The Exclusives (vol. 2 of 3)

THE CLOSING SCENE AT RESTORMEL.

On the evening previous to Lord Albert's departure, while Mr. Foley and Lady Hamlet Vernon were intently engaged in playing at chess, Lord Albert announced to Lady Ellersby his intention of leaving Restormel, and paid her the usual compliment of thanks for the honour she had done him in inviting him there.

"You have lost your queen," cried Mr. Foley, addressing Lady Hamlet Vernon, "now in two moves I will give you checkmate, lady fair. But see--what is the matter?--she is ill--she faints--lend assistance for heaven's sake!" Lord Albert flew towards the spot, and caught Lady Hamlet as she was falling to the ground. The usual remedies were applied; and when sufficiently recovered, the sufferer was carried to her room, apparently still unable to speak.

"I hate all scene-makers," said Lady Boileau; "if there is a thing I cannot bear, it is the getting up of a sentimental catastrophe.--Don't you, Mr. Leslie Winyard?--Don't you think it is the acmé of bad taste?"

"Oh! most undoubtedly; nothing argues a decided roturièrism more than allowing your feelings, if real, to get the better of you in public; and if feigned, nothing is so easily seen through as counterfeiting them, therefore, either way, it is at best a mistake."

"One don't look well when one faints--that is to say, really faints," observed Lady Ellersby; "it is surely best to avoid doing so."

"One may always command one's-self," observed Lady Baskerville.

"Oh!" said Lady Tilney, who now and then really thought and felt right, "it is very easy to distinguish between a feint and a faint; and I believe every body would ridicule the first, and nobody would like to do the latter; because, as Lady Ellersby observes, no real fainting, or crying, or any of the convulsions produced by the feelings, are the least graceful, except in the beau ideal of a Magdalen, or on a painter's easel; and secondly, because nothing is less likely to produce interest than these kind of physical causes; for, as some great author says, 'all physical sufferings are soon forgotten even by the sufferer, when they are past, and by our friends certainly never remembered beyond their immediate duration, if so long;' consequently I believe Lady Hamlet Vernon did faint tout bonnement: she had probably une indigestion; poor Lady!--but she will soon be well again."

"Spoken like an orator," said Mr. Spencer Newcombe; "and not only an orator, but a philosopher."

"Par drivers moyens on arrive à pareille fin," said the Comtesse Leinsengen; "and providing one does what one wants to do, that is all that sinifies. One person faints, another talks, another dresses, another writes, all in order to get what they wish. On the success depends the wisdom of the measure."

"Agreed," cried Mr. Spencer Newcombe, "and conceived like a diplomate du premier grade," he whispered to Lady Baskerville; then aloud, "if Tonnerre had been here he would have said--"

"I will bet you ten to one," cried Mr. Leslie Winyard, "that Lord Albert D'Esterre does not leave Restormel to-morrow."

"Done," said Mr. Spencer Newcombe.--

"Done," said Lord Baskerville; "ten to one he does; for I never knew a more obstinate fellow in my life; one who prizes himself more _on decision of character_--and when he says he will do a thing he will do it, however little he may like the thing when done."

"I don't think he will go," said Lady Ellersby, gently.

"Why not?" asked Lady Tilney.

"Lady Hamlet Vernon will not let him."

"C'est tout simple," rejoined Comtesse Leinsengen, with a shrug of her shoulders.

"It appears to me," said Lady Baskerville, "that if he does go he will not be very much missed. I never knew so dull a member of society; he never speaks but to lay down the law, or to inculcate some moral truth: now really when one has done with the nursery, that is rather too bad."

"Providing she don't drive away George Foley," said Lady Boileau, "she may reap the fruits of her fainting here."

"Mr. Foley," replied Lady Baskerville to her dear friend, "is the man in the world who will do whatever suits him best; and I particularly admire his manner and his ways: they are all perfectly in good taste; and I have already promised him that he shall be my cavaliere servente for the season."

"Promised!--well, dear Lady Baskerville, I thought you were too prudent to make such promises. What will Lord Baskerville say?" lowering her tone to a whisper.

Lady Baskerville, speaking aloud--"Oh, dear! la! I should never have thought of asking him what he likes upon such an occasion;--we live too well together to trouble each other with our little arrangements.--Is it not true, Lord Baskerville? do we not do exactly as we choose?"

"I hope your Ladyship does," he replied, in all the airs of his exclusive character; "I should conceive myself vastly unhappy if you did not?" Lady Baskerville looked significantly at her dear friend Lady Boileau; who knew, as well as herself, that this ultra-liberalism of her Lord in regard to the conduct of wives, whatever it might be in respect to husbands, was entirely assumed on Lord Baskerville's part.

While this conversation passed in the drawing-room, Lord Albert and Mr. Foley were discoursing in their apartment above-stairs. They had each expressed great interest about Lady Hamlet Vernon's indisposition; and after waiting some time to hear accounts of her from her female attendants, they fell into other conversation of various kinds, during which Lord Albert D'Esterre found himself unfeignedly amused and interested with the talents, taste, and refinement of Mr. Foley; and the more so, as he spoke much of Dunmelraise and its inhabitants, and was lavish in his praise of Lady Adeline.

"There is only one point," he said, "which however is hardly worth mentioning, for of course it only arises out of the seclusion and the monotony of her present existence; but certainly Lady Adeline, pour trancher le mot, is a little methodistical--the sooner you go and put that matter to rights the better." Lord Albert's manner of receiving the latter part of this information, proved to Mr. Foley that he had mistaken the character of the person he addressed, and he added,

"But indeed Lady Adeline Seymour is so perfect, that it matters very little what she does--every thing she does must be right."--The conversation then took another turn, and they parted.

Lord Albert D'Esterre was not what might be called a jealous man; but no man, no human being can be without the possibility of feeling jealousy--neither was he naturally suspicious, but nothing is more apt to generate a suspicion of the fidelity of another's conduct, than the consciousness of any breach in the integrity of our own. He pressed his hand to his heart--he sat down--rose up--paced his chamber, and still repeated to himself the praises which Mr. Foley had uttered of his Adeline. "_My_ Adeline," he said, and then again stopped; "but is she mine? do I deserve she should still be mine, when I have so neglected her? no!"--His servant came into the room with a note, the well known shape and colour of which he could not mistake. It was placed in his hand--he opened it carelessly and was about to cast it away, when the name of Adeline caught his eye; then he hastily read the following words.

"It is not for myself I mourn--it is not the threatened loss of your society, however much I value it, which has occasioned my being so overpowered--it is the knowledge of a secret which pertains to another, and in which your fate is involved, that has quite mastered me--this much I must tell you. I must see you before you go, I must prepare you for your meeting with Lady Adeline Seymour." Twenty times he read over this note. "What can it mean? can its meaning be that Adeline loves Mr. Foley, at least that he thinks so? and I, what have I been doing? into what a sea of troubles have I plunged for the enjoyment of the society of a person that in fact affords me none--for the empty speculation of recalling the chaotic mind of one (comparatively a stranger to me) to a sense of reason and religion, fool that I was for the attempt." Then, after a considerable pause, and after deep reflection, he burst forth:

"Prepare me for a meeting with Adeline!" as his eye caught again the last line of the note. "_Prepare me for a meeting with Adeline_--I cannot bear the phrase; but I must know what she means--I must drag this secret from her:"--and he rang the bell violently!--"I shall not want my horses till one o'clock instead of seven to-morrow morning."

The night Lord Albert passed was one of feverish anxiety. He sent to inquire for Lady Hamlet Vernon at an early hour the next day; and hearing she was much recovered, he besought her to grant the interview she had done him the favour to offer as soon as she possibly could. She replied, that in that house it would be reckoned a breach of all decorum, if she received him at any undue hour; but that as soon as the earliest part of the company breakfasted, which was about one o'clock, she would be sure, notwithstanding her indisposition, to be in the breakfast-room at that time; when she would avail herself of some opportunity to give him the information which had come to her knowledge. This short delay seemed an age to him. Every one knows, when suspense agitates the mind, what a total anarchy ensues, and the hours which intervened before meeting Lady Hamlet Vernon seemed to Lord Albert interminable. When they did meet, the intervening moments ere an opportunity occurred of Lord Albert's drawing her aside, appeared in their turn so many more ages of suffering.

At last the company rose from the breakfast table, and as Lady Hamlet took Lord Albert's arm, and walked out on the terrace under the window, she said, "This is kind of you to have listened to my request:" and then as they walked from the house, proceeded in a graver tone to add, "I am aware, dear Lord Albert, that my note of last night must have surprised you, and that the subject connected with it, on which I am about to touch, is one of the utmost delicacy, and one which upon the very verge of the attempt I shrink from; but you have evinced so much real interest in the state of my wayward mind, and have said so much to me with a view, I am certain, of placing my happiness on a more secure and steady foundation than I had ever any chance of before, that I should be ungrateful in the extreme, if a corresponding wish for your comfort in life did not in turn actuate me. I cannot be ignorant of the engagement between yourself and Lady Adeline Seymour, the fulfilment of which will not, I presume, be long delayed; unless, indeed--"

Here Lady Hamlet Vernon's voice faltered, and for a moment she paused; but, as if making an effort to subdue her emotion, she added in a lower and firmer tone, and with an expression of something like intreaty in her countenance as she looked up at Lord Albert, "Unless I, dear Lord Albert, shall prove the happy instrument of saving you from too precipitate a step in this matter. May I continue to speak to you thus unreservedly?" Lord Albert made no answer, but bowed his head in token of assent, while he walked by her side like one lost in a perturbed dream. She continued,