"But surely," said Sir Joseph, "the Minister being responsible to Parliament, it must follow that all great offices of State should be filled at his discretion."
"But where do you find this principle of Ministerial responsibility?"
inquired Coningsby.
"And is not a Minister responsible to his Sovereign?" inquired Millbank.
Sir Joseph seemed a little confused. He had always heard that Ministers were responsible to Parliament; and he had a vague conviction, notwithstanding the reanimating loyalty of the Bed-Chamber Plot, that the Sovereign of England was a nonent.i.ty. He took refuge in indefinite expressions, and observed, "The Responsibility of Ministers is surely a const.i.tutional doctrine."
"The Ministers of the Crown are responsible to their master; they are not the Ministers of Parliament."
"But then you know virtually," said Sir Joseph, "the Parliament, that is, the House of Commons, governs the country."
"It did before 1832," said Coningsby; "but that is all past now. We got rid of that with the Venetian Const.i.tution."
"The Venetian Const.i.tution!" said Sir Joseph.
"To be sure," said Millbank. "We were governed in this country by the Venetian Const.i.tution from the accession of the House of Hanover. But that yoke is past. And now I hope we are in a state of transition from the Italian Dogeship to the English Monarchy."
"King, Lords, and Commons, the Venetian Const.i.tution!" exclaimed Sir Joseph.
"But they were phrases," said Coningsby, "not facts. The King was a Doge; the Cabinet the Council of Ten. Your Parliament, that you call Lords and Commons, was nothing more than the Great Council of n.o.bles."
"The resemblance was complete," said Millbank, "and no wonder, for it was not accidental; the Venetian Const.i.tution was intentionally copied."
"We should have had the Venetian Republic in 1640," said Coningsby, "had it not been for the Puritans. Geneva beat Venice."
"I am sure these ideas are not very generally known," said Sir Joseph, bewildered.
"Because you have had your history written by the Venetian party," said Coningsby, "and it has been their interest to conceal them."
"I will venture to say that there are very few men on our side in the House of Commons," said Sir Joseph, "who are aware that they were born under a Venetian Const.i.tution."
"Let us go to the ladies," said Millbank, smiling.
Edith was reading a letter as they entered.
"A letter from papa," she exclaimed, looking up at her brother with great animation. "We may expect him every day; and yet, alas! he cannot fix one."
They now all spoke of Millbank, and Coningsby was happy that he was familiar with the scene. At length he ventured to say to Edith, "You once made me a promise which you never fulfilled. I shall claim it to-night."
"And what can that be?"
"The song that you promised me at Millbank more than three years ago."
"Your memory is good."
"It has dwelt upon the subject."
Then they spoke for a while of other recollections, and then Coningsby appealing to Lady Wallinger for her influence, Edith rose and took up her guitar. Her voice was rich and sweet; the air she sang gay, even fantastically frolic, such as the girls of Granada chaunt trooping home from some country festival; her soft, dark eye brightened with joyous sympathy; and ever and anon, with an arch grace, she beat the guitar, in chorus, with her pretty hand.
The moon wanes; and Coningsby must leave these enchanted halls. Oswald walked homeward with him until he reached the domain of his grandfather.
Then mounting his horse, Coningsby bade his friend farewell till the morrow, and made his best way to the Castle.
CHAPTER V.
There is a romance in every life. The emblazoned page of Coningsby"s existence was now open. It had been prosperous before, with some moments of excitement, some of delight; but they had all found, as it were, their origin in worldly considerations, or been inevitably mixed up with them. At Paris, for example, he loved, or thought he loved. But there not an hour could elapse without his meeting some person, or hearing something, which disturbed the beauty of his emotions, or broke his spell-bound thoughts. There was his grandfather hating the Millbanks, or Sidonia loving them; and common people, in the common world, making common observations on them; asking who they were, or telling who they were; and brushing the bloom off all life"s fresh delicious fancies with their coa.r.s.e handling.
But now his feelings were ethereal. He loved pa.s.sionately, and he loved in a scene and in a society as sweet, as pure, and as refined as his imagination and his heart. There was no malicious gossip, no callous chatter to profane his ear and desecrate his sentiment. All that he heard or saw was worthy of the summer sky, the still green woods, the gushing river, the gardens and terraces, the stately and fantastic dwellings, among which his life now glided as in some dainty and gorgeous masque.
All the soft, social, domestic sympathies of his nature, which, however abundant, had never been cultivated, were developed by the life he was now leading. It was not merely that he lived in the constant presence, and under the constant influence of one whom he adored, that made him so happy. He was surrounded by beings who found felicity in the interchange of kind feelings and kind words, in the cultivation of happy talents and refined tastes, and the enjoyment of a life which their own good sense and their own good hearts made them both comprehend and appreciate.
Ambition lost much of its splendour, even his lofty aspirations something of their hallowing impulse of paramount duty, when Coningsby felt how much enn.o.bling delight was consistent with the seclusion of a private station; and mused over an existence to be pa.s.sed amid woods and waterfalls with a fair hand locked in his, or surrounded by his friends in some ancestral hall.
The morning after his first visit to h.e.l.lingsley Coningsby rejoined his friends, as he had promised Oswald at their breakfast-table; and day after day he came with the early sun, and left them only when the late moon silvered the keep of Coningsby Castle. Mr. Millbank, who wrote daily, and was daily to be expected, did not arrive. A week, a week of unbroken bliss, had vanished away, pa.s.sed in long rides and longer walks, sunset saunterings, and sometimes moonlit strolls; talking of flowers, and thinking of things even sweeter; listening to delicious songs, and sometimes reading aloud some bright romance or some inspiring lay.
One day Coningsby, who arrived at the hall unexpectedly late; indeed it was some hours past noon, for he had been detained by despatches which arrived at the Castle from Mr. Rigby, and which required his interposition; found the ladies alone, and was told that Sir Joseph and Oswald were at the fishing-cottage where they wished him to join them.
He was in no haste to do this; and Lady Wallinger proposed that when they felt inclined to ramble they should all walk down to the fishing-cottage together. So, seating himself by the side of Edith, who was tinting a sketch which she had made of a rich oriel of h.e.l.lingsley, the morning pa.s.sed away in that slight and yet subtle talk in which a lover delights, and in which, while asking a thousand questions, that seem at the first glance sufficiently trifling, he is indeed often conveying a meaning that is not expressed, or attempting to discover a feeling that is hidden. And these are occasions when glances meet and glances are withdrawn: the tongue may speak idly, the eye is more eloquent, and often more true.
Coningsby looked up; Lady Wallinger, who had more than once announced that she was going to put on her bonnet, was gone. Yet still he continued to talk trifles; and still Edith listened.
"Of all that you have told me," said Edith, "nothing pleases me so much as your description of St. Genevieve. How much I should like to catch the deer at sunset on the heights! What a pretty drawing it would make!"
"You would like Eustace Lyle," said Coningsby. "He is so shy and yet so ardent."
"You have such a band of friends! Oswald was saying this morning there was no one who had so many devoted friends."
"We are all united by sympathy. It is the only bond of friendship; and yet friendship--"
"Edith," said Lady Wallinger, looking into the room from the garden, with her bonnet on, "you will find me roaming on the terrace."
"We come, dear aunt."
And yet they did not move. There were yet a few pencil touches to be given to the tinted sketch; Coningsby would cut the pencils.
"Would you give me," he said, "some slight memorial of h.e.l.lingsley and your art? I would not venture to hope for anything half so beautiful as this; but the slightest sketch. It would make me so happy when away to have it hanging in my room."
A blush suffused the cheek of Edith; she turned her head a little aside, as if she were arranging some drawings. And then she said, in a somewhat hushed and hesitating voice,
"I am sure I will do so; and with pleasure. A view of the Hall itself; I think that would be the best memorial. Where shall we take it from?
We will decide in our walk?" and she rose, and promised immediately to return, left the room.
Coningsby leant over the mantel-piece in deep abstraction, gazing vacantly on a miniature of the father of Edith. A light step roused him; she had returned. Unconsciously he greeted her with a glance of ineffable tenderness.
They went forth; it was a grey, sultry day. Indeed it was the covered sky which had led to the fishing scheme of the morning. Sir Joseph was an expert and accomplished angler, and the Darl was renowned for its sport. They lingered before they reached the terrace where they were to find Lady Wallinger, observing the different points of view which the Hall presented, and debating which was to form the subject of Coningsby"s drawing; for already it was to be not merely a sketch, but a drawing, the most finished that the bright and effective pencil of Edith could achieve. If it really were to be placed in his room, and were to be a memorial of h.e.l.lingsley, her artistic reputation demanded a masterpiece.