"Ah! now you are going to ride your hobby, my dear Adriana. On that subject we never can agree; were I an heiress, I should have as little objection to be married for my fortune as my face. Husbands, as I have heard, do not care for the latter too long. Have more confidence in yourself, Adriana. If Lord Roehampton wishes to marry you, it is that he is pleased with you personally, that he appreciates your intelligence, your culture, your accomplishments, your sweet disposition, and your gentle nature. If in addition to these gifts you have wealth, and even great wealth, Lord Roehampton will not despise it, will not--for I wish to put it frankly--be uninfluenced by the circ.u.mstances, for Lord Roehampton is a wise man; but he would not marry you if he did not believe that you would make for him a delightful companion in life, that you would adorn his circle and ill.u.s.trate his name."
"Ah! I see you are all in the plot against me," said Adriana. "I have no friend."
"My dear Adriana, I think you are unreasonable; I could say even unkind."
"Oh! pardon me, dear Myra," said Adriana, "but I really am so very unhappy."
"About what? You are your own mistress in this matter. If you do not like to marry Lord Roehampton, n.o.body will attempt to control you. What does it signify what Lady Montfort says? or anybody else, except your own parents, who desire nothing but your happiness? I should never have mentioned Lord Roehampton to you had you not introduced the subject yourself. And all that I meant to say was, what I repeat, that your creed that no one can wish to marry you except for your wealth is a morbid conviction, and must lead to unhappiness; that I do not believe that Lord Roehampton is influenced in his overture, if he make one, by any unworthy motive, and that any woman whose heart is disengaged should not lightly repudiate such an advance from such a man, by which, at all events, she should feel honoured."
"But my heart is engaged," said Adriana in an almost solemn tone.
"Oh! that is quite a different thing!" said Myra, turning pale.
"Yes!" said Adriana; "I am devoted to one whose name I cannot now mention, perhaps will never mention, but I am devoted to him. Yes!"
she added with fire, "I am not altogether so weak a thing as the Lady Montforts and some other persons seem to think me--I can feel and decide for myself, and it shall never be said of me that I purchased love."
CHAPTER XLIV
There was to be no great party at Hainault; Lord Roehampton particularly wished that there should be no fine folks asked, and especially no amba.s.sadors. All that he wanted was to enjoy the fresh air, and to ramble in the forest, of which he had heard so much, with the young ladies.
"And, by the by, Miss Ferrars," said Mr. Neuchatel, "we must let what we were talking about the other day drop. Adriana has been with me quite excited about something Lady Montfort said to her. I soothed her and a.s.sured her she should do exactly as she liked, and that neither I nor her mother had any other wishes on such a subject than her own. The fact is, I answered Lady Montfort originally only half in earnest. If the thing might have happened, I should have been content--but it really never rested on my mind, because such matters must always originate with my daughter. Unless they come from her, with me they are mere fancies.
But now I want you to help me in another matter, if not more grave, more businesslike. My lord must be amused, although it is a family party.
He likes his rubber; that we can manage. But there must be two or three persons that he is not accustomed to meet, and yet who will interest him. Now, do you know, Miss Ferrars, whom I think of asking?"
"Not I, my dear sir."
"What do you think of the colonel?" said Mr. Neuchatel, looking in her face with a rather laughing eye.
"Well, he is very agreeable," said Myra, "and many would think interesting, and if Lord Roehampton does not know him, I think he would do very well."
"Well, but Lord Roehampton knows all about him," said Mr. Neuchatel.
"Well, that is an advantage," said Myra.
"I do not know," said Mr. Neuchatel. "Life is a very curious thing, eh, Miss Ferrars? One cannot ask one person to meet another even in one"s own home, without going through a sum of moral arithmetic."
"Is it so?" said Myra.
"Well, Miss Ferrars," said Mr. Neuchatel, "I want your advice and I want your aid; but then it is a long story, at which I am rather a bad hand,"
and Mr. Neuchatel hesitated. "You know," he said, suddenly resuming, "you once asked me who Colonel Albert was."
"But I do not ask you now," said Myra, "because I know."
"Hah, hah!" exclaimed Mr. Neuchatel, much surprised.
"And what you want to know is," continued Myra, "whether Lord Roehampton would have any objection to meet Prince Florestan?"
"That is something; but that is comparatively easy. I think I can manage that. But when they meet--that is the point. But, in the first place, I should like very much to know how you became acquainted with the secret."
"In a very natural way; my brother was my information," she replied.
"Ah! now you see," continued Mr. Neuchatel, with a serious air, "a word from Lord Roehampton in the proper quarter might be of vast importance to the prince. He has a large inheritance, and he has been kept out of it unjustly. Our house has done what we could for him, for his mother, Queen Agrippina, was very kind to my father, and the house of Neuchatel never forgets its friends. But we want something else, we want the British Government to intimate that they will not disapprove of the rest.i.tution of the private fortune of the prince. I have felt my way with the premier; he is not favourable; he is prejudiced against the prince; and so is the cabinet generally; and yet all difficulties would vanish at a word from Lord Roehampton."
"Well, this is a good opportunity for you to speak to him," said Myra.
"Hem!" said Mr. Neuchatel, "I am not so sure about that. I like Lord Roehampton, and, between ourselves, I wish he were first minister. He understands the Continent, and would keep things quiet. But, do you know, Miss Ferrars, with all his playful, good-tempered manner, as if he could not say a cross word or do an unkind act, he is a very severe man in business. Speak to him on business, and he is completely changed.
His brows knit, he penetrates you with the terrible scrutiny of that deep-set eye; he is more than stately, he is austere. I have been up to him with deputations--the Governor of the Bank, and all the first men in the City, half of them M.P.s, and they trembled before him like aspens.
No, it will not do for me to speak to him, it will spoil his visit. I think the way will be this; if he has no objection to meet the prince, we must watch whether the prince makes a favourable impression on him, and if that is the case, and Lord Roehampton likes him, what we must do next is this--_you_ must speak to Lord Roehampton."
"I!"
"Yes, Miss Ferrars, you. Lord Roehampton likes ladies. He is never austere to them, even if he refuses their requests, and sometimes he grants them. I thought first of Mrs. Neuchatel speaking to him, but my wife will never interfere in anything in which money is concerned; then I thought Adriana might express a hope when they were walking in the garden, but now that is all over; and so you alone remain. I have great confidence in you," added Mr. Neuchatel, "I think you would do it very well. Besides, my lord rather likes you, for I have observed him often go and sit by you at parties, at our house."
"Yes, he is very high-bred in that," said Myra, gravely and rather sadly; "and the fact of my being a dependent, I have no doubt, influences him."
"We are all dependents in this house," said Mr. Neuchatel with his sweetest smile; "and I depend upon Miss Ferrars."
Affairs on the whole went on in a promising manner. The weather was delightful, and Lord Roehampton came down to Hainault just in time for dinner, the day after their arrival, and in the highest spirits. He seemed to be enjoying a real holiday; body and mind were in a like state of expansion; he was enchanted with the domain; he was delighted with the mansion, everything pleased and gratified him, and he pleased and gratified everybody. The party consisted only of themselves, except one of the nephews, with whom indeed Lord Roehampton was already acquainted; a lively youth, a little on the turf, not too much, and this suited Lord Roehampton, who was a statesman of the old aristocratic school, still bred horses, and sometimes ran one, and in the midst of an European crisis could spare an hour to Newmarket. Perhaps it was his only affectation.
Mrs. Neuchatel, by whom he was seated, had the happy gift of conversation; but the party was of that delightful dimension, that it permitted talk to be general. Myra sate next to Lord Roehampton, and he often addressed her. He was the soul of the feast, and yet it is difficult to describe his conversation; it was a medley of graceful whim, interspersed now and then with a very short anecdote of a very famous person, or some deeply interesting reminiscence of some critical event. Every now and then he appealed to Adriana, who sate opposite to him in the round table, and she trusted that her irrepressible smiles would not be interpreted into undue encouragement.
Lord Roehampton had no objection to meet Prince Florestan, provided there were no other strangers, and the incognito was observed. He rather welcomed the proposal, observing he liked to know public men personally; so, you can judge of their calibre, which you never can do from books and newspapers, or the oral reports of their creatures or their enemies.
And so on the next day Colonel Albert was expected.
Lord Roehampton did not appear till luncheon; he had received so many boxes from Downing Street which required his attention. "Business will follow one," he said; "yesterday I thought I had baffled it. I do not like what I shall do without my secretaries. I think I shall get you young ladies to a.s.sist me."
"You cannot have better secretaries," said Mr. Neuchatel; "Miss Ferrars often helps me."
Then what was to be done after luncheon? Would he ride, or would he drive? And where should they drive and ride to? But Lord Roehampton did not much care to drive, and was tired of riding. He would rather walk and ramble about Hainault. He wanted to see the place, and the forest and the fern, and perhaps hear one of those nightingales that they had talked of in Portland Place. But Mrs. Neuchatel did not care to walk, and Mr. Neuchatel, though it was a holiday in the City, had a great many letters to write, and so somehow or other it ended in Lord Roehampton and the two young ladies walking out together, and remaining so long and so late, that Mrs. Neuchatel absolutely contemplated postponing the dinner hour.
"We shall just be in time, dear Mrs. Neuchatel," said Myra; "Lord Roehampton has gone up to his rooms. We have heard a nightingale, and Lord Roehampton insisted upon our sitting on the trunk of a tree till it ceased--and it never ceased."
Colonel Albert, who had arrived, was presented to Lord Roehampton before dinner. Lord Roehampton received him with stately courtesy. As Myra watched, not without interest, the proceeding, she could scarcely believe, as she marked the lofty grace and somewhat haughty mien of Lord Roehampton, that it could be the same being of frolic and fancy, and even tender sentiment, with whom she had been pa.s.sing the preceding hours.
Colonel Albert sate next to Myra at dinner, and Lord Roehampton between Mrs. Neuchatel and her daughter. His manner was different to-day, not less pleased and pleasing, but certainly more restrained. He encouraged Mrs. Neuchatel to occupy the chief part in conversation, and whispered to Adriana, who became somewhat uneasy; but the whispers mainly consisted of his delight in their morning adventures. When he remarked that it was one of the most agreeable days of his life, she became a little alarmed. Then he addressed Colonel Albert across the table, and said that he had heard from Mr. Neuchatel that the colonel had been in America, and asked some questions about public men, which brought him out. Colonel Albert answered with gentleness and modesty, never at any length, but in language which indicated, on all the matters referred to, thought and discrimination.
"I suppose their society is like the best society in Manchester?" said Lord Roehampton.
"It varies in different cities," said Colonel Albert. "In some there is considerable culture, and then refinement of life always follows."
"Yes, but whatever they may be, they will always be colonial. What is colonial necessarily lacks originality. A country that borrows its language, its laws, and its religion, cannot have its inventive powers much developed. They got civilised very soon, but their civilisation was second-hand."
"Perhaps their inventive powers may develop themselves in other ways,"
said the prince. "A nation has a fixed quant.i.ty of invention, and it will make itself felt."
"At present," said Lord Roehampton, "the Americans, I think, employ their invention in imaginary boundary lines. They are giving us plenty of trouble now about Maine."