Hours elapsed, and the Captain had not returned home. I began to feel
uneasy, and went forth in search of him, though I knew not whither to
direct my steps. I thought it, however, at least probable, that he
had not been able to resist visiting Lady Ellinor, so I went first to
St James's Square. My suspicions were correct; the Captain had been
there two hours before. Lady Ellinor herself had gone out shortly after
the Captain left. While the porter was giving me this information, a
carriage stopped at the door, and a footman, stepping up, gave the
porter a note and a small parcel, seemingly of books, saying simply,
"From the Marquis of Castleton." At the sound of that name I turned
hastily, and recognised Sir Sedley Beaudesert seated in the carriage,
and looking out of the window with a dejected, moody expression of
countenance, very different from his ordinary aspect, except when the
rare sight of a gray hair, or a twinge of the toothache, reminded him
that he was no longer twenty-five. Indeed, the change was so great
that I exclaimed, dubiously--"Is that Sir Sedley Beaudesert?" The
footman looked at me, and touching his hat said, with a condescending
smile,--"Yes, sir--now the Marquis of Castleton."
Then, for the first time since the young lord's death, I remembered Sir
Sedley's expressions of gratitude to Lady Castleton, and the waters of
Ems, for having saved him from "that horrible marquisate." Meanwhile,
my old friend had perceived me, exclaiming,--
"What, Mr Caxton! I am delighted to see you. Open the door, Thomas.
Pray come in, come in."
I obeyed; and the new Lord Castleton made room for me by his side.
"Are you in a hurry?" said he; "if so, shall I take you anywhere?--if
not, give me half an hour of your time, while I drive to the City."
As I knew not now in what direction, more than another, to prosecute my
search for the Captain, and as I thought I might as well call at our
lodgings to inquire if he had not returned, I answered that I should
be very happy to accompany his lordship; "though the City," said I,
smiling, "sounds to me strange upon the lips of Sir Sedley--I beg
pardon, I should say of Lord--"
"Don't say any such thing; let me once more hear the grateful sound of
Sedley Beaudesert. Shut the door, Thomas; to Gracechurch Street--Messrs
Fudge and Fidget."
The carriage drove on.
"A sad affliction has befallen me," said the marquis, "and none
sympathise with me!"
"Yet all, even unacquainted with the late lord, must have felt shocked
at the death of one so young, and so full of promise."
"So fitted in every way to bear the burthen of the great Castleton
name and property, and yet you see it killed him! Ah! if he had been
but a simple gentleman, or if he had had less conscientious desire
to do his duties, he would have lived to a good old age. I know what
it is already. Oh, if you saw the piles of letters on my table! I
positively dread the post. Such colossal improvements on the property
which the poor boy had begun, for me to finish. What do you think takes
me to Fudge and Fidget's? Sir, they are the agents for an infernal
coal mine which my cousin had reopened in Durham, to plague my life
out with another thirty thousand pounds a-year! How am I to spend the
money?--how am I to spend it! There's a cold-blooded head steward,
who says that charity is the greatest crime a man in high station
can commit; it demoralises the poor. Then, because some half-a-dozen
farmers sent me a round-robin, to the effect that their rents were
too high, and I wrote them word the rents should be lowered, there
was such a hullabaloo--you would have thought heaven and earth were
coming together. 'If a man in the position of the Marquis of Castleton
set the example of letting land below its value, how could the poorer
squires in the county exist?--or, if they did exist, what injustice to
expose them, to the charge that they were grasping landlords, vampires,
and bloodsuckers. Clearly, if Lord Castleton lowered his rents, (they
were too low already,) he struck a mortal blow at the property of
his neighbours, if they followed his example; or at their character,
if they did not.' No man can tell how hard it is to do good, unless
fortune gives him a hundred thousand pounds a-year, and says,--'Now, do
good with it!' Sedley Beaudesert might follow his whims, and all that
would be said against him would be, 'Good-natured, simple fellow!' But
if Lord Castleton follow his whims, you would think he was a second
Catiline--unsettling the peace, and undermining the prosperity, of the
entire nation!" Here the wretched man paused, and sighed heavily; then,
as his thoughts wandered into a new channel of woe, he resumed,--"Ah,
if you could but see the forlorn great house I am expected to inhabit,
cooped up between dead walls, instead of my pretty rooms, with the
windows full on the park; and the balls I am expected to give, and the
parliamentary interest I am to keep up; and the villanous proposal
made to me to become a lord steward, or lord chamberlain, because it
suits my rank to be a sort of a servant. Oh, Pisistratus! you lucky
dog--not twenty-one, and with, I dare say, not two hundred pounds
a-year in the world!"
Thus bemoaning and bewailing his sad fortunes, the poor marquis ran on,
till at last he exclaimed, in a tone of yet deeper despair,--
"And everybody says I must marry, too!--that the Castleton line must
not be extinct! The Beaudeserts are a good old family eno'--as old, for
what I know, as the Castletons; but the British empire would suffer no
loss if they sank into the tomb of the Capulets. But that the Castleton
peerage should expire, is a thought of crime and woe, at which all
the mothers of England rise in a phalanx! And so, instead of visiting
the sins of the fathers on the sons, it is the father that is to be
sacrificed for the benefit of the third and fourth generation!"
Despite my causes for seriousness, I could not help laughing; my
companion turned on me a look of reproach.
"At least," said I, composing my countenance, "Lord Castleton has one
comfort in his afflictions--if he must marry, he may choose as he
pleases."
"That is precisely what Sedley Beaudesert could, and Lord Castleton
cannot do," said the marquis gravely. "The rank of Sir Sedley
Beaudesert was a quiet and comfortable rank--he might marry a curate's
daughter, or a duke's--and please his eye or grieve his heart as the
caprice took him. But Lord Castleton must marry, not for a wife,
but for a marchioness,--marry some one who _will wear his rank_ for
him,--take the trouble of splendour off his hands, and allow him to
retire into a corner, and dream that he is Sedley Beaudesert once more!
Yes, it must be so--the crowning sacrifice must be completed at the
altar. But a truce to my complaints. Trevanion informs me you are going
to Australia,--can that be true?"
"Perfectly true."
"They say there is a sad want of ladies there."
"So much the better,--I shall be all the more steady."
"Well, there's something in that. Have you seen Lady Ellinor?"
"Yes--this morning."
"Poor woman!--a great blow to her--we have tried to console each
other. Fanny, you know, is staying at Oxton, in Surrey, with Lady
Castleton,--the poor lady is so fond of her--and no one has comforted
her like Fanny."
"I was not aware that Miss Trevanion was out of town."
"Only for a few days, and then she and Lady Ellinor join Trevanion
in the north--you know he is with Lord N----, settling measures on
which--but alas, they consult me now on those matters--force their
secrets on me. I have, heaven knows how many votes! Poor me! Upon
my word, if Lady Ellinor was a widow, I should certainly make up to
her: very clever woman--nothing bores her." (The marquis yawned--Sir
Sedley Beaudesert never yawned.) "Trevanion has provided for his Scotch
secretary, and is about to get a place in the Foreign Office for that
young fellow Gower, whom, between you and me, I don't like. But he has
bewitched Trevanion!"
"What sort of a person is this Mr Gower?--I remember you said that he
was clever, and good-looking."
"He is both, but it is not the cleverness of youth; he is as hard and
sarcastic as if he had been cheated fifty times, and jilted a hundred!
Neither are his good looks that letter of recommendation which a
handsome face is said to be. He has an expression of countenance very
much like that of Lord Hertford's pet bloodhound, when a stranger
comes into the room. Very sleek, handsome dog, the bloodhound is
certainly--well-mannered, and I dare say exceedingly tame; but still
you have but to look at the corner of the eye, to know that it is
only the habit of the drawing-room that suppresses the creature's
constitutional tendency to seize you by the throat, instead of giving
you a paw. Still this Mr Gower has a very striking head--something
about it Moorish or Spanish, like a picture by Murillo: I half suspect
that he is less a Gower than a gipsy!"
"What!"--I cried, as I listened with rapt and breathless attention to
this description. "He is then very dark, with high narrow forehead,
features slightly aquiline, but very delicate, and teeth so dazzling
that the whole face seems to sparkle when he smiles--though it is only
the lip that smiles, not the eye."
"Exactly as you say; you have seen him, then?"
"Why, I am not sure, since you say his name is Gower."
"_He_ says his name is Gower," returned Lord Castleton, drily, as he
inhaled the Beaudesert mixture.
"And where is he now?--with Mr Trevanion?"
"Yes, I believe so. Ah! here we are--Fudge and Fidget! But perhaps,"
added Lord Castleton, with a gleam of hope in his blue eye,--"perhaps
they are not at home!"
Alas, that was an illusive "imagining," as the poets of the nineteenth
century unaffectedly express themselves. Messrs Fudge and Fidget were
never out to such clients as the Marquis of Castleton: with a deep
sigh, and an altered expression of face, the Victim of Fortune slowly
descended the steps of the carriage.
"I can't ask you to wait for me," said he; "heaven only knows how long
I shall be kept! Take the carriage where you will, and send it back to
me."
"A thousand thanks, my dear lord, I would rather walk--but you will let
me call on you before I leave town."
"Let you!--I insist on it. I am still at the old quarters, under
pretence," said the marquis, with a sly twinkle of the eyelid, "that
Castleton House wants painting!"
"At twelve to-morrow, then?"
"Twelve to-morrow. Alas! that's just the hour at which Mr Screw, the
agent for the London property, (two squares, seven streets, and a
lane!) is to call."
"Perhaps two o'clock will suit you better?"
"Two!--just the hour at which Mr Plausible, one of the Castleton
members, insists upon telling me why his conscience will not let him
vote with Trevanion!"
"Three o'clock?"
"Three!--just the hour at which I am to see the Secretary of the
Treasury, who has promised to relieve Mr Plausible's conscience! But
come and dine with me--you will meet the executors to the will!"
"Nay, Sir Sedley--that is, my dear lord--I will take my chance, and
look in, after dinner."
"Do so; my guests are not lively! What a firm step the rogue has! Only
twenty, I think--twenty! and not an acre of property to plague him!" So
saying, the marquis dolorously shook his head, and vanished through the
noiseless mahogany doors, behind which Messrs Fudge and Fidget awaited
the unhappy man,--with the accounts of the great Castleton coal mine.