“Spirit of Fingall!
’Tis Fingall himself.”
If our readers are desirous to know how this personage, respecting whose
identity there seem to exist so many contradictory opinions, obtained
entrance to this gay circle, and the envied hand of Lady Julia L.;
nay, how it was that so many people actually believed him to be Lord
Fitz-Ullin; we must lead them back, about half an hour, to when, and
where, we left the sisters with Lord L., near the door of the first
reception-room.
Mammas told Lord L. that he ought to have allowed their girls a chance,
before he thus cruelly merged all that had been bright in the hemisphere
of fashion in the dazzling lustre of stars so pre-eminent. The young
ladies themselves thought, that had they had as beautiful dresses on,
they should have looked just as well. The downright old gentlemen
congratulated his Lordship, with sincere cordiality, on the charms of his
daughters. Those who still had twinkling eyes, and merry souls, wished
themselves twenty years younger, and envied the present generation. The
middle-aged dandies addressed well-turned compliments to the ladies
themselves; and the coxcomical young ones endeavoured to look quite
irresistible, as they made their bows in silence.
At length, “Lord Fitz-Ullin!—Lord Fitz-Ullin!” was thundered in the hall,
echoed, from servant to servant, on each landing of the stairs, and
finally repeated at the door of the reception room. The reports of his
Lordship’s intended marriage broken off at the altar, and of his having
shot himself for love, were fresh in the minds of all; so that the idea
of beholding him, appeared to create a pretty general sensation; and,
at the sound of his announcement, every head turned round. Yet, when he
did actually enter, Julia was not even aware of the circumstance. She
had looked towards the door, her heart trembling with the expectation of
seeing Edmund enter with him. And she had seen Edmund enter; but with
whom she had been too much agitated to notice. The appearance of our
hero had shocked her. It was that of one who had received a stunning
blow! All expression of feature was deadened,—all animation of air and
carriage gone! He advanced with eyes scarcely raised. If Julia’s ideas
had been thrown into a state of confusion on his first entrance, what was
her astonishment, when her father, presenting our hero, said, “Julia,
my dear, this is Lord Fitz-Ullin! Lord Fitz-Ullin, Lady Julia L., Lady
Frances L.”
It was now Lord L.’s turn to be surprised. He saw both his daughters
extend a hand at the same moment, while the gentleman he was in the act
of presenting, took a hand of each, and, though with a pale and quivering
lip, pronounced the names, Julia, Frances, divested of title.
All this had occupied but a second or two, during which Lord L. had
exclaimed, “My introduction has been superfluous here, I perceive!”
“Why, papa,” cried Frances, “this is Edmund!”
Julia attempted to speak, but failed. Lord L. looked his amazement, which
was too great for utterance.
“It is very true, my Lord,” said our hero, raising his eyes, and making
a wretched attempt to smile; “I am both Montgomery and Fitz-Ullin! and,
in that double character,” he added, in a tone of more feeling, “owe a
double debt of gratitude and affection to Lord L., and to—to all his
family,” he attempted to say, but voice failed him. Here, notwithstanding
Lord L.’s aversion to a scene, something very like one, unavoidably took
place; at the commencement of which, however, his Lordship had the
presence of mind, to hurry the party, for a few moments, just within
the doorway of a small refreshment room, which stood invitingly open
at but the distance of a pace or two, and which was as yet unoccupied.
Here Edmund hastily gave recitals, of some very unexpected discoveries,
which the supposed Lord Fitz-Ullin’s intended marriage had brought to
light, and which had proved our hero to be the only legitimate son and
rightful heir of the deceased Earl. The noble conduct of the individual
who was the sole sufferer, had, he explained, placed him at once in quiet
possession of all his rights. In answer to Lord L.’s surprise that a
clearer statement of facts had not appeared in the papers, he mentioned,
that the editors had been silenced, for the present, from delicacy to the
feelings of some of the parties. He seemed shocked when Frances assured
him, that his letter to her grandmamma, had been completely a riddle.
He thought, he said, that it had explained all that the papers had left
unexplained. But, he confessed that he had had much to agitate and
confuse his mind just at the time; and that he did not, therefore, know
exactly what he had written; his object, however, in writing, he said,
had been to mark the respect due to his revered benefactress, by giving
her the earliest intimation of the wonderful change in his circumstances.
Edmund confessed that he would have turned back, and postponed this
agitating interview till the next day, had he not got out of the carriage
and ascended the stairs in total abstraction of mind, and literally
without once looking about him till he had entered the first reception
room, when it was too late to retreat. Explanations ended, Lord L., as
the party returned to the company, said, with assumed carelessness:—
“It is full time, I should think, for the dancing to commence. You had
better take Julia out,” he added, lowering his voice, and addressing our
hero, “you know how to prevail in that quarter, I dare say!”
Edmund, (whom we must in future call Fitz-Ullin,) instead of colouring
became paler than before, and, without speaking, offered his arm to
Julia. She took it with a sensation of panic. The strangeness of his
present manner, agreed but too well with that letter, but for which, and
this manner, how happy had the wonderful discoveries of this evening made
her. How happy, even for dear Edmund’s sake, had it been possible not to
mingle self with the thought.
As she took his offered arm, she was certain she felt him shudder; but as
her own trembled at the time, she afterwards thought she might have been
mistaken.
They walked up the room in silence. Confused, and pained, Julia found
that she could not congratulate her companion on his good fortune
with the cordial frankness which had else been natural, nor ask half
the obvious questions, respecting circumstances so hastily explained,
and which had brought about, thus suddenly, a state of things, that
altogether appeared to her bewildered apprehension, more like a dream,
than a reality. Oh how delightedly would she have dwelt, she thought, a
short time since on such a subject, so full of wonder, and, which ought
to be, so full of joy.
But something extraordinary, something more than sorrow in the manner of
this incomprehensible being, whom she must now too, call by the new,
and not yet endeared name of Fitz-Ullin, seemed to have raised up an
insuperable barrier between them. Even the expression of his countenance,
(though still she beheld the features of Edmund) was, in all that
regarded mind, or indicated feeling, utterly changed.
His presence inspired her with an almost superstitious awe! He was so
like, and yet so unlike himself, that she traced the resemblance, with
feelings not far removed from those with which the identity of a visitant
from the grave might be recognised. And strange it is, that such identity
should appal, while it portrays what, in life, would have claimed our
fondest embrace.
He was indeed evidently miserable; and that idea, awakened every habitual
feeling of tenderness in Julia’s breast. The thought of, why he was thus
unhappy, came next in the train of reflections, and, as it presented
itself in the unwelcome form of his love for another, she unconsciously
suffered a sigh to be audible.
Fitz-Ullin looked suddenly round; her eyes were bent downwards; and
now, for the first time since he entered the room, he permitted his
to dwell, for a few seconds, on that perfect loveliness which he had
never contemplated, even in imagination, without a bewildering sense of
delight, which rendered the lapse of time imperceptible. Julia felt his
silent gaze, though she saw it not, and a thrill of pleasure accompanied
the consciousness; for which weakness, however, she instantly condemned
herself.
Thus occupied, our hero and heroine, arrived at the head of the dancing
room, forgetful of all present, while the eyes, if not of all, of many,
were, as we have seen, fixed on them. But where is that radiant joy;
where that sunshine of the heart brightening every feature, which might
naturally be expected, at this moment, to appear on the countenance of
the once humble Edmund, feeling himself, as he must now do, in every
circumstance the equal of that Julia, whom he had so long thought it
presumption, nay even ingratitude to love; yet loved to an excess so
uncontroulable, that no power was left of concealing his passion, and to
fly its object, had become his only resource.
When last he had been her partner in a scene like the present, could
some prophetic voice have said, “Within a few short months shall Edmund,
whose only home is the deep, have wide domains and large possessions,
inherited from his forefathers: Edmund, whose very name is but a borrowed
right, have titles and dignities, descending through lines of honoured
ancestry, and centring in him: Edmund, who knows not at what unlettered
grave to mourn a father’s loss, be found the son of him whose memory has
been embalmed by a nation’s tears!”
With what feelings had he hailed the wondrous prophecy! Yet, at
this moment, was all the fairy-tale vision realized, and Edmund,
notwithstanding, entered the mazes of the joyous dance, looking and
moving like one, bewildered by the excess of mental suffering.
The laws of the figure constantly severed the hand of his partner
from his, and as constantly required him to retake it; but, what with
anticipating this part of the ceremony at one time, and delaying it at
another, he was more than once guilty of actually deranging the order of
the quadrille.