Lothair. Benjamin Disraeli

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СКАЧАТЬ an interest in her employment in order that he might be seated by her and ask her questions, when the groom of the chambers entered and inquired whether her ladyship was at home, and being answered in the affirmative, retired, and announced and ushered in the duchess and Lady Corisande.

      CHAPTER 19

      It seemed that the duchess and Lady St. Jerome were intimate, for they called each other by their Christian names, and kissed each other. The young ladies also were cordial. Her grace greeted Lothair with heartiness; Lady Corisande with some reserve. Lothair thought she looked very radiant and very proud.

      It was some time since they had all met—not since the end of the last season—so there was a great deal to talk about. There had been deaths and births and marriages which required a flying comment—all important events; deaths which solved many difficulties, heirs to estates which were not expected, and weddings which surprised everybody.

      “And have you seen Selina?” inquired Lady St. Jerome.

      “Not yet; except mamma, this is our first visit,” replied the duchess.

      “Ah! that is real friendship. She came down to Vauxe the other day, but I did not think she was looking well. She frets herself too much about her boys; she does not know what to do with them. They will not go into the Church, and they have no fortune for the Guards.”

      “I understood that Lord Plantagenet was to be a civil engineer,” said Lady Corisande.

      “And Lord Albert Victor to have a sheep-walk in Australia,” continued Lady St. Jerome.

      “They say that a lord must not go to the bar,” said Miss Arundel. “It seems to me very unjust.”

      “Alfred Beaufort went the circuit,” said Lady Corisande, “but I believe they drove him into Parliament.”

      “You will miss your friend Bertram at Oxford,” said the duchess, addressing Lothair.

      “Indeed,” said Lothair, rather confused, for he was himself a defaulter in collegiate attendance. “I was just going to write to him to see whether one could not keep half a term.”

      “Oh! nothing will prevent his taking his degree,” said the duchess, “but I fear there must be some delay. There is a vacancy for our county—Mr. Sandstone is dead, and they insist upon returning Bertram. I hope he will be of age before the nomination. The duke is much opposed to it; he wishes him to wait; but in these days it is not so easy for young men to get into Parliament. It is not as it used to be; we cannot choose.”

      “This is an important event,” said Lothair to Lady Corisande.

      “I think it is; nor do I believe Bertram is too young for public life. These are not times to be laggard.”

      “There is no doubt they are very serious times,” said Lothair.

      “I have every confidence in Bertram—in his ability and his principles.”

      The ladies began to talk about the approaching drawing-room and Lady Corisande’s presentation, and Lothair thought it right to make his obeisance and withdraw. He met in the hall Father Coleman, who was in fact looking after him, and would have induced him to repair to the father’s room and hold some interesting conversation, but Lothair was not so congenial as usual. He was even abrupt, and the father, who never pressed any thing, assuming that Lothair had some engagement, relinquished with a serene brow, but not without chagrin, what he had deemed might have proved a golden opportunity.

      And yet Lothair had no engagement, and did not know where to go or what to do with himself. But he wanted to be alone, and of all persons in the world at that moment, he had a sort of instinct that the one he wished least to converse with was Father Coleman.

      “She has every confidence in his principles,” said Lothair to himself as he mounted his horse, “and his principles were mine six months ago, when I was at Brentham. Delicious Brentham! It seems like a dream; but every thing seems like a dream; I hardly know whether life is agony or bliss.”

      CHAPTER 20

      The duke was one of the few gentlemen in, London who lived in a palace. One of the half-dozen of those stately structures that our capital boasts had fallen to his lot.

      An heir-apparent to the throne, in the earlier days of the present dynasty, had resolved to be lodged as became a prince, and had raised, amid gardens which he had diverted from one of the royal parks, an edifice not unworthy of Vicenza in its best days, though on a far more extensive scale than any pile that favored city boasts. Before the palace was finished, the prince died, and irretrievably in debt. His executors were glad to sell to the trustees of the ancestors of the chief of the house of Brentham the incomplete palace, which ought never to have been commenced. The ancestor of the duke was by no means so strong a man as the duke himself, and prudent people rather murmured at the exploit. But it was what is called a lucky family—that is to say, a family with a charm that always attracted and absorbed heiresses; and perhaps the splendor of CRECY HOUSE—for it always retained its original title—might have in some degree contributed to fascinate the taste or imagination of the beautiful women who, generation after generation, brought their bright castles and their broad manors to swell the state and rent-rolls of the family who were so kind to Lothair.

      The centre of Crecy House consisted of a hall of vast proportion, and reaching to the roof. Its walls commemorated, in paintings by the most celebrated artists of the age, the exploits of the Black Prince; and its coved ceiling, in panels resplendent with Venetian gold, contained the forms and portraits of English heroes. A corridor round this hall contained the most celebrated private collection of pictures in England and opened into a series of sumptuous saloons.

      It was a rather early hour when Lothair, the morning after his meeting the duchess at Lady St. Jerome’s, called at Crecy House; but it was only to leave his card. He would not delay for a moment paying his respects there, and yet he shrank from thrusting himself immediately into the circle. The duke’s brougham was in the court-yard. Lothair was holding his groom’s horse, who had dismounted, when the hall-door opened, and his grace and Bertram came forth.

      “Halloa, old fellow!” exclaimed Bertram, “only think of your being here. It seems an age since we met. The duchess was telling us about you at breakfast.”

      “Go in and see them,” said the duke, “there is a large party at luncheon; Augusta Montairy is there. Bertram and I are obliged to go to Lincoln’s Inn, something about his election.”

      But Lothair murmured thanks and declined.

      “What are you going to do with yourself to-day?” said the duke. And Lothair hesitating, his grace continued: “Well, then, come and dine with us.”

      “Of course you will come, old fellow. I have not seen you since you left Oxford at the beginning of the year. And then we can settle about your term.” And Lothair assenting, they drove away.

      It was nine o’clock before they dined. The days were getting very long, and soft, and sweet; the riding-parties lingered amid the pink May and the tender twilight breeze. The Montairys dined to-day at Crecy House, and a charming married daughter without her husband, and Lord and Lady Clanmorne, who were near kin to the duchess, and themselves so good-looking and agreeable that they were as good at a dinner-party as a couple of first-rate entr es. There was also Lord Carisbrooke, a young man of distinguished air and appearance; his own master, with a large estate, and three years or so older than Lothair.

      They dined in the Chinese saloon, which was of moderate dimensions, СКАЧАТЬ