If the performance, to which all contiguous Britain intended to repair--for irrespective of the railroads, which now began sensibly to affect the communications in the North of England, steamers were chartering from every port for pa.s.sengers to the Montfort tournament within one hundred miles" distance--were equal to the preparation, the affair must be a great success. The grounds round the castle seemed to be filled every day with groups of busy persons in fanciful costume, all practising their duties and rehearsing their parts; swordsmen and bowmen, and seneschals and esquires, and grooms and pages, and heralds in tabards, and pursuivants, and banner-bearers. The splendid pavilions of the knights were now completed, and the gorgeous throne of the Queen of Beauty, surrounded by crimson galleries, tier above tier, for thousands of favoured guests, were receiving only their last stroke of magnificence. The mornings pa.s.sed in a feverish whirl of curiosity, and preparation, and excitement, and some anxiety. Then succeeded the banquet, where nearly one hundred guests were every day present; but the company were so absorbed in the impending event that none expected or required, in the evenings, any of the usual schemes or sources of amus.e.m.e.nt that abound in country houses. Comments on the morning, and plans for the morrow, engrossed all thought and conversation, and my lord"s band was just a due accompaniment that filled the pauses when perplexities arrested talk, or deftly blended with some whispered phrase almost as sweet or thrilling as the notes of the cornet-a-piston.
"I owe my knighthood to you," said Prince Florestan to Lady Roehampton, "as I do everything in this country that is agreeable."
"You cannot be my knight," replied Lady Roehampton, "because I am told I am the sovereign of all the chivalry, but you have my best wishes."
"All that I want in life," said the prince, "are your good wishes."
"I fear they are barren."
"No, they are inspiring," said the prince with unusual feeling. "You brought me good fortune. From the moment I saw you, light fell upon my life."
"Is not that an exaggerated phrase?" said Lady Roehampton with a smile, "because I happened to get you a ticket for a masquerade."
"I was thinking of something else," said the prince pensively; "but life is a masquerade; at least mine has been."
"I think yours, sir, is a most interesting life," said Lady Roehampton, "and, were I you, I would not quarrel with my destiny."
"My destiny is not fulfilled," said the prince. "I have never quarrelled with it, and am least disposed to do so at this moment."
"Mr. Sidney Wilton was speaking to me very much the other day about your royal mother, sir, Queen Agrippina. She must have been fascinating."
"I like fascinating women," said the prince, "but they are rare."
"Perhaps it is better it should be so," said Lady Roehampton, "for they are apt--are they not?--to disturb the world."
"I confess I like to be bewitched," said the prince, "and I do not care how much the world is disturbed."
"But is not the world very well as it is?" said Lady Roehampton. "Why should we not be happy and enjoy it?"
"I do enjoy it," replied Prince Florestan, "especially at Montfort Castle; I suppose there is something in the air that agrees with one.
But enjoyment of the present is consistent with objects for the future."
"Ah! now you are thinking of your great affairs--of your kingdom. My woman"s brain is not equal to that."
"I think your brain is quite equal to kingdoms," said the prince, with a serious expression, and speaking in even a lower voice, "but I was not thinking of my kingdom. I leave that to fate; I believe it is destined to be mine, and therefore occasions me thought but not anxiety. I was thinking of something else than kingdoms, and of which unhappily I am not so certain--of which I am most uncertain--of which I fear I have no chance--and yet which is dearer to me than even my crown."
"What can that be?" said Lady Roehampton, with unaffected wonderment.
""Tis a secret of chivalry," said Prince Florestan, "and I must never disclose it."
"It is a wonderful scene," said Adriana Neuchatel to Endymion, who had been for some time conversing with her. "I had no idea that I should be so much amused by anything in society. But then, it is so unlike anything one has ever seen."
Mrs. Neuchatel had not accompanied her husband and her daughter to the Montfort Tournament. Mr. Neuchatel required a long holiday, and after the tournament he was to take Adriana to Scotland. Mrs. Neuchatel shut herself up at Hainault, which it seemed she had never enjoyed before.
She could hardly believe it was the same place, freed from its daily invasions by the House of Commons and the Stock Exchange. She had never lived so long without seeing an amba.s.sador or a cabinet minister, and it as quite a relief. She wandered in the gardens, and drove her pony-chair in forest glades. She missed Adriana very much, and for a few days always expected her to enter the room when the door opened; and then she sighed, and then she flew to her easel, or buried herself in some sublime cantata of her favourite master, Beethoven. Then came the most wonderful performance of the whole day, and that was the letter, never missed, to Adriana. Considering that she lived in solitude, and in a spot with which her daughter was quite familiar, it was really marvellous that the mother should every day be able to fill so many interesting and impa.s.sioned pages. But Mrs. Neuchatel was a fine penwoman; her feelings were her facts, and her ingenious observations of art and nature were her news. After the first fever of separation, reading was always a resource to her, for she was a great student. She was surrounded by all the literary journals and choice publications of Europe, and there scarcely was a branch of science and learning with which she was not sufficiently familiar to be able to comprehend the stir and progress of the European mind. Mrs. Neuchatel had contrived to get rid of the chief cook by sending him on a visit to Paris, so she could, without cavil, dine off a cutlet and seltzer-water in her boudoir. Sometimes, not merely for distraction, but more from a sense of duty, she gave festivals to her schools; and when she had lived like a princely prisoner of state alone for a month, or rather like one on a desert isle who sighs to see a sail, she would ask a great geologist and his wife to pay her a visit, or some professor, who, though himself not worth a shilling, had some new plans, which really sounded quite practical, for the more equal distribution of wealth.
"And who is your knight?" said Endymion.
Adriana looked distressed.
"I mean, whom do you wish to win?"
"Oh, I should like them all to win!"
"That is good-natured, but then there would be no distinction. I know who is going to wear your colours--the Knight of the Dolphin."
"I hope nothing of that kind will happen," said Adriana, agitated. "I know that some of the knights are going to wear ladies" colours, but I trust no one will think of wearing mine. I know the Black Knight wears Lady Montfort"s."
"He cannot," said Endymion hastily. "She is first lady to the Queen of Beauty; no knight can wear the colours of the Queen. I asked Sir Morte d"Arthur himself, and he told me there was no doubt about it, and that he had consulted Garter before he came down."
"Well, all I know is that the Count of Ferroll told me so," said Adriana; "I sate next to him at dinner."
"He shall not wear her colours," said Endymion quite angrily. "I will speak to the King of the Tournament about it directly."
"Why, what does it signify?" said Adriana.
"You thought it signified when I told you Regy Sutton was going to wear your colours."
"Ah! that is quite a different business," said Adriana, with a sigh.
Reginald Sutton was a professed admirer of Adriana, rode with her whenever he could, and danced with her immensely. She gave him cold encouragement, though he was the best-looking and best-dressed youth in England; but he was a determined young hero, not gifted with too sensitive nerves, and was a votary of the great theory that all in life was an affair of will, and that endowed with sufficient energy he might marry whom he liked. He accounted for his slow advance in London by the inimical presence of Mrs. Neuchatel, who he felt, or fancied, did not sympathise with him; while, on the contrary, he got on very well with the father, and so he was determined to seize the present opportunity.
The mother was absent, and he himself in a commanding position, being one of the knights to whose exploits the eyes of all England were attracted.
Lord Roehampton was seated between an amba.s.sadress and Berengaria, indulging in gentle and sweet-voiced raillery; the Count of Ferroll was standing beside Lady Montfort, and Mr. Wilton was opposite to the group.
The Count of Ferroll rarely spoke, but listened to Lady Montfort with what she called one of his dark smiles.
"All I know is, she will never pardon you for not asking her," said Lord Roehampton. "I saw Bicester the day I left town, and he was very grumpy. He said that Lady Bicester was the only person who understood tournaments. She had studied the subject."
"I suppose she wanted to be the Queen of Beauty," said Berengaria.
"You are too severe, my dear lady. I think she would have been contented with a knight wearing her colours."
"Well, I cannot help it," said Berengaria, but somewhat doubtingly. And then, after a moment"s pause, "She is too ugly."
"Why, she came to my fancy ball, and it is not five years ago, as Mary Queen of Scots!"
"That must have been after the Queen"s decapitation," said Berengaria.
"I wonder you did not ask Zen.o.bia," said Mr. Wilton.
"Of course I asked her, but I knew she would not come. She is in one of her hatreds now. She said she would have come, only she had half-promised to give a ball to the tenants at Merrington about that time, and she did not like to disappoint them. Quite touching, was it not?"
"A touch beyond the reach of art," said Mr. Wilton; "almost worthy of yourself, Lady Montfort."
"And what do you think of all this?" asked Lord Montfort of Nigel Penruddock, who, in a ca.s.sock that swept the ground, had been stalking about the glittering salons like a prophet who had been ordained in Mayfair, but who had now seated himself by his host.
"I am thinking of what is beneath all this," replied Nigel. "A great revivication. Chivalry is the child of the Church; it is the distinctive feature of Christian Europe. Had it not been for the revival of Church principles, this glorious pageant would never have occurred. But it is a pageant only to the uninitiated. There is not a ceremony, a form, a phrase, a costume, which is not symbolic of a great truth or a high purpose."
"I do not think Lady Montfort is aware of all this," said her lord.