And looking stedfastly at her, she sighed,
As if she pitied her for being there,
A pretty stranger without friend or guide,
And all abash’d, too, at the general stare.
BYRON.
“I have invited a few friends to dine with us,” said Castleton, some
little time after the incidents of the last chapter. “I suppose you
will wish Lady Gayland to be one.”
“O by all means,” readily answered Lucy. “I always feel so much more
at my ease when she is by; not only she is always so kind to me; but
wherever _she_ is, every one must be occupied with her, so that if I
am awkward or not, no one has leisure to mark it.”
Castleton, whose dinners had always been “_recherché_,” as a
batchelor, had hitherto felt nervous as to Lucy’s being able to pass
the critical examination of a long London dinner, but at last having
for some time not detected any glaring impropriety in her deportment,
he became again desirous to collect his friends around him at his own
table.
It has been remarked before, that neither politics nor any of the
graver avocations of life had ever had much charm for Castleton.
Society, which to men of more active pursuits is but a relaxation,
was to him an occupation. It was the field in which must be
maintained his position as a critic, connoisseur, and man of
unrivalled taste. And where society is a _métier_, the man who gives
dinners differs as much from one who does not, as the _ins_ from the
_outs_ in politics,--one may earn some empty fame, but the other has
the real following.
On the evening of Castleton’s first dinner, Lucy had finished her
toilet early. Anxious to gratify her husband with a change, she had
for the first time adopted a novelty in her costume--abandoning her
usual ringlets, she had had her fine hair simply parted across her
forehead, adopting this mode, though not so much in the fashion, in
imitation of Lady Gayland, on whom she had often admired its effect.
Perhaps, generally speaking, it would be as safe to ape oddity
of conversation without the wit which excites it, as to imitate
any peculiarity in dress, which might only be becoming to its
inventor. But in this instance, Lucy’s attempt was successful, for
the same chaste classical setting which added elevation to the
thought-thronged brow of her gifted prototype, suited admirably the
simplicity of her own pure and innocent countenance.
Lucy’s first glance at the mirror as she entered the drawing-room,
convinced her that the effect was favourable, and she waited with the
impatience of agreeable expectation for Castleton’s opinion, which
she had no doubt he would express at once upon seeing her. It was,
therefore, a matter of disappointment to her, that when he entered,
it was in one of those absent and pre-occupied moods in which a man
looks at all things without seeing any.
Many little harmless artifices did poor Lucy play off to endeavour to
attract his attention before any of the company should arrive, and
thus prevent his expressing that approbation which she hoped she had
earned. She could not help thinking that the more she looked at him,
the more he must look at her, and therefore with a gaze that seemed
to require reciprocity, kept her eyes fixed on him, through all his
fidgetty and evidently uneasy movements.
The cause of this strange deportment on his part, arose from a
note he had found, upon his return home, from Sir North Saunders,
containing an acceptance of a verbal invitation he had given him
somewhat late to dine with him that day.
The party which he had invited was not a large one, though somewhat
mixed. The only ladies were Lady Gayland and Mrs. Tudor. He had
carefully avoided any practised scoffers, lest a _manque des
convenances_, on Lucy’s part, should unhappily furnish them with a
ready subject for ridicule on the morrow. But the sight of Sir North
addressing Lucy, without the slightest suspicion, as a person he
had never seen before, always gave him comfort, as reassuring him
as to the impossibility of her ever being recognized as having been
connected with the trial at ----. He had, therefore, on meeting Sir
North, pressed him to dine with him, and on Sir North regretting
that his having asked a friend himself, rendered it impossible,
Castleton had rather imprudently extended the invitation to the said
friend, to which Sir North demurred at the time, but had since wrote
to say--“Proud to present to your more special notice--rising young
man--particular friend,--Peter Spencer.”
Now not only did Castleton, from all he had heard, as well as the
little he had seen of Peter Spencer, dislike him particularly, but he
was also aware, that if ever the identity of Lady Castleton with the
Lucy Darnell of the assizes was to be detected, it was most likely
to be effected by the prying Peter Spencer, who was also one of the
very few people who could recollect her in the former situation.
He had, therefore, as much as he could, avoided that individual,
which, as Spencer now affected professional practice, and therefore
made but rare apparitions in general society, was not difficult. The
prospect of having brought upon himself such an intrusion into his
own house, was therefore not agreeable, and he was still puzzling
himself whether he could with advantage caution Lucy particularly,
as to her deportment towards that person, when the opportunity was
lost by the first knock at the door, which sound roused him from his
abstraction. He looked at Lucy for the first time attentively, and
kissed her kindly, saying, “How very much that becomes you! You look
so very well, and yet so unlike your usual self, that I should think
some might find it difficult to know you again.”
The door opened as he said this, thoroughly expected to see shut
in the pompous little person of Peter Spencer; but it was only a
punctual artist, a _protégé_ of Castleton’s, who was much struck
with the appearance of his patron’s bride, and enchanted with the
idea of so fine a subject as a sitter.
The long twilight of a London summer evening had almost ceased to
struggle against the artificial darkness of the drawing-room; the
company had collected, and the shades of night had gathered round
them, before Sir North and Peter Spencer arrived, and attempted to
guess their way through an obscure mass of friends and _fauteuils_ to
make their obeisance in the direction which Castleton’s voice marked
as that where was seated their indistinguishable hostess.
When dinner was announced, and Castleton and Lady Gayland of course
headed the downward procession, there ensued a pause in those
who were to follow, either arising from the darkness or doubtful
precedence, or the want of some one to marshall the order of march:
a point in which, of course Lucy was profoundly ignorant.
“How absurd!” said Lady Gayland, “the minute point to which this
mummery is studied in England. Men will sometimes draw back in horror
from an almost offered arm, and avoid the propinquity which can alone
make the party agreeable to him, for fear it should be supposed that
he had forgotten that his ancestors only fought at Agincourt, whilst
there was another man in the room whose name was connected with
Cressy. In that land, where social liberty has survived political
restraint, where we have so often met, it is the most recent
preference, not the most ancient patent, which places people.”
“I, at least, have no right to complain,” said Castleton, “who have
obtained by one system what I should have sought by the other.”
“Meaning me: of course you could not help saying as much, considering
how easily such things are said.”
“Mr. Spencer, will you sit next to Lady Gayland?” said Castleton to
him, catching him _en passant_, anxious to fix him at a distance from
Lucy.
“O no!” said Lady Gayland, “Mr. Mastic, I won’t hear of your
deserting me. Mr. Mastic here, is very anxious to study my profile,
which Lord Castleton has promised to give him an opportunity of doing
by being very agreeable on the other side; so Mr. Spencer, that
your presence is impossible--I am in despair;”--and Peter Spencer
proceeded upwards, where he found a vacant chair at the other side,
within two of Lucy--the party, it was stated, not being a very large
one, and the table circular.
“What had I done to deserve that?” asked Lady Gayland; “if you
had provided yourself with a silent pendant, _come questo_,” in a
lower tone, and glancing at Mr. Mastic, “I might have believed your
previous pretty speech; but to fix upon me so active a bore, you must
have determined to devote yourself entirely to Mrs. Tudor.”
Castleton could not give his real reason, and therefore merely said,
“I always thought Spencer had been rather protected by you.”
“Protected! never; sometimes attacked, but there is no luxury one
wears out so soon, as one’s butt. Like a glove, it ought never to be
used twice, it becomes so easy.”
Peter Spencer, in the mean time, from his new position, had every
opportunity of observing the fair hostess. The first impression was
rendered more striking, from the blaze of light by which she was now
surrounded, so immediately succeeding the obscurity out of which
they had groped their way. He had not even seen her at a distance
among the crowd at Lady Delacour’s ball; the only place to which he
had been since she came to town. At first view he merely retained
some indistinct recollection of its being a face he had somewhere
before seen; and it was only when she spoke that a confused idea of
the truth broke upon him. She was sitting next Lord Stayinmore, who,
to those who did not know him, and could not venture to treat him as
Lady Gayland did, was rather a formidable person. In answering his
pompous questions, Lucy got rather nervous, and there was something
in the tone of her reply, which recalled to Spencer’s mind the young
girl at the Assize town, under the examination of his senior, old Mr.
Bailey.
Turning to his next neighbour, he addressed him, with
“I can _e_-spy a most extra-_or_dinary res-_em_-blance in
our f-_a_cin-_a_ting hostess to an unf_or_tunate fe-_e_male
imp_li_cated in a nef-_a_rious tr_an_saction in the course of my
prof-_es_s-_io_nal career.”
“Hum,” said his neighbour, whom the communication did not all
interest.
Finding no encouragement in this quarter, with the strange
coincidence running in his head, though, as yet, without suspecting
the identity, he vociferated to Sir North, who sat just opposite to
him.
“Sir North, was not Lord Castleton in c_o_u_r_t at that most
extra-_or_dinary trial of a case, whose loc-_a_lity was in the
neighbourhood of H-_or_nscliff A-bb-_e_y?”
Castleton, even in the midst of one of Lady Gayland’s most brilliant
sallies, caught the drawling intonation of Spencer making this
_mal-apropos_ inquiry; and before Sir North could even finish his
reply, “that he was himself not in court,” he had interposed with,
“Mr. Spencer, a glass of wine--champagne?” But this only procured a
respite, through the assent, the order, its execution, the bow, and
the swallow, which completed the social libation. Peter Spencer then
continued, and Castleton could catch just enough of what followed to
make him uneasy, without enabling him to ascertain the moment when he
could interpose, and yet not bring about the very discovery he wished
to avoid.
Who has not sometimes suffered under that worst of conversational
penances, the feeling obliged to appear to listen to your next
neighbour, when you cannot help catching from a distance disjointed
words of some topic your peculiar favourite, on which you are most
anxious either to listen or amuse. But Castleton’s position was
even worse than this; for it was Lady Gayland, in her most winning
mood, who was his next neighbour, and it was her he was obliged to
neglect, in attempting to catch indistinctly the most unwelcome tones
of Mr. Spencer’s disagreeable voice.
“But, Sir North, though s-_a_tisf_a_ctory proof could not be then
el-_i_c_i_ted, I _o_-pine we shall have the h-_a_nging y_e_t of that
f_e_llow. D_a_rnell was his name; I have no doubt he made away with
the _u_-nkn-_o_wn. A blood-thirsty cut-throat from his birth.”
“O no, that he was not!” exclaimed Lucy vehemently, “he was the
kindest boy that ever breathed, and I have no doubt he will still
live to do honour to those who are kind to him.”
“Your ladyship, then, was personally acquainted with him?” inquired
Spencer.
“No, not I--Lord Castleton. Yes--why should I deny it? No! how should
I know? I was only joking--Ha! ha! ha! O dear, I’m very ill,” cried
she, again relapsing into a sort of hysterical laugh.
Her nerves being very much excited by her attempt to suppress any
appearance of interest in the conversation she had overheard; and
then having been incautiously betrayed into an imprudent speech, by
her desire to defend George from so harsh a sentence, she at last
got completely bewildered between her innate desire to speak the
truth when asked, and her horror at having unintentionally committed
herself, in a manner which she knew would, of all others, be most
displeasing to her husband.
Castleton, to whose painfully excited attention all this last
scene had been but too audible, was hardly withheld, even by the
imminent danger of an _esclandre_, which such a proceeding might
entail, from starting up, and, under the plea of illness, which
Lucy’s own expression had rendered plausible, inducing her at once
to retire. Yet he was afraid that sufficient clue had already been
given to the pettifogging intellect of Peter Spencer to enable
him to connect that sudden illness, which would of course become
the subject of conversation, with his own acute suspicion. Whilst
Castleton was still hesitating, Lucy not yet attempting to recover
herself,--general attention concentrating upon her, and wonderment
spreading, as to the cause of her strange state,--Lady Gayland
stretched her beautiful arm towards one of those tall, rickety,
pagoda-like bonbonnieres, which were here, as elsewhere, dotted about
the circle of the table at certain intervals, and lightly touching
it with her finger, the top-heavy machine tipped over with exactly
the impetus she intended, and both its circular and globular contents
rolled far and near, and scattered themselves all over the table,
and from the direction in which they were slily propelled, they
particularly abounded in the neighbourhood of Peter Spencer.
“If that had been done on purpose, the mischief could not have been
more complete. Lord Castleton can you pardon my awkwardness?” said
Lady Gayland, who had watched the progress of Lucy’s dilemma, knew
much more of its origin than any of the principal parties believed,
and had on the spur of the moment devised this expedient to divert
attention, and relieve Lucy’s difficulties.
“Good comes of evil though,” said she; “I am rewarded for my
clumsiness by a full view of Mr. Spencer, who was hitherto under an
eclipse to me, and now does he not rise upon me in all his grandeur!
Since Marius, in the ruins of Carthage, there never was anything
so stern or sublime, as he looks amongst the _debris_ of scattered
sugar-plums, and broken _bon-bons_.”
That is a happy expression of the French _saisir la ridicule_. But
no one knew so well as she did exactly the moment to bring into play
that faculty which must be innate, for no art can teach _saisir la
ridicule_.
She had, in this instance, both a motive for exertion and an object
on which to exercise it, and she certainly did not spare Peter
Spencer. The consequence of which was, that not only Lucy had time to
recover herself, but that her previous confusion was forgotten by the
company in the impression of the amusement furnished by Lady Gayland;
and even Spencer himself departed with, to the full, as distinct an
idea that he had made himself ridiculous, as that he had made Lady
Castleton uncomfortable.