_The Bird is Caged_
HITHERTO the Duke of St. James had been a celebrated personage, but his
fame had been confined to the two thousand Brahmins who constitute the
world. His patronage of the Signora extended his celebrity in a manner
which he had not anticipated; and he became also the hero of the ten, or
twelve, or fifteen millions of pariahs for whose existence philosophers
have hitherto failed to adduce a satisfactory cause.
The Duke of St. James was now, in the comprehensive sense of the phrase,
a public character. Some choice spirits took the hint from the public
feeling, and determined to dine on the public curiosity. A Sunday
journal was immediately established. Of this epic our Duke was the hero.
His manners, his sayings, his adventures, regularly regaled, on each
holy day, the Protestant population of this Protestant empire, who in
France or Italy, or even Germany, faint at the sight of a peasantry
testifying their gratitude for a day of rest by a dance or a tune.
‘Sketches of the Alhambra,’ ‘_Soupers_ in the Regent’s Park,’ ‘The Court
of the Caliph,’ ‘The Bird Cage,’ &c, &c, &c, were duly announced and
duly devoured. This journal, being solely devoted to the illustration
of the life of a single and a private individual, was appropriately
entitled ‘The Universe.’ Its contributors were eminently successful.
Their pure inventions and impure details were accepted as delicate
truth; and their ferocious familiarity with persons with whom they were
totally unacquainted demonstrated at the same time their knowledge both
of the forms and the personages of polite society.
At the first announcement of this hebdomadal his Grace was a little
annoyed, and ‘Noctes Hautevillienses’ made him fear treason; but when
he had read a number, he entirely acquitted any person of a breach of
confidence. On the whole he was amused. A variety of ladies in time were
introduced, with many of whom the Duke had scarcely interchanged a bow;
but the respectable editor was not up to Lady Afy.
If his Grace, however, were soon reconciled to this not very agreeable
notoriety, and consoled himself under the activity of his libellers
by the conviction that their prolusions did not even amount to a
caricature, he was less easily satisfied with another performance which
speedily advanced its claims to public notice.
There is an unavoidable reaction in all human affairs. The Duke of
St. James had been so successfully attacked that it became worth while
successfully to defend him, and another Sunday paper appeared, the
object of which was to maintain the silver side of the shield. Here
everything was _couleur de rose_. One week the Duke saved a poor man
from the Serpentine; another a poor woman from starvation; now an orphan
was grateful; and now Miss Zouch, impelled by her necessity and his
reputation, addressed him a column and a half, quite heart-rending.
Parents with nine children; nine children without parents; clergymen
most improperly unbeneficed; officers most wickedly reduced; widows of
younger sons of quality sacrificed to the Colonies; sisters of literary
men sacrificed to national works, which required his patronage to
appear; daughters who had known better days, but somehow or other
had not been so well acquainted with their parents; all advanced with
multiplied petitions, and that hackneyed, heartless air of misery which
denotes the mumper. His Grace was infinitely annoyed, and scarcely
compensated for the inconvenience by the prettiest little creature in
the world, who one day forced herself into his presence to solicit the
honour of dedicating to him her poems.
He had enough on his hands, so he wrote her a cheque and, with a
courtesy which must have made Sappho quite desperate, put her out of the
room.
We forgot to say that the name of the new journal was ‘The New World.’
The new world is not quite so big as the universe, but then it is as
large as all the other quarters of the globe together. The worst of this
business was, ‘The Universe’ protested that the Duke of St. James, like
a second Canning, had called this ‘New World’ into existence, which was
too bad, because, in truth, he deprecated its discovery scarcely less
than the Venetians.
Having thus managed, in the course of a few weeks, to achieve the
reputation of an unrivalled roué, our hero one night betook himself to
Almack’s, a place where his visits, this season, were both shorter and
less frequent.
Many an anxious mother gazed upon him, as he passed, with an eye which
longed to pierce futurity; many an agitated maiden looked exquisitely
unembarrassed, while her fluttering memory feasted on the sweet thought
that, at any rate, another had not captured this unrivalled prize.
Perhaps she might be the Anson to fall upon this galleon. It was worth a
long cruise, and even a chance of shipwreck.
He danced with Lady Aphrodite, because, since the affair of the Signora,
he was most punctilious in his attentions to her, particularly in
public. That affair, of course, she passed over in silence, though it
was bitter. She, however, had had sufficient experience of man to feel
that remonstrance is a last resource, and usually an ineffectual one. It
was something that her rival--not that her ladyship dignified the Bird
by that title--it was something that she was not her equal, that she was
not one with whom she could be put in painful and constant collision.
She tried to consider it a freak, to believe only half she heard, and
to indulge the fancy that it was a toy which would soon tire. As for
Sir Lucius, he saw nothing in this adventure, or indeed in the Alhambra
system at all, which militated against his ulterior views. No one more
constantly officiated at the ducal orgies than himself, both because he
was devoted to self-gratification, and because he liked ever to have
his protégé in sight. He studiously prevented any other individual from
becoming the Petronius of the circle. His deep experience also taught
him that, with a person of the young Duke’s temper, the mode of life
which he was now leading was exactly the one which not only would
insure, but even hurry, the catastrophe his faithful friend so eagerly
desired. His pleasures, as Sir Lucius knew, would soon pall; for he
easily perceived that the Duke was not heartless enough for a roué. When
thorough satiety is felt, young men are in the cue for desperate deeds.
Looking upon happiness as a dream, or a prize which, in life’s lottery,
they have missed; worn, hipped, dissatisfied, and desperate, they often
hurry on a result which they disapprove, merely to close a miserable
career, or to brave the society with which they cannot sympathise.
The Duke, however, was not yet sated. As after a feast, when we have
despatched a quantity of wine, there sometimes, as it were, arises a
second appetite, unnatural to be sure, but very keen; so, in a career of
dissipation, when our passion for pleasure appears to be exhausted, the
fatal fancy of man, like a wearied hare, will take a new turn, throw off
the hell-hounds of ennui, and course again with renewed vigour.
And to-night the Duke of St. James was, as he had been for some weeks,
all life, and fire, and excitement; and his eye was even now wandering
round the room in quest of some consummate spirit whom he might summon
to his Saracenic Paradise.
A consummate spirit his eye lighted on. There stood May Dacre. He gasped
for breath. He turned pale. It was only for a moment, and his emotion
was unperceived. There she stood, beautiful as when she first glanced
before him; there she stood, with all her imperial graces; and all
surrounding splendour seemed to fade away before her dazzling presence,
like mournful spirits of a lower world before a radiant creature of the
sky.
She was speaking with her sunlight smile to a young man whose appearance
attracted his notice. He was dressed entirely in black, rather short,
but slenderly made; sallow, but clear, with long black curls and a
Murillo face, and looked altogether like a young Jesuit or a Venetian
official by Giorgone or Titian. His countenance was reserved and his
manner not easy: yet, on the whole, his face indicated intellect and his
figure blood. The features haunted the Duke’s memory. He had met this
person before. There are some countenances which when once seen can
never be forgotten, and the young man owned one of these. The Duke
recalled him to his memory with a pang.
Our hero--let him still be ours, for he is rather desolate, and he
requires the backing of his friends--our hero behaved pretty well. He
seized the first favourable opportunity to catch Miss Dacre’s eye, and
was grateful for her bow. Emboldened, he accosted her, and asked after
Mr. Dacre. She was courteous, but unembarrassed. Her calmness, however,
piqued him sufficiently to allow him to rally. He was tolerably easy,
and talked of calling. Their conversation lasted only for a few minutes,
and was fortunately terminated without his withdrawal, which would have
been awkward. The young man whom we have noticed came up to claim her
hand.
‘Arundel Dacre, or my eyes deceive me?’ said the young Duke. ‘I always
consider an old Etonian a friend, and therefore I address you without
ceremony.’
The young man accepted, but not with readiness, the offered hand. He
blushed and spoke, but in a hesitating and husky voice. Then he cleared
his throat, and spoke again, but not much more to the purpose. Then he
looked to his partner, whose eyes were on the ground, and rose as he
endeavoured to catch them. For a moment he was silent again; then he
bowed slightly to Miss Dacre and solemnly to the Duke, and then he
carried off his cousin.
‘Poor Dacre!’ said the Duke; ‘he always had the worst manner in the
world. Not in the least changed.’
His Grace wandered into the tea-room. A knot of dandies were in deep
converse. He heard his own name and that of the Duke of Burlington; then
came ‘Doncaster beauty.’ ‘Don’t you know?’ ‘Oh! yes.’ ‘All quite mad,’
&c, &c, &c. As he passed he was invited in different ways to join the
coterie of his admirers, but he declined the honour, and passed them
with that icy hauteur which he could assume, and which, judiciously
used, contributed not a little to his popularity.
He could not conquer his depression; and, although it was scarcely
past midnight, he determined to disappear. Fortunately his carriage was
waiting. He was at a loss what to do with himself. He dreaded even to be
alone. The Signora was at a private concert, and she was the last
person whom, at this moment, he cared to see. His low spirits rapidly
increased. He got terribly nervous, and felt miserable. At last he drove
to White’s.
The House had just broken up, and the political members had just
entered, and in clusters, some standing and some yawning, some
stretching their arms and some stretching their legs, presented symptoms
of an escape from boredom. Among others, round the fire, was a young man
dressed in a rough great coat all cords and sables, with his hat bent
aside, a shawl tied round his neck with boldness, and a huge oaken staff
clenched in his left hand. With the other he held the ‘Courier,’ and
reviewed with a critical eye the report of the speech which he had made
that afternoon. This was Lord Darrell.
We have always considered the talents of younger brothers as an
unanswerable argument in favour of a Providence. Lord Darrell was the
younger son of the Earl of Darleyford, and had been educated for a
diplomatist. A report some two years ago had been very current that
his elder brother, then Lord Darrell, was, against the consent of his
family, about to be favoured with the hand of Mrs. Dallington Vere.
Certain it is he was a devoted admirer of that lady. Of that lady,
however, a less favoured rival chose one day to say that which staggered
the romance of the impassioned youth. In a moment of rashness, impelled
by sacred feelings, it is reported, at least, for the whole is a
mystery, he communicated what he had heard with horror to the mistress
of his destinies. Whatever took place, certain it is Lord Darrell
challenged the indecorous speaker, and was shot through the heart. The
affair made a great sensation, and the Darleyfords and their connections
said bitter things of Mrs. Dallington, and talked much of rash youth and
subtle women of discreeter years, and passions shamefully inflamed and
purposes wickedly egged on. We say nothing of all this; nor will we
dwell upon it. Mrs. Dallington Vere assuredly was no slight sufferer.
But she conquered the cabal that was formed against her, for the dandies
were her friends, and gallantly supported her through a trial under
which some women would have sunk. As it was, at the end of the season
she did travel, but all is now forgotten; and Hill Street, Berkeley
Square, again contains, at the moment of our story, its brightest
ornament.
The present Lord Darrell gave up all idea of being an ambassador, but he
was clever; and though he hurried to gratify a taste for pleasure
which before had been too much mortified, he could not relinquish the
ambitious prospects with which he had, during the greater part of his
life, consoled himself for his cadetship. He piqued himself upon being
at the same time a dandy and a statesman. He spoke in the House, and not
without effect. He was one of those who make themselves masters of great
questions; that is to say, who read a great many reviews and newspapers,
and are full of others’ thoughts without ever having thought themselves.
He particularly prided himself upon having made his way into the
Alhambra set. He was the only man of business among them. The Duke
liked him, for it is agreeable to be courted by those who are themselves
considered.
Lord Darrell was a favourite with women. They like a little intellect.
He talked fluently on all subjects. He was what is called ‘a talented
young man.’ Then he had mind, and soul, and all that. The miracles of
creation have long agreed that body without soul will not do; and even
a coxcomb in these days must be original, or he is a bore. No longer is
such a character the mere creation of his tailor and his perfumer. Lord
Darrell was an avowed admirer of Lady Caroline St. Maurice, and a great
favourite with her parents, who both considered him an oracle on
the subjects which respectively interested them. You might dine at
Fitz-pompey House and hear his name quoted at both ends of the table; by
the host upon the state of Europe, and by the hostess upon the state of
the season. Had it not been for the young Duke, nothing would have
given Lady Fitz-pompey greater pleasure than to have received him as
a son-in-law; but, as it was, he was only kept in store for the second
string to Cupid’s bow.
Lord Darrell had just quitted the House in a costume which, though
rough, was not less studied than the finished and elaborate toilet
which, in the course of an hour, he will exhibit in the enchanted halls
of Almack’s. There he will figure to the last, the most active and the
most remarked; and though after these continued exertions he will not
gain his couch perhaps till seven, our Lord of the Treasury, for he
is one, will resume his official duties at an earlier hour than any
functionary in the kingdom.
Yet our friend is a little annoyed now. What is the matter? He dilates
to his uncle, Lord Seymour Temple, a greyheaded placeman, on the
profligacy of the press. What is this? The Virgilian line our orator
introduced so felicitously is omitted. He panegyrizes the ‘Mirror of
Parliament,’ where, he has no doubt, the missing verse will appear. The
quotation was new, ‘Timeo Danaos.’
Lord Seymour Temple begins a long story about Fox and General
Fitzpatrick. This is a signal for a general retreat; and the bore, as
Sir Boyle Roche would say, like the last rose of summer, remains talking
to himself.