence between Lady Everingham and Henry Sydney, while they

were at the moors, had apprised him that Lord Beaumanoir’s suit had

terminated unsuccessfully almost immediately after his brother had

quitted London.

It was late in the evening when Coningsby arrived in town: he called at

once on Lord Eskdale, who was one of Lord Monmouth’s executors; and he

persuaded Coningsby, whom he saw depressed, to dine with him alone.

‘You should not be seen at a club,’ said the good-natured peer; ‘and I

remember myself in old days what was the wealth of an Albanian larder.’

Lord Eskdale, at dinner, talked frankly of the disposition of Lord

Monmouth’s property. He spoke as a matter of course that Coningsby was

his grandfather’s principal heir.

‘I don’t know whether you will be happier with a large fortune?’ said

Lord Eskdale. ‘It is a troublesome thing: nobody is satisfied with

what you do with it; very often not yourself. To maintain an equable

expenditure; not to spend too much on one thing, too little on another,

is an art. There must be a harmony, a keeping, in disbursement, which

very few men have. Great wealth wearies. The thing to have is about ten

thousand a year, and the world to think you have only five. There is

some enjoyment then; one is let alone. But the instant you have a large

fortune, duties commence. And then impudent fellows borrow your money;

and if you ask them for it again, they go about town saying you are a

screw.’

Lord Monmouth had died suddenly at his Richmond villa, which latterly

he never quitted, at a little supper, with no persons near him but those

who were amusing. He suddenly found he could not lift his glass to his

lips, and being extremely polite, waited a few minutes before he asked

Clotilde, who was singing a sparkling drinking-song, to do him that

service. When, in accordance with his request, she reached him, it was

too late. The ladies shrieked, being frightened: at first they were

in despair, but, after reflection, they evinced some intention of

plundering the house. Villebecque, who was absent at the moment, arrived

in time; and everybody became orderly and broken-hearted.

The body had been removed to Monmouth House, where it had been embalmed

and laid in state. The funeral was not numerously attended. There was

nobody in town; some distinguished connections, however, came up from

the country, though it was a period inconvenient for such movements.

After the funeral, the will was to be read in the principal saloon of

Monmouth House, one of those gorgeous apartments that had excited the

boyish wonder of Coningsby on his first visit to that paternal roof, and

now hung in black, adorned with the escutcheon of the deceased peer.

The testamentary dispositions of the late lord were still unknown,

though the names of his executors had been announced by his family

solicitor, in whose custody the will and codicils had always remained.

The executors under the will were Lord Eskdale, Mr. Ormsby, and Mr.

Rigby. By a subsequent appointment Sidonia had been added. All these

individuals were now present. Coningsby, who had been chief mourner,

stood on the right hand of the solicitor, who sat at the end of a long

table, round which, in groups, were ranged all who had attended the

funeral, including several of the superior members of the household,

among them M. Villebecque.

The solicitor rose and explained that though Lord Monmouth had been in

the habit of very frequently adding codicils to his will, the original

will, however changed or modified, had never been revoked; it was

therefore necessary to commence by reading that instrument. So saying,

he sat down, and breaking the seals of a large packet, he produced the

will of Philip Augustus, Marquess of Monmouth, which had been retained

in his custody since its execution.

By this will, of the date of 1829, the sum of 10,000_l._ was left to

Coningsby, then unknown to his grandfather; the same sum to Mr. Rigby.

There was a great number of legacies, none of superior amount, most of

them of less: these were chiefly left to old male companions, and women

in various countries. There was an almost inconceivable number of small

annuities to faithful servants, decayed actors, and obscure foreigners.

The residue of his personal estate was left to four gentlemen, three of

whom had quitted this world before the legator; the bequests, therefore,

had lapsed. The fourth residuary legatee, in whom, according to the

terms of the will, all would have consequently centred, was Mr. Rigby.

There followed several codicils which did not materially affect the

previous disposition; one of them leaving a legacy of 20,000_l._ to

the Princess Colonna; until they arrived at the latter part of the year

1832, when a codicil increased the 10,000_l._ left under the will to

Coningsby to 50,000_l._.

After Coningsby’s visit to the Castle in 1836 a very important change

occurred in the disposition of Lord Monmouth’s estate. The legacy of

50,000_l._ in his favour was revoked, and the same sum left to the

Princess Lucretia. A similar amount was bequeathed to Mr. Rigby; and

Coningsby was left sole residuary legatee.

The marriage led to a considerable modification. An estate of about

nine thousand a year, which Lord Monmouth had himself purchased, and was

therefore in his own disposition, was left to Coningsby. The legacy to

Mr. Rigby was reduced to 20,000_l._, and the whole of his residue left

to his issue by Lady Monmouth. In case he died without issue, the estate

bequeathed to Coningsby to be taken into account, and the residue then

to be divided equally between Lady Monmouth and his grandson. It was

under this instrument that Sidonia had been appointed an executor and

to whom Lord Monmouth left, among others, the celebrated picture of

the Holy Family by Murillo, as his friend had often admired it. To Lord

Eskdale he left all his female miniatures, and to Mr. Ormsby his rare

and splendid collection of French novels, and all his wines, except his

Tokay, which he left, with his library, to Sir Robert Peel; though this

legacy was afterwards revoked, in consequence of Sir Robert’s conduct

about the Irish corporations.

The solicitor paused and begged permission to send for a glass of water.

While this was arranging there was a murmur at the lower part of the

room, but little disposition to conversation among those in the vicinity

of the lawyer. Coningsby was silent, his brow a little knit. Mr. Rigby

was pale and restless, but said nothing. Mr. Ormsby took a pinch of

snuff, and offered his box to Lord Eskdale, who was next to him. They

exchanged glances, and made some observation about the weather. Sidonia

stood apart, with his arms folded. He had not, of course attended the

funeral, nor had he as yet exchanged any recognition with Coningsby.

‘Now, gentlemen,’ said the solicitor, ‘if you please, I will proceed.’

They came to the year 1839, the year Coningsby was at Hellingsley. This

appeared to be a critical period in the fortunes of Lady Monmouth; while

Coningsby’s reached to the culminating point. Mr. Rigby was reduced to

his original legacy under the will of 10,000_l._; a sum of equal amount

was bequeathed to Armand Villebecque, in acknowledgment of faithful

services; all the dispositions in favour of Lady Monmouth were revoked,

and she was limited to her moderate jointure of 3,000_l._ per annum,

under the marriage settlement; while everything, without reserve, was

left absolutely to Coningsby.

A subsequent codicil determined that the 10,000_l._ left to Mr. Rigby

should be equally divided between him and Lucian Gay; but as some

compensation Lord Monmouth left to the Right Honourable Nicholas Rigby

the bust of that gentleman, which he had himself presented to his

Lordship, and which, at his desire, had been placed in the vestibule

at Coningsby Castle, from the amiable motive that after Lord Monmouth’s

decease Mr. Rigby might wish, perhaps, to present it to some other

friend.

Lord Eskdale and Mr. Ormsby took care not to catch the eye of Mr. Rigby.

As for Coningsby, he saw nobody. He maintained, during the extraordinary

situation in which he was placed, a firm demeanour; but serene and

regulated as he appeared to the spectators, his nerves were really

strung to a high pitch.

There was yet another codicil. It bore the date of June 1840, and was

made at Brighton, immediately after the separation with Lady Monmouth.

It was the sight of this instrument that sustained Rigby at this great

emergency. He had a wild conviction that, after all, it must set all

right. He felt assured that, as Lady Monmouth had already been disposed

of, it must principally refer to the disinheritance of Coningsby,

secured by Rigby’s well-timed and malignant misrepresentations of what

had occurred in Lancashire during the preceding summer. And then to whom

could Lord Monmouth leave his money? However he might cut and carve up

his fortunes, Rigby, and especially at a moment when he had so served

him, must come in for a considerable slice.

His prescient mind was right. All the dispositions in favour of ‘my

grandson Harry Coningsby’ were revoked; and he inherited from his

grandfather only the interest of the sum of 10,000_l._ which had been

originally bequeathed to him in his orphan boyhood. The executors had

the power of investing the principal in any way they thought proper

for his advancement in life, provided always it was not placed in ‘the

capital stock of any manufactory.’

Coningsby turned pale; he lost his abstracted look; he caught the eye

of Rigby; he read the latent malice of that nevertheless anxious

countenance. What passed through the mind and being of Coningsby was

thought and sensation enough for a year; but it was as the flash that

reveals a whole country, yet ceases to be ere one can say it lightens.

There was a revelation to him of an inward power that should baffle

these conventional calamities, a natural and sacred confidence in his

youth and health, and knowledge and convictions. Even the recollection

of Edith was not unaccompanied with some sustaining associations. At

least the mightiest foe to their union was departed.

All this was the impression of an instant, simultaneous with the reading

of the words of form with which the last testamentary disposition of the

Marquess of Monmouth left the sum of 30,000_l._ to Armand Villebecque;

and all the rest, residue, and remainder of his unentailed property,

wheresoever and whatsoever it might be, amounting in value to nearly a

million sterling, was given, devised, and bequeathed to Flora, commonly

called Flora Villebecque, the step-child of the said Armand Villebecque,

‘but who is my natural daughter by Marie Estelle Matteau, an actress at

the Théâtre Français in the years 1811-15, by the name of Stella.’

CHAPTER III.

‘This is a crash!’ said Coningsby, with a grave rather than agitated

countenance, to Sidonia, as his friend came up to greet him, without,

however, any expression of condolence.

‘This time next year you will not think so,’ said Sidonia.

Coningsby shrugged his shoulders.

‘The principal annoyance of this sort of miscarriage,’ said Sidonia,

‘is the condolence of the gentle world. I think we may now depart. I am

going home to dine. Come, and discuss your position. For the present we

will not speak of it.’ So saying, Sidonia good-naturedly got Coningsby

out of the room.

They walked together to Sidonia’s house in Carlton Gardens, neither of

them making the slightest allusion to the catastrophe; Sidonia inquiring

where he had been, what he had been doing, since they last met, and

himself conversing in his usual vein, though with a little more feeling

in his manner than was his custom. When they had arrived there, Sidonia

ordered their dinner instantly, and during the interval between the

command and its appearance, he called Coningsby’s attention to an old

German painting he had just received, its brilliant colouring and quaint

costumes.

‘Eat, and an appetite will come,’ said Sidonia, when he observed

Coningsby somewhat reluctant. ‘Take some of that Chablis: it will put

you right; you will find it delicious.’

In this way some twenty minutes passed; their meal was over, and they

were alone together.

‘I have been thinking all this time of your position,’ said Sidonia.

‘A sorry one, I fear,’ said Coningsby.

‘I really cannot see that,’ said his friend. ‘You have experienced this

morning a disappointment, but not a calamity. If you had lost your eye

it would have been a calamity: no combination of circumstances could

have given you another. There are really no miseries except natural

miseries; conventional misfortunes are mere illusions. What seems

conventionally, in a limited view, a great misfortune, if subsequently

viewed in its results, is often the happiest incident in one’s life.’

‘I hope the day may come when I may feel this.’

‘Now is the moment when philosophy is of use; that is to say, now is

the moment when you should clearly comprehend the circumstances which

surround you. Holiday philosophy is mere idleness. You think, for

example, that you have just experienced a great calamity, because you

have lost the fortune on which you counted?’

‘I must say I do.’

‘I ask you again, which would you have rather lost, your grandfather’s

inheritance or your right leg?’

‘Most certainly my inheritance,’

‘Or your left arm?’

‘Still the inheritance.’

‘Would you have received the inheritance on condition that your front

teeth should be knocked out?’

‘No.’

‘Would you have given up a year of your life for that fortune trebled?’

‘Even at twenty-three I would have refused the terms.’

‘Come, come, Coningsby, the calamity cannot be very great.’

‘Why, you have put it in an ingenious point of view; and yet it is

not so easy to convince a man, that he should be content who has lost

everything.’

‘You have a great many things at this moment that you separately prefer

to the fortune that you have forfeited. How then can you be said to have

lost everything?’

‘What have I?’ said Coningsby, despondingly.

‘You have health, youth, good looks, great abilities, considerable

knowledge, a fine courage, a lofty spirit, and no contemptible

experience. With each of these qualities one might make a fortune; the

combination ought to command the highest.’

‘You console me,’ said Coningsby, with a faint blush and a fainter

smile.

‘I teach you the truth. That is always solacing. I think you are a most

fortunate young man; I should not have thought you more fortunate if

you had been your grandfather’s heir; perhaps less so. But I wish you

to comprehend your position: if you understand it you will cease to

lament.’

‘But what should I do?’

‘Bring your intelligence to bear on the right object. I make you no

offers of fortune, because I know you would not accept them, and indeed

I have no wish to see you a lounger in life. If you had inherited a

great patrimony, it is possible your natural character and previous

culture might have saved you from its paralysing influence; but it is a

question, even with you. Now you are free; that is to say, you are free,

if you are not in debt. A man who has not seen the world, whose fancy is

harassed with glittering images of pleasures he has never experienced,

cannot live on 300_l._ per annum; but you can. You have nothing to haunt

your thoughts, or disturb the abstraction of your studies. You have seen

the most beautiful women; you have banqueted in palaces; you know what

heroes, and wits, and statesmen are made of: and you can draw on

your memory instead of your imagination for all those dazzling and

interesting objects that make the inexperienced restless, and are the

cause of what are called scrapes. But you can do nothing if you be in

debt. You must be free. Before, therefore, we proceed, I must beg you

to be frank on this head. If you have any absolute or contingent

incumbrances, tell me of them without reserve, and permit me to clear

them at once to any amount. You will sensibly oblige me in so doing:

because I am interested in watching your career, and if the racer start

with a clog my psychological observations will be imperfect.’

‘You are, indeed, a friend; and had I debts I would ask you to pay

them. I have nothing of the kind. My grandfather was so lavish in his

allowance to me that I never got into difficulties. Besides, there

are horses and things without end which I must sell, and money at

Drummonds’.’

‘That will produce your outfit, whatever the course you adopt. I

conceive there are two careers which deserve your consideration. In the

first place there is Diplomacy. If you decide upon that, I can assist

you. There exist between me and the Minister such relations that I can

at once secure you that first step which is so difficult to obtain.

After that, much, if not all, depends on yourself. But I could advance

you, provided you were capable. You should, at least, not languish for

want of preferment. In an important post, I could throw in your way

advantages which would soon permit you to control cabinets. Information

commands the world. I doubt not your success, and for such a career,

speedy. Let us assume it as a fact. Is it a result satisfactory? Suppose

yourself in a dozen years a Plenipotentiary at a chief court, or at

a critical post, with a red ribbon and the Privy Council in immediate

perspective; and, after a lengthened career, a pension and a peerage.

Would that satisfy you? You don’t look excited. I am hardly surprised.

In your position it would not satisfy me. A Diplomatist is, after all,

a phantom. There is a want of nationality about his being. I always look

upon Diplomatists as the Hebrews of politics; without country, political

creeds, popular convictions, that strong reality of existence which

pervades the career of an eminent citizen in a free and great country.’

‘You read my thoughts,’ said Coningsby. ‘I should be sorry to sever

myself from England.’

‘There remains then the other, the greater, the nobler career,’ said

Sidonia, ‘which in England may give you all, the Bar. I am absolutely

persuaded that with the requisite qualifications, and with perseverance,

success at the Bar is certain. It may be retarded or precipitated by

circumstances, but cannot be ultimately affected. You have a right to

count with your friends on no lack of opportunities when you are ripe

for them. You appear to me to have all the qualities necessary for the

Bar; and you may count on that perseverance which is indispensable, for

the reason I have before mentioned, because it will be sustained by your

experience.’

‘I have resolved,’ said Coningsby; ‘I will try for the Great Seal.’

CHAPTER IV.

Alone in his chambers, no longer under the sustaining influence of

Sidonia’s converse and counsel, the shades of night descending

and bearing gloom to the gloomy, all the excitement of his spirit

evaporated, the heart of Coningsby sank. All now depended on himself,

and in that self he had no trust. Why should he succeed? Success was the

most rare of results. Thousands fail; units triumph. And even success

could only be conducted to him by the course of many years. His career,

even if prosperous, was now to commence by the greatest sacrifice which

the heart of man could be called upon to sustain. Upon the stern altar

of his fortunes he must immolate his first and enduring love. Before,

he had a perilous position to offer Edith; now he had none. The future

might then have aided them; there was no combination which could improve

his present. Under any circumstances he must, after all his thoughts and

studies, commence a new novitiate, and before he could enter the arena

must pass years of silent and obscure preparation. ‘Twas very bitter.

He looked up, his eye caught that drawing of the towers of Hellingsley

which she had given him in the days of their happy hearts. That was all

that was to remain of their loves. He was to bear it to the future

scene of his labours, to remind him through revolving years of toil and

routine, that he too had had his romance, had roamed in fair gardens,

and whispered in willing ears the secrets of his passion. That drawing

was to become the altar-piece of his life.

Coningsby passed an agitated night of broken sleep, waking often with a

consciousness of having experienced some great misfortune, yet with an

indefinite conception of its nature. He woke exhausted and dispirited.

It was a gloomy day, a raw north-easter blowing up the cloisters of

the Albany, in which the fog was lingering, the newspaper on his

breakfast-table, full of rumoured particulars of his grandfather’s

will, which had of course been duly digested by all who knew him. What

a contrast to St. Geneviève! To the bright, bracing morn of that merry

Christmas! That radiant and cheerful scene, and those gracious and

beaming personages, seemed another world and order of beings to the

one he now inhabited, and the people with whom he must now commune. The

Great Seal indeed! It was the wild excitement of despair, the frenzied

hope that blends inevitably with absolute ruin, that could alone have

inspired such a hallucination! His unstrung heart deserted him. His

energies could rally no more. He gave orders that he was at home to no

one; and in his morning gown and slippers, with his feet resting on the

fireplace, the once high-souled and noble-hearted Coningsby delivered

himself up to despair.

The day passed in a dark trance rather than a reverie. Nothing rose

to his consciousness. He was like a particle of chaos; at the best,

a glimmering entity of some shadowy Hades. Towards evening the wind

changed, the fog dispersed, there came a clear starry night, brisk and

bright. Coningsby roused himself, dressed, and wrapping his cloak around

him, sallied forth. Once more in the mighty streets, surrounded by

millions, his petty griefs and personal fortunes assumed their proper

position. Well had Sidonia taught him, view everything in its relation

to the rest. ‘Tis the secret of all wisdom. Here was the mightiest of

modern cities; the rival even of the most celebrated of the ancient.

Whether he inherited or forfeited fortunes, what was it to the passing

throng? They would not share his splendour, or his luxury, or his

comfort. But a word from his lip, a thought from his brain, expressed

at the right time, at the right place, might turn their hearts, might

influence their passions, might change their opinions, might affect

their destiny. Nothing is great but the personal. As civilisation

advances, the accidents of life become each day less important.

The power of man, his greatness and his glory, depend on essential

qualities. Brains every day become more precious than blood. You must

give men new ideas, you must teach them new words, you must modify

their manners, you must change their laws, you must root out prejudices,

subvert convictions, if you wish to be great. Greatness no longer

depends on rentals, the world is too rich; nor on pedigrees, the world

is too knowing.

‘The greatness of this city destroys my misery,’ said Coningsby, ‘and my

genius shall conquer its greatness.’

This conviction of power in the midst of despair was a revelation of

intrinsic strength. It is indeed the test of a creative spirit. From

that moment all petty fears for an ordinary future quitted him. He felt

that he must be prepared for great sacrifices, for infinite suffering;

that there must devolve on him a bitter inheritance of obscurity,

struggle, envy, and hatred, vulgar prejudice, base criticism, petty

hostilities, but the dawn would break, and the hour arrive, when the

welcome morning hymn of his success and his fame would sound and be

re-echoed.

He returned to his rooms; calm, resolute. He slept the deep sleep of

a man void of anxiety, that has neither hope nor fear to haunt his

visions, but is prepared to rise on the morrow collected for the great

human struggle.

And the morning came. Fresh, vigorous, not rash or precipitate, yet

determined to lose no time in idle meditation, Coningsby already

resolved at once to quit his present residence, was projecting a visit

to some legal quarter, where he intended in future to reside, when his

servant brought him a note. The handwriting was feminine. The note was

from Flora. The contents were brief. She begged Mr. Coningsby, with

great earnestness, to do her the honour and the kindness of calling on

her at his earliest convenience, at the hotel in Brook Street where she

now resided.

It was an interview which Coningsby would rather have avoided; yet it

seemed to him, after a moment’s reflection, neither just, nor kind, nor

manly, to refuse her request. Flora had not injured him. She was, after

all, his kin. Was it for a moment to be supposed that he was envious of

her lot? He replied, therefore, that in an hour he would wait upon her.

In an hour, then, two individuals are to be brought together whose first

meeting was held under circumstances most strangely different. Then

Coningsby was the patron, a generous and spontaneous one, of a being

obscure, almost friendless, and sinking under bitter mortification.

His favour could not be the less appreciated because he was the

chosen relative of a powerful noble. That noble was no more; his vast

inheritance had devolved on the disregarded, even despised actress,

whose suffering emotions Coningsby had then soothed, and whose fortune

had risen on the destruction of all his prospects, and the balk of all

his aspirations.

Flora was alone when Coningsby was ushered into the room. The extreme

delicacy of her appearance was increased by her deep mourning; and

seated in a cushioned chair, from which she seemed to rise with an

effort, she certainly presented little of the character of a fortunate

and prosperous heiress.

‘You are very good to come to me,’ she said, faintly smiling.

Coningsby extended his hand to her affectionately, in which she placed

her own, looking down much embarrassed.

‘You have an agreeable situation here,’ said Coningsby, trying to break

the first awkwardness of their meeting.

‘Yes; but I hope not to stop here long?’

‘You are going abroad?’

‘No; I hope never to leave England!’

There was a slight pause; and then Flora sighed and said,

‘I wish to speak to you on a subject that gives me pain; yet of which I

must speak. You think I have injured you?’

‘I am sure,’ said Coningsby, in a tone of great kindness, ‘that you

could injure no one.’

‘I have robbed you of your inheritance.’

‘It was not mine by any right, legal or moral. There were others who

might have urged an equal claim to it; and there are many who will now

think that you might have preferred a superior one.’

‘You had enemies; I was not one. They sought to benefit themselves by

injuring you. They have not benefited themselves; let them not say that

they have at least injured you.’

‘We will not care what they say,’ said Coningsby; ‘I can sustain my

lot.’

‘Would that I could mine!’ said Flora. She sighed again with a downcast

glance. Then looking up embarrassed and blushing deeply, she added, ‘I

wish to restore to you that fortune of which I have unconsciously and

unwillingly deprived you.’

‘The fortune is yours, dear Flora, by every right,’ said Coningsby,

much moved; ‘and there is no one who wishes more fervently that it may

contribute to your happiness than I do.’

‘It is killing me,’ said Flora, mournfully; then speaking with unusual

animation, with a degree of excitement, she continued, ‘I must tell what

I feel. This fortune is yours. I am happy in the inheritance, if you

generously receive it from me, because Providence has made me the means

of baffling your enemies. I never thought to be so happy as I shall be

if you will generously accept this fortune, always intended for you. I

have lived then for a purpose; I have not lived in vain; I have returned

to you some service, however humble, for all your goodness to me in my

unhappiness.’

‘You are, as I have ever thought you, the kindest and most

tender-hearted of beings. But you misconceive our mutual positions,

my gentle Flora. The custom of the world does not permit such acts to

either of us as you contemplate. The fortune is yours. It is left you by

one on whose affections you had the highest claim. I will not say

that so large an inheritance does not bring with it an alarming

responsibility; but you are not unequal to it. Have confidence in

yourself. You have a good heart; you have good sense; you have a

well-principled being. Your spirit will mount with your fortunes, and

blend with them. You will be happy.’

‘And you?’

‘I shall soon learn to find content, if not happiness, from other

sources,’ said Coningsby; ‘and mere riches, however vast, could at no

time have secured my felicity.’

‘But they may secure that which brings felicity,’ said Flora, speaking

in a choking voice, and not meeting the glance of Coningsby. ‘You had

some views in life which displeased him who has done all this; they may

be, they must be, affected by this fatal caprice. Speak to me, for I

cannot speak, dear Mr. Coningsby; do not let me believe that I, who

would sacrifice my life for your happiness, am the cause of such

calamities!’

‘Whatever be my lot, I repeat I can sustain it,’ said Coningsby, with a

cheek of scarlet.

‘Ah! he is angry with me,’ exclaimed Flora; ‘he is angry with me!’ and

the tears stole down her pale cheek.

‘No, no, no! dear Flora; I have no other feelings to you than those of

affection and respect,’ and Coningsby, much agitated, drew his chair

nearer to her, and took her hand. ‘I am gratified by these kind wishes,

though they are utterly impracticable; but they are the witnesses of

your sweet disposition and your noble spirit. There never shall exist

between us, under any circumstances, other feelings than those of kin

and kindness.’

He rose as if to depart. When she saw that, she started, and seemed to

summon all her energies.

‘You are going,’ she exclaimed, ‘and I have said nothing, I have said

nothing; and I shall never see you again. Let me tell you what I mean.

This fortune is yours; it must be yours. It is an arrow in my heart. Do

not think I am speaking from a momentary impulse. I know myself. I have

lived so much alone, I have had so little to deceive or to delude me,

that I know myself. If you will not let me do justice you declare my

doom. I cannot live if my existence is the cause of all your prospects

being blasted, and the sweetest dreams of your life being defeated. When

I die, these riches will be yours; that you cannot prevent. Refuse my

present offer, and you seal the fate of that unhappy Flora whose fragile

life has hung for years on the memory of your kindness.’

‘You must not say these words, dear Flora; you must not indulge in these

gloomy feelings. You must live, and you must live happily. You have

every charm and virtue which should secure happiness. The duties and

the affections of existence will fall to your lot. It is one that will

always interest me, for I shall ever be your friend. You have conferred

on me one of the most delightful of feelings, gratitude, and for that I

bless you. I will soon see you again.’ Mournfully he bade her farewell.

CHAPTER V.

About a week after this interview with Flora, as Coningsby one morning

was about to sally forth from the Albany to visit some chambers in the

Temple, to which his notice had been attracted, there was a loud ring, a

bustle in the hall, and Henry Sydney and Buckhurst were ushered in.

There never was such a cordial meeting; and yet the faces of his

friends were serious. The truth is, the paragraphs in the newspapers had

circulated in the country, they had written to Coningsby, and after a

brief delay he had confirmed their worst apprehensions. Immediately they

came up to town. Henry Sydney, a younger son, could offer little but

sympathy, but he declared it was his intention also to study for the

bar, so that they should not be divided. Buckhurst, after many embraces

and some ordinary talk, took Coningsby aside, and said, ‘My dear fellow,

I have no objection to Henry Sydney hearing everything I say, but still

these are subjects which men like to be discussed in private. Of course

I expect you to share my fortune. There is enough for both. We will have

an exact division.’

There was something in Buckhurst’s fervent resolution very lovable and a

little humorous, just enough to put one in good temper with human nature

and life. If there were any fellow’s fortune in the world that Coningsby

would share, Buckhurst’s would have had the preference; but while he

pressed his hand, and with a glance in which a tear and a smile seemed

to contend for mastery, he gently indicated why such arrangements were,

with our present manners, impossible.

‘I see,’ said Buckhurst, after a moment’s thought, ‘I quite agree with

you. The thing cannot be done; and, to tell you the truth, a fortune

is a bore. What I vote that we three do at once is, to take plenty of

ready-money, and enter the Austrian service. By Jove! it is the only

thing to do.’

‘There is something in that,’ said Coningsby. ‘In the meantime, suppose

you two fellows walk with me to the Temple, for I have an appointment to

look at some chambers.’

It was a fine day, and it was by no means a gloomy walk. Though the

two friends had arrived full of indignation against Lord Monmouth, and

miserable about their companion, once more in his society, and finding

little difference in his carriage, they assumed unconsciously their

habitual tone. As for Buckhurst, he was delighted with the Temple, which

he visited for the first time. The name enchanted him. The tombs in the

church convinced him that the Crusades were the only career. He would

have himself become a law student if he might have prosecuted his

studies in chain armour. The calmer Henry Sydney was consoled for the

misfortunes of Coningsby by a fanciful project himself to pass a portion

of his life amid these halls and courts, gardens and terraces, that

maintain in the heart of a great city in the nineteenth century, so much

of the grave romance and picturesque decorum of our past manners.

Henry Sydney was sanguine; he was reconciled to the disinheritance of

Coningsby by the conviction that it was a providential dispensation to

make him a Lord Chancellor.

These faithful friends remained in town with Coningsby until he was

established in Paper Buildings, and had become a pupil of a celebrated

special pleader. They would have remained longer had not he himself

suggested that it was better that they should part. It seemed a terrible

catastrophe after all the visions of their boyish days, their college

dreams, and their dazzling adventures in the world.

‘And this is the end of Coningsby, the brilliant Coningsby, that we all

loved, that was to be our leader!’ said Buckhurst to Lord Henry as

they quitted him. ‘Well, come what may, life has lost something of its

bloom.’

‘The great thing now,’ said Lord Henry, ‘is to keep up the chain of

our friendship. We must write to him very often, and contrive to be

frequently together. It is dreadful to think that in the ways of life

our hearts may become estranged. I never felt more wretched than I do at

this moment, and yet I have faith that we shall not lose him.’

‘Amen!’ said Buckhurst; ‘but I feel my plan about the Austrian service

was, after all, the only thing. The Continent offers a career. He might

have been prime minister; several strangers have been; and as for war,

look at Brown and Laudohn, and half a hundred others. I had a much

better chance of being a field-marshal than he has of being a Lord

Chancellor.’

‘I feel quite convinced that Coningsby will be Lord Chancellor,’ said

Henry Sydney, gravely.

This change of life for Coningsby was a great social revolution. It was

sudden and complete. Within a month after the death of his grandfather

his name had been erased from all his fashionable clubs, and his horses

and carriages sold, and he had become a student of the Temple. He

entirely devoted himself to his new pursuit. His being was completely

absorbed in it. There was nothing to haunt his mind; no unexperienced

scene or sensation of life to distract his intelligence. One sacred

thought alone indeed there remained, shrined in the innermost sanctuary

of his heart and consciousness. But it was a tradition, no longer a

hope. The moment that he had fairly recovered from the first shock of

his grandfather’s will; had clearly ascertained the consequences to

himself, and had resolved on the course to pursue; he had communicated

unreservedly with Oswald Millbank, and had renounced those pretensions

to the hand of his sister which it ill became the destitute to prefer.

His letter was answered in person. Millbank met Henry Sydney and

Buckhurst at the chambers of Coningsby. Once more they were all

four together; but under what different circumstances, and with what

different prospects from those which attended their separation at Eton!

Alone with Coningsby, Millbank spoke to him things which letters could

not convey. He bore to him all the sympathy and devotion of Edith; but

they would not conceal from themselves that, at this moment, and in the

present state of affairs, all was hopeless. In no way did Coningsby ever

permit himself to intimate to Oswald the cause of his disinheritance. He

was, of course, silent on it to his other friends; as any communication

of the kind must have touched on a subject that was consecrated in his

inmost soul.

CHAPTER VI.

The state of political parties in England in the spring of 1841 offered

a most remarkable contrast to their condition at the period commemorated

in the first chapter of this work. The banners of the Conservative camp

at this moment lowered on the Whig forces, as the gathering host of the

Norman invader frowned on the coast of Sussex. The Whigs were not

yet conquered, but they were doomed; and they themselves knew it. The

mistake which was made by the Conservative leaders in not retaining

office in 1839; and, whether we consider their conduct in a national

and constitutional light, or as a mere question of political tactics and

party prudence, it was unquestionably a great mistake; had infused into

the corps of Whig authority a kind of galvanic action, which only the

superficial could mistake for vitality. Even to form a basis for their

future operations, after the conjuncture of ‘39, the Whigs were obliged

to make a fresh inroad on the revenue, the daily increasing debility

of which was now arresting attention and exciting public alarm. It was

clear that the catastrophe of the government would be financial.

Under all the circumstances of the case, the conduct of the Whig

Cabinet, in their final propositions, cannot be described as deficient

either in boldness or prudence. The policy which they recommended was

in itself a sagacious and spirited policy; but they erred in supposing

that, at the period it was brought forward, any measure promoted by the

Whigs could have obtained general favour in the country. The Whigs were

known to be feeble; they were looked upon as tricksters. The country

knew they were opposed by a powerful party; and though there certainly

never was any authority for the belief, the country did believe that

that powerful party were influenced by great principles; had in their

view a definite and national policy; and would secure to England,

instead of a feeble administration and fluctuating opinions, energy and

a creed.

The future effect of the Whig propositions of ‘41 will not be

detrimental to that party, even if in the interval they be appropriated

piecemeal, as will probably be the case, by their Conservative

successors. But for the moment, and in the plight in which the Whig

party found themselves, it was impossible to have devised measures more

conducive to their precipitate fall. Great interests were menaced by a

weak government. The consequence was inevitable. Tadpole and Taper

saw it in a moment. They snuffed the factious air, and felt the coming

storm. Notwithstanding the extreme congeniality of these worthies,

there was a little latent jealousy between them. Tadpole worshipped

Registration: Taper, adored a Cry. Tadpole always maintained that it

was the winnowing of the electoral lists that could alone gain the day;

Taper, on the contrary, faithful to ancient traditions, was ever of

opinion that the game must ultimately be won by popular clamour. It

always seemed so impossible that the Conservative party could ever be

popular; the extreme graciousness and personal popularity of the leaders

not being sufficiently apparent to be esteemed an adequate set-off

against the inveterate odium that attached to their opinions; that the

Tadpole philosophy was the favoured tenet in high places; and Taper had

had his knuckles well rapped more than once for manoeuvring too actively

against the New Poor-law, and for hiring several link-boys to bawl

a much-wronged lady’s name in the Park when the Court prorogued

Parliament.

And now, after all, in 1841, it seemed that Taper was right. There was

a great clamour in every quarter, and the clamour was against the Whigs

and in favour of Conservative principles. What Canadian timber-merchants

meant by Conservative principles, it is not difficult to conjecture;

or West Indian planters. It was tolerably clear on the hustings

what squires and farmers, and their followers, meant by Conservative

principles. What they mean by Conservative principles now is another

question: and whether Conservative principles mean something higher than

a perpetuation of fiscal arrangements, some of them impolitic, none of

them important. But no matter what different bodies of men understood by

the cry in which they all joined, the Cry existed. Taper beat Tadpole;

and the great Conservative party beat the shattered and exhausted Whigs.

Notwithstanding the abstraction of his legal studies, Coningsby could

not be altogether insensible to the political crisis. In the political

world of course he never mixed, but the friends of his boyhood were

deeply interested in affairs, and they lost no opportunity which

he would permit them, of cultivating his society. Their occasional

fellowship, a visit now and then to Sidonia, and a call sometimes

on Flora, who lived at Richmond, comprised his social relations. His

general acquaintance did not desert him, but he was out of sight, and

did not wish to be remembered. Mr. Ormsby asked him to dinner, and

occasionally mourned over his fate in the bow window of White’s; while

Lord Eskdale even went to see him in the Temple, was interested in his

progress, and said, with an encouraging look, that, when he was called

to the bar, all his friends must join and get up the steam. Coningsby

had once met Mr. Rigby, who was walking with the Duke of Agincourt,

which was probably the reason he could not notice a lawyer. Mr. Rigby

cut Coningsby.

Lord Eskdale had obtained from Villebecque accurate details as to the

cause of Coningsby being disinherited. Our hero, if one in such fallen

fortunes may still be described as a hero, had mentioned to Lord Eskdale

his sorrow that his grandfather had died in anger with him; but Lord

Eskdale, without dwelling on the subject, had assured him that he had

reason to believe that if Lord Monmouth had lived, affairs would have

been different. He had altered the disposition of his property at a

moment of great and general irritation and excitement; and had been too

indolent, perhaps really too indisposed, which he was unwilling ever to

acknowledge, to recur to a calmer and more equitable settlement. Lord

Eskdale had been more frank with Sidonia, and had told him all about

the refusal to become a candidate for Darlford against Mr. Millbank; the

communication of Rigby to Lord Monmouth, as to the presence of Oswald

Millbank at the castle, and the love of Coningsby for his sister; all

these details, furnished by Villebecque to Lord Eskdale, had been truly

transferred by that nobleman to his co-executor; and Sidonia, when he

had sufficiently digested them, had made Lady Wallinger acquainted with

the whole history.

The dissolution of the Whig Parliament by the Whigs, the project of

which had reached Lord Monmouth a year before, and yet in which nobody

believed to the last moment, at length took place. All the world was

dispersed in the heart of the season, and our solitary student of the

Temple, in his lonely chambers, notwithstanding all his efforts, found

his eye rather wander over the pages of Tidd and Chitty as he remembered

that the great event to which he had so looked forward was now

occurring, and he, after all, was no actor in the mighty drama. It was

to have been the epoch of his life; when he was to have found himself

in that proud position for which all the studies, and meditations, and

higher impulses of his nature had been preparing him. It was a keen

trial of a man. Every one of his friends and old companions were

candidates, and with sanguine prospects. Lord Henry was certain for a

division of his county; Buckhurst harangued a large agricultural

borough in his vicinity; Eustace Lyle and Vere stood in coalition for

a Yorkshire town; and Oswald Millbank solicited the suffrages of an

important manufacturing constituency. They sent their addresses to

Coningsby. He was deeply interested as he traced in them the influence

of his own mind; often recognised the very expressions to which he

had habituated them. Amid the confusion of a general election, no

unimpassioned critic had time to canvass the language of an address to

an isolated constituency; yet an intelligent speculator on the movements

of political parties might have detected in these public declarations

some intimation of new views, and of a tone of political feeling that

has unfortunately been too long absent from the public life of this

country.

It was the end of a sultry July day, the last ray of the sun shooting

down Pall Mall sweltering with dust; there was a crowd round the doors

of the Carlton and the Reform Clubs, and every now and then an express

arrived with the agitating bulletin of a fresh defeat or a new triumph.

Coningsby was walking up Pall Mall. He was going to dine at the Oxford

and Cambridge Club, the only club on whose list he had retained his

name, that he might occasionally have the pleasure of meeting an Eton or

Cambridge friend without the annoyance of encountering any of his former

fashionable acquaintances. He lighted in his walk on Mr. Tadpole and

Mr. Taper, both of whom he knew. The latter did not notice him, but Mr.

Tadpole, more good-natured, bestowed on him a rough nod, not unmarked by

a slight expression of coarse pity.

Coningsby ordered his dinner, and then took up the evening papers, where

he learnt the return of Vere and Lyle; and read a speech of Buckhurst

denouncing the Venetian Constitution, to the amazement of several

thousand persons, apparently not a little terrified by this unknown

danger, now first introduced to their notice. Being true Englishmen,

they were all against Buckhurst’s opponent, who was of the Venetian

party, and who ended by calling out Buckhurst for his personalities.

Coningsby had dined, and was reading in the library, when a waiter

brought up a third edition of the _Sun_, with electioneering bulletins

from the manufacturing districts to the very latest hour. Some large

letters which expressed the name of Darlford caught his eye. There

seemed great excitement in that borough; strange proceedings had

happened. The column was headed, ‘Extraordinary Affair! Withdrawal of

the Liberal Candidate! Two Tory Candidates in the field!!!’

His eye glanced over an animated speech of Mr. Millbank, his

countenance changed, his heart palpitated. Mr. Millbank had resigned

the representation of the town, but not from weakness; his avocations

demanded his presence; he had been requested to let his son supply his

place, but his son was otherwise provided for; he should always take a

deep interest in the town and trade of Darlford; he hoped that the

link between the borough and Hellingsley would be ever cherished; loud

cheering; he wished in parting from them to take a step which should

conciliate all parties, put an end to local heats and factious

contentions, and secure the town an able and worthy representative. For

these reasons he begged to propose to them a gentleman who bore a

name which many of them greatly honoured; for himself, he knew the

individual, and it was his firm opinion that whether they considered his

talents, his character, or the ancient connection of his family with

the district, he could not propose a candidate more worthy of their

confidence than HARRY CONINGSBY, ESQ.

This proposition was received with that wild enthusiasm which

occasionally bursts out in the most civilised communities. The contest

between Millbank and Rigby was equally balanced, neither party was

over-confident. The Conservatives were not particularly zealous in

behalf of their champion; there was no Marquess of Monmouth and no

Coningsby Castle now to back him; he was fighting on his own resources,

and he was a beaten horse. The Liberals did not like the prospect of a

defeat, and dreaded the mortification of Rigby’s triumph. The Moderate

men, who thought more of local than political circumstances, liked the

name of Coningsby. Mr. Millbank had dexterously prepared his leading

supporters for the substitution. Some traits of the character and

conduct of Coningsby had been cleverly circulated. Thus there was a

combination of many favourable causes in his favour. In half an hour’s

time his image was stamped on the brain of every inhabitant of the

borough as an interesting and accomplished youth, who had been wronged,

and who deserved to be rewarded. It was whispered that Rigby was his

enemy. Magog Wrath and his mob offered Mr. Millbank’s committee to throw

Mr. Rigby into the river, or to burn down his hotel, in case he was

prudent enough not to show. Mr. Rigby determined to fight to the last.

All his hopes were now staked on the successful result of this contest.

It were impossible if he were returned that his friends could refuse him

high office. The whole of Lord Monmouth’s reduced legacy was devoted

to this end. The third edition of the _Sun_ left Mr. Rigby in vain

attempting to address an infuriated populace.

Here was a revolution in the fortunes of our forlorn Coningsby! When his

grandfather first sent for him to Monmouth House, his destiny was

not verging on greater vicissitudes. He rose from his seat, and was

surprised that all the silent gentlemen who were about him did not mark

his agitation. Not an individual there that he knew. It was now an hour

to midnight, and to-morrow the almost unconscious candidate was to go to

the poll. In a tumult of suppressed emotion, Coningsby returned to his

chambers. He found a letter in his box from Oswald Millbank, who had

been twice at the Temple. Oswald had been returned without a contest,

and had reached Darlford in time to hear Coningsby nominated. He set off

instantly to London, and left at his friend’s chambers a rapid narrative

of what had happened, with information that he should call on him

again on the morrow at nine o’clock, when they were to repair together

immediately to Darlford in time for Coningsby to be chaired, for no one

entertained a doubt of his triumph.

Coningsby did not sleep a wink that night, and yet when he rose early

felt fresh enough for any exploit, however difficult or hazardous. He

felt as an Egyptian does when the Nile rises after its elevation had

been despaired of. At the very lowest ebb of his fortunes, an event

had occurred which seemed to restore all. He dared not contemplate the

ultimate result of all these wonderful changes. Enough for him, that

when all seemed dark, he was about to be returned to Parliament by

the father of Edith, and his vanquished rival who was to bite the dust

before him was the author of all his misfortunes. Love, Vengeance,

Justice, the glorious pride of having acted rightly, the triumphant

sense of complete and absolute success, here were chaotic materials from

which order was at length evolved; and all subsided in an overwhelming

feeling of gratitude to that Providence that had so signally protected

him.

There was a knock at the door. It was Oswald. They embraced. It seemed

that Oswald was as excited as Coningsby. His eye sparkled, his manner

was energetic.

‘We must talk it all over during our journey. We have not a minute to

spare.’

During that journey Coningsby learned something of the course of affairs

which gradually had brought about so singular a revolution in his

favour. We mentioned that Sidonia had acquired a thorough knowledge of

the circumstances which had occasioned and attended the disinheritance

of Coningsby. These he had told to Lady Wallinger, first by letter,

afterwards in more detail on her arrival in London. Lady Wallinger had

conferred with her husband. She was not surprised at the goodness of

Coningsby, and she sympathised with all his calamities. He had ever been

the favourite of her judgment, and her romance had always consisted in

blending his destinies with those of her beloved Edith. Sir Joseph was a

judicious man, who never cared to commit himself; a little selfish, but

good, just, and honourable, with some impulses, only a little afraid

of them; but then his wife stepped in like an angel, and gave them the

right direction. They were both absolutely impressed with Coningsby’s

admirable conduct, and Lady Wallinger was determined that her husband

should express to others the convictions which he acknowledged in unison

with herself. Sir Joseph spoke to Mr. Millbank, who stared; but Sir

Joseph spoke feebly. Lady Wallinger conveyed all this intelligence, and

all her impressions, to Oswald and Edith. The younger Millbank talked

with his father, who, making no admissions, listened with interest,

inveighed against Lord Monmouth, and condemned his will.

After some time, Mr. Millbank made inquiries about Coningsby, took an

interest in his career, and, like Lord Eskdale, declared that when he

was called to the bar, his friends would have an opportunity to evince

their sincerity. Affairs remained in this state, until Oswald thought

that circumstances were sufficiently ripe to urge his father on

the subject. The position which Oswald had assumed at Millbank had

necessarily made him acquainted with the affairs and fortune of his

father. When he computed the vast wealth which he knew was at his

parent’s command, and recalled Coningsby in his humble chambers, toiling

after all his noble efforts without any results, and his sister pining

in a provincial solitude, Oswald began to curse wealth, and to

ask himself what was the use of all their marvellous industry and

supernatural skill? He addressed his father with that irresistible

frankness which a strong faith can alone inspire. What are the objects

of wealth, if not to bless those who possess our hearts? The only

daughter, the friend to whom the only son was indebted for his life,

here are two beings surely whom one would care to bless, and both are

unhappy. Mr. Millbank listened without prejudice, for he was already

convinced. But he felt some interest in the present conduct of

Coningsby. A Coningsby working for his bread was a novel incident for

him. He wished to be assured of its authenticity. He was resolved to

convince himself of the fact. And perhaps he would have gone on yet

for a little time, and watched the progress of the experiment,

already interested and delighted by what had reached him, had not the

dissolution brought affairs to a crisis. The misery of Oswald at the

position of Coningsby, the silent sadness of Edith, his own conviction,

which assured him that he could do nothing wiser or better than take

this young man to his heart, so ordained it that Mr. Millbank, who

was after all the creature of impulse, decided suddenly, and decided

rightly. Never making a single admission to all the representations of

his son, Mr. Millbank in a moment did all that his son could have dared

to desire.

This is a very imperfect and crude intimation of what had occurred

at Millbank and Hellingsley; yet it conveys a faint sketch of the

enchanting intelligence that Oswald conveyed to Coningsby during their

rapid travel. When they arrived at Birmingham, they found a messenger

and a despatch, informing Coningsby, that at mid-day, at Darlford, he

was at the head of the poll by an overwhelming majority, and that Mr.

Rigby had resigned. He was, however, requested to remain at Birmingham,

as they did not wish him to enter Darlford, except to be chaired, so

he was to arrive there in the morning. At Birmingham, therefore, they

remained.

There was Oswald’s election to talk of as well as Coningsby’s. They had

hardly had time for this. Now they were both Members of Parliament.

Men must have been at school together, to enjoy the real fun of meeting

thus, and realising boyish dreams. Often, years ago, they had talked

of these things, and assumed these results; but those were words and

dreams, these were positive facts; after some doubts and struggles, in

the freshness of their youth, Oswald Millbank and Harry Coningsby

were members of the British Parliament; public characters, responsible

agents, with a career.

This afternoon, at Birmingham, was as happy an afternoon as usually

falls to the lot of man. Both of these companions were labouring under

that degree of excitement which is necessary to felicity. They had

enough to talk about. Edith was no longer a forbidden or a sorrowful

subject. There was rapture in their again meeting under such

circumstances. Then there were their friends; that dear Buckhurst, who

had just been called out for styling his opponent a Venetian, and all

their companions of early days. What a sudden and marvellous change in

all their destinies! Life was a pantomime; the wand was waved, and it

seemed that the schoolfellows had of a sudden become elements of power,

springs of the great machine.

A train arrived; restless they sallied forth, to seek diversion in the

dispersion of the passengers. Coningsby and Millbank, with that glance,

a little inquisitive, even impertinent, if we must confess it, with

which one greets a stranger when he emerges from a public conveyance,

were lounging on the platform. The train arrived; stopped; the doors

were thrown open, and from one of them emerged Mr. Rigby! Coningsby, who

had dined, was greatly tempted to take off his hat and make him a bow,

but he refrained. Their eyes met. Rigby was dead beat. He was evidently

used up; a man without a resource; the sight of Coningsby his last blow;

he had met his fate.

‘My dear fellow,’ said Coningsby, ‘I remember I wanted you to dine with

my grandfather at Montem, and that fellow would not ask you. Such is

life!’

About eleven o’clock the next morning they arrived at the Darlford

station. Here they were met by an anxious deputation, who received

Coningsby as if he were a prophet, and ushered him into a car covered

with satin and blue ribbons, and drawn by six beautiful grey horses,

caparisoned in his colours, and riden by postilions, whose very whips

were blue and white. Triumphant music sounded; banners waved; the

multitude were marshalled; the Freemasons, at the first opportunity,

fell into the procession; the Odd Fellows joined it at the nearest

corner. Preceded and followed by thousands, with colours flying,

trumpets sounding, and endless huzzas, flags and handkerchiefs waving

from every window, and every balcony filled with dames and maidens

bedecked with his colours, Coningsby was borne through enthusiastic

Darlford like Paulus Emilius returning from Macedon. Uncovered, still

in deep mourning, his fine figure, and graceful bearing, and his

intelligent brow, at once won every female heart.

The singularity was, that all were of the same opinion: everybody

cheered him, every house was adorned with his colours. His triumphal

return was no party question. Magog Wrath and Bully Bluck walked

together like lambs at the head of his procession.

The car stopped before the principal hotel in the High Street. It was

Mr. Millbank’s committee. The broad street was so crowded, that, as

every one declared, you might have walked on the heads of the people.

Every window was full; the very roofs were peopled. The car stopped,

and the populace gave three cheers for Mr. Millbank. Their late member,

surrounded by his friends, stood in the balcony, which was fitted up

with Coningsby’s colours, and bore his name on the hangings in gigantic

letters formed of dahlias. The flashing and inquiring eye of Coningsby

caught the form of Edith, who was leaning on her father’s arm.

The hustings were opposite the hotel, and here, after a while, Coningsby

was carried, and, stepping from his car, took up his post to address,

for the first time, a public assembly. Anxious as the people were

to hear him, it was long before their enthusiasm could subside into

silence. At length that silence was deep and absolute. He spoke; his

powerful and rich tones reached every ear. In five minutes’ time every

one looked at his neighbour, and without speaking they agreed that there

never was anything like this heard in Darlford before.

He addressed them for a considerable time, for he had a great deal to

say; not only to express his gratitude for the unprecedented manner in

which he had become their representative, and for the spirit in which

they had greeted him, but he had to offer them no niggard exposition

of the views and opinions of the member whom they had so confidingly

chosen, without even a formal declaration of his sentiments.

He did this with so much clearness, and in a manner so pointed and

popular, that the deep attention of the multitude never wavered. His

lively illustrations kept them often in continued merriment. But when,

towards his close, he drew some picture of what he hoped might be the

character of his future and lasting connection with the town, the vast

throng was singularly affected. There were a great many present at that

moment who, though they had never seen Coningsby before, would willingly

have then died for him. Coningsby had touched their hearts, for he had

spoken from his own. His spirit had entirely magnetised them. Darlford

believed in Coningsby: and a very good creed.

And now Coningsby was conducted to the opposite hotel. He walked through

the crowd. The progress was slow, as every one wished to shake hands

with him. His friends, however, at last safely landed him. He sprang

up the stairs; he was met by Mr. Millbank, who welcomed him with the

greatest warmth, and offered his hearty congratulations.

‘It is to you, dear sir, that I am indebted for all this,’ said

Coningsby.

‘No,’ said Mr. Millbank, ‘it is to your own high principles, great

talents, and good heart.’

After he had been presented by the late member to the principal

personages in the borough, Mr. Millbank said,

‘I think we must now give Mr. Coningsby a little rest. Come with me,’ he

added, ‘here is some one who will be very glad to see you.’

Speaking thus, he led our hero a little away, and placing his arm in

Coningsby’s with great affection opened the door of an apartment. There

was Edith, radiant with loveliness and beaming with love. Their agitated

hearts told at a glance the tumult of their joy. The father joined their

hands, and blessed them with words of tenderness.

CHAPTER VII.

The marriage of Coningsby and Edith took place early in the autumn.

It was solemnised at Millbank, and they passed their first moon at

Hellingsley, which place was in future to be the residence of the member

for Darlford. The estate was to devolve to Coningsby after the death of

Mr. Millbank, who in the meantime made arrangements which permitted

the newly-married couple to reside at the Hall in a manner becoming its

occupants. All these settlements, as Mr. Millbank assured Coningsby,

were effected not only with the sanction, but at the express instance,

of his son.

An event, however, occurred not very long after the marriage of

Coningsby, which rendered this generous conduct of his father-in-law no

longer necessary to his fortunes, though he never forgot its exercise.

The gentle and unhappy daughter of Lord Monmouth quitted a scene with

which her spirit had never greatly sympathised. Perhaps she might have

lingered in life for yet a little while, had it not been for that fatal

inheritance which disturbed her peace and embittered her days, haunting

her heart with the recollection that she had been the unconscious

instrument of injuring the only being whom she loved, and embarrassing

and encumbering her with duties foreign to her experience and her

nature. The marriage of Coningsby had greatly affected her, and from

that day she seemed gradually to decline. She died towards the end

of the autumn, and, subject to an ample annuity to Villebecque, she

bequeathed the whole of her fortune to the husband of Edith. Gratifying

as it was to him to present such an inheritance to his wife, it was not

without a pang that he received the intelligence of the death of Flora.

Edith sympathised in his affectionate feelings, and they raised a

monument to her memory in the gardens of Hellingsley.

Coningsby passed his next Christmas in his own hall with his beautiful

and gifted wife by his side, and surrounded by the friends of his heart

and his youth.

They stand now on the threshold of public life. They are in the leash,

but in a moment they will be slipped. What will be their fate? Will they

maintain in august assemblies and high places the great truths which, in

study and in solitude, they have embraced? Or will their courage exhaust

itself in the struggle, their enthusiasm evaporate before hollow-hearted

ridicule, their generous impulses yield with a vulgar catastrophe to the

tawdry temptations of a low ambition? Will their skilled intelligence

subside into being the adroit tool of a corrupt party? Will Vanity

confound their fortunes, or Jealousy wither their sympathies? Or will

they remain brave, single, and true; refuse to bow before shadows and

worship phrases; sensible of the greatness of their position, recognise

the greatness of their duties; denounce to a perplexed and disheartened

world the frigid theories of a generalising age that have destroyed

the individuality of man, and restore the happiness of their country by

believing in their own energies, and daring to be great?