CHAPTER XXIX.
It was on a pleasant evening towards the end of August, that SirArthur's chariot stopped at the Granby Hotel, which looked to thetravellers more like an entire street than a single house; and Marionthought that accommodation might be prepared in it for all the invalidsin Great Britain. Her ears were instantly deafened by a noisy clamor ofbells, while the carriage was surrounded by a cluster of shabbywaiters, in second-hand looking clothes, dishevelled hair, soiledcotton stockings, and dusty shoes, who were vociferous in theirprotestations that the house was already more than full, and that ahundred and fifty guests dined every day at the ordinary. In the meantime, however, they hurriedly dismounted Sir Arthur's baggage from thechariot, and at length ushered him into a sitting room, with a promiseof finding sleeping apartments for the whole party, up three pair ofstairs, in a lodging across the common, a tall old building spottedover like a plum pudding with windows, where they must be ready toabdicate on a moment's notice, if necessary, the whole house havingbeen bespoke some weeks before, for Miss Howard Smytheson, the heiress,and suite.
No place is so little changed by lapse of time as Harrowgate, duringthe last two centuries which have elapsed since first its unpalatablewaters were tasted. There the same three great hotels flourish supreme,as in the days of Smollet, holding their crowded ordinaries, anddistinguished by their former designations, as the House of Lords, theHouse of Commons, and the House of Drs. There, during three months ofevery successive year, an equal crowd assembles in search of health fortheir disordered bodies, and excitement for their stagnant minds, whiletime and money are frantically squandered, as if both were dealt out inunlimited portions among all who thus emulously seek with weariedeagerness for frivolous amusements, idle flutter, and all thoserelaxations of an unsatisfied existence, which soon became intolerableto those who can amuse themselves, but necessary to those who cannot.
The very same rooms and furniture, the very same tables, knives,glasses, and spoons, and the same hours of eating and drinking, whichwere used during the time of old Humphrey Bramble, are still inexistence, while every thing remains as much unaltered as the bluefirmament above, except the company. Year after year has, atHarrowgate, even more, perhaps, than elsewhere, testified the ceaselessmutability of human affairs, where, amidst light laughter, mirth andmusic, the young have become married, the old have died, and, as daysroll on in that little world of eager excitement, the names of all aresoon alike forgotten. At Harrowgate the visitors seem scarcely morepermanently interested in each other than in actors on the stage, or incharacters represented by a novelist. Any lounger who appears in thepublic saloons a second year, becomes completely naturalized in thehouse; after a third season, it is ten to one he may be considered abore; and during the fourth or fifth, he is completely superannuated. Inthese gay rooms, how much of human life and feeling have existed! howmany of its joys and sorrows been experienced! and how many of itsdeepest interests have arisen, amidst the gay dance, the ringing laugh,the lively coquetry, the frantic dissipation, and the vows of endlessattachment! With many a past generation, the fever of frivolity isover, and the dust of death now shrouds every remembrance in oblivion:but a new race yet successively arises, to exist, like theirpredecessors, in an atmosphere of music, dancing, flirting, riding,driving, feasting, and gayety,
"Smiling as if earth contain'd no tomb."
"I cannot but think, when arriving at any new place," observed Marion,"what solitary desolation must frequently be experienced by those'citizens of the world,' who are for ever on the wing, from country tocountry, throughout the habitable and uninhabitable globe! We who liveonly for social companionship, would feel perfectly lost in arriving ata perpetual succession of places, where not one human being dependsupon us for comfort or enjoyment--where not a single genuine tear wouldbe shed by any living individual, if we dropped down dead at theirfeet!"
"You are right, Marion," replied Sir Arthur. "Once when takendangerously ill abroad, I was surrounded by those only to whom my verylanguage was unknown, my features strange, my name unheard of, and mywhole feelings indifferent. It was dreary and desolate indeed! A newplace may divert us for a time, but we do not live to enjoy merescenery or mere amusement. To find real happiness we must look withinthe circle of home feelings, home duties, and home enjoyments."
When the very aristocratic and distinguished-looking Sir Arthur Dunbarfirst appeared in the public room at the Granby, leading in his tworadiantly beautiful nieces, the babbling murmur of conversation becamesuddenly hushed, while a general whisper of surprise and admirationcirculated round the tea-table. Many an eager inquiry was rapidlypromulgated who they could possibly be, and from whence they came;while Lord Wigton, to produce some amusement, secretly announced thatit was the Duke of Lincolnshire and his two eldest unmarried daughters.
The better half of pleasure was its novelty to Marion, whose half-shy,half-amused looks, as she entered among a score or two of perfectstrangers, found a pleasing contrast to the criticising, examining,fastidious air with which Agnes, in the full swell of magnificence,glanced her brilliant, haughty eyes round the tables, and mutteredcontemptuously to Sir Arthur, that the living furniture in the roomseemed little better than a zoological garden--a human menagerie oftigers, bears, and monkeys, varied by a large proportion of redinflamed strawberry-colored faces belonging to the water-drinkers. Byno means satisfied with the commencement of her Harrowgate existence,Agnes established on the spot a little whispering gallery of satiricaldiscontent, while she ridiculed to Marion those of the company who wereunlucky enough first to attract her notice and her disapprobation.
Though the room appeared abundantly peopled with _dramatis personae_ ofmany kinds and degrees, yet, instead of seeing, as she had rather toosanguinely anticipated, a society of distinguished-looking personages,as select as if they had been introduced at a drawing-room in St.James' Palace, the saloon was encumbered with groups of people asridiculous as any that Agnes ever remembered to have seen at a countrytheatre. Old _beaux_ of half a century's duration,--two or threeremarkably conceited, overdressed officers in full-fledgedmustachios,--crowds of busy, bustling, managing-looking mothers,--fouror five over-dressed Irish fortune-hunters,--a knot of agricultural,kill-your-own-mutton country gentlemen,--one or two widows of not verydoubtful age, but _rouged_ to excess,--a few Oxonian professors, whowere F.R.S. and the whole alphabet besides,--a multitude ofwhist-playing clergymen, reverened only on their visiting cards, whobore no symptom of their profession except a white neckcloth,--many oldpeople to be made young, and young people to be made younger,--besidesnearly an acre of very un-Almacks-like young ladies, showily attired inpink, blue, or yellow, like a bed of tulips, all in very gay spirits,or pretending to be so, who seemed to lead a life of perpetual smilesand good-humor, as if all the troubles of existence were unknown or amere laughing matter to them.
Sir Arthur was not long in having a delighted recognition with an old,wooden-legged messmate, Captain Ogilvie, who introduced to Marion his"three head of daughters," pretty animated girls; and Agnes hastilyseated herself at the tea-table, disappointed beyond measure in thefirst chapter of her adventures, and half determined already to setabout hating the whole party. Though deceived only by her own too vividanticipations, she felt in some way or other imposed upon, in beingunexpectedly introduced to such very third-rate society, and forseveral minutes she maintained a petulant silence, so very unlike herusual volubility, that she began, before long, to wish for some onewith whom to enjoy a laugh at the whole circle of whimsical-lookingoddities.
Close beside the seat on which Agnes had accidentally placed herself,she very soon observed an old gentleman considerably past the meridianof life, who nevertheless dressed with very obvious pretensions toyouth, wearing a fashionable, well-contrived wig, a perfectly startlingset of teeth, and a gouty black velvet shoe. His figure was well built,and he had altogether a look of individual eccentricity peculiar tohimself, with an air of supercilious haughtiness, which testified that,like Agnes,
he thought himself too good for his company.
"Who can he be?" thought she, finding his eye fixed upon herself with afastidious look of connoisseurship, such as that with which he mighthave examined some doubtful copy of a Vandyke or Titian, while anexpression of complacent approbation gradually stole into his features."Probably some eminent artist! He may perhaps ask leave to do mypicture for the exhibition!"
Having reached this conclusion, she was almost startled to hear herselfaddressed by her unknown neighbor, in a consequential, ratherpatronising voice, and with an air of unembarrassed distinction, whilehe evidently watched her countenance with the same look of criticism asbefore, so that she felt certain if there had been a flaw in her teeth,or a single hair disarranged on her head, it could not have escaped hisnotice. So fastidious a personage seemed almost worth the trouble ofpleasing, and Agnes, after replying rather graciously to his first fewremarks, became exceedingly surprised to discover that there was a toneof well bred command in his dry, cynical manner, united with the mostperfect polish, which both awed and surprised her. His assumption ofsuperiority and importance seemed almost unconscious, but he evidentlyentertained not the fraction of a doubt that his conversation was asingular honor and an agreeable acquisition to any one on whom hecondescended to bestow the slightest attention.
"I have lived here lately at the rate of twenty new acquaintances aday, and am happy this evening in adding another to my usual allowance.One must enter into the humors of a place like Harrowgate, and do atRome as Rome does," said he, in a somewhat haughty, supercilious tone."This is the only spot in all the earth where English people attemptthe ease and sociability of foreign manners, and we must acknowledge itfits rather awkwardly. Nevertheless, being in my own neighborhood, Imake a point every year of lending my countenance for a short time tothis house."
Agnes gave an undervaluing glance at her companion, and privatelythought his thin, dry countenance, with every vein like whip cord,might well have been dispensed with, but though he appeared to beunpardonably ugly, she prudently sipped her tea in silence, lookingsomewhat askance at the little consequential gentleman beside her;while he took the opportunity of examining her profile with his keen,observant eye, after which, having apparently satisfied himself thatshe was worth the honor of being spoken to, he continued, in a hard,croaking voice, like a door grating on its rusty hinges:
"The company here is nearly of the same calibre as you might probablyencounter in a Margate hoy, or in a second-class train on theBirmingham railroad."
"Or at Bartholomew fair," added Agnes, determined not to be outdone. "Ifeel as if we were dining for once at the second table. There should bedoorkeepers at Harrowgate to keep out the _canaille_! I wonder CaptainDe Crespigny misinformed my brother so much about the society here; buthe would have said anything to make us come."
"No one would ever dream, in his wildest moments, of visitingHarrowgate for society. Mere knife-grinders from Sheffield, and countrycurates," replied her fastidious companion, in a short, abrupt tone."Are you acquainted with Louis De Crespigny?"
"Yes; everybody who is anybody knows him, and those who do not oftenpretend they do," replied Agnes, indignant at the easy, almostcontemptuous manner in which her companion named one whom sheconsidered as her own peculiar property. "Not to know him would argueourselves unknown."
"I certainly am unknown," said her companion, with a strange littleconscious laugh, which seemed to Agnes quite unaccountable. "Has DeCrespigny so universal an acquaintance? People must be more at a lossfor society than I had supposed!"
"You know," replied Agnes, in an unanswerable tone, "he is the futureMarquis of Doncaster."
"Is he?" answered the old gentleman, with another short, dry laugh, anda proving shrug of polite non-conviction. "So much the better for him.You are quite sure of that?"
"Perfectly certain! His uncle is a rich old quiz, who never thoughtanybody good enough to marry till now, when nobody would accept of him.The old peer could not get a girl to marry him now if he sent thebellman round to advertise for one. Captain De Crespigny's successionis as undoubted as anything can be which depends on the life of awhimsical, superannuated uncle, these many years past in the last stageof infirmity. He has the wrinkles ironed out of his face every morningwith a smoothing iron, and I am told his very bones rattle whenever hemoves!"
"Indeed!" exclaimed the stranger, in a hard, withering tone, and with acool sneer on his lip. "How very singular!"
"Poor, dear old man! he was handsome once, and never can forget that;but it is a century since he lost any looks he ever had, and I am toldhe is quite preternaturally old, withered, and whimsical. Quiteingeniously ugly! _laid a faire peur!_ I should be afraid to go nearhim, in case his ugliness might be reflected upon me; but I hear hefancies himself quite captivating still. Patrick tells me that the oldMarquis invested so large a sum of money lately in a new set of teeth,that his nephew is quite uneasy lest he should be robbed and murderedfor the gold they are set in. He scratches his wig sometimes to look asif it were his own hair; and he had an ossification of the leg lastyear, in consequence of a disappointment in love!"
"Very remarkable!"
"Yes!" added Agnes, encouraged by the attention she had evidentlyexcited, and happy to vent all her long accumulated antipathy. "Theoldest man who ever lived certainly died at last, but I believe nobodyever before existed so long in this world without doing one atom ofgood either to himself or others. He keeps a Roman Catholic Abbe tothink for him; and once his wig turned grey in a single night withdistress of mind when they had a quarrel. The Marquis is so afraid ofapoplexy, that when he walks out the Abbe Mordaunt always carries alancet to bleed him instantly, in case he has a fit."
"How very considerate! You have all this authentic intelligence on thebest authority of course?" asked the stranger with a submissive bow."De Crespigny's entire! I understand the nephew has not inherited hisuncle's antipathy to marrying! If this very whimsical old relativecould be safely packed into his grave,--let me assure you he is evenmore whimsical than has been represented, though not quite soinfirm,--I suppose Captain De Crespigny would very soon dispose ofhimself and his coronet."
"Certainly!" replied Agnes, unable to repress a conscious smile andheightened color. "In that case we should all probably see before longa Marchioness of Doncaster!"
"I might not, perhaps, live to be introduced," answered the oldgentleman demurely. "And I could lay a bet that, as long as I exist, weshall never have Captain De Crespigny in the peerage. If you happen,however, to know any young lady at all impatient to become Marchionessof Doncaster, let her consult me, and I could, perhaps, suggest ashorter cut to that situation, than by waiting for Louis De Crespigny."
"How!" exclaimed Agnes, with a bewildered look. "Quite impossible!"
"Unless by accepting the present Marquis, who ought, by yourdescription, to go very cheap, old, whimsical, and infirm as he is!"replied the stranger, with a sly smile, and a graceful bow. "The reportyou have heard of Lord Doncaster is such, that I feel almost tempted toforswear my own name!"
Agnes never in her life approached more nearly to a genuine faintingfit, than on hearing these words, and to have been swallowed up in anearthquake would have been quite a relief. She felt now like AbonHassan, when he made the vizier bite his finger to ascertain if he werereally awake, while, with a look of vacant wonder, she became awarethat the middle-aged, nearly good-looking, and very elegant man besideher, was actually the old, worn-out, almost dead, and all but burieduncle, whose demise Captain De Crespigny had led her daily or hourly toexpect for the last two years. If his ghost had appeared, she would nothave been half so much astonished, while he seemed evidently moreamused than he chose to acknowledge, at having created such asensation, which he was by no means inclined to diminish, whilesilently admiring the beautiful fluctuations of expression in Agnes'resplendent eyes, fixed on himself with almost incredulous amazement.At length he rose to take leave, with a smiling, supercilious bow, andbeckoned in an authoritative man
ner to a clerical-looking gentleman atsome distance, to follow him, who spoke in a voice of almost femininesoftness, though Agnes thought the expression of his countenancepeculiarly sinister and forbidding.
"That, then, must be the Abbe Mordaunt!" exclaimed Agnes, almostaloud, while she gazed at his stern, sallow countenance, his shaggyeyebrows, low forehead, and artful-looking smile. "He might act thevillain in any melo-drama! I would rather not stand between that manand any earthly object he may set his heart on! He is the mostJesuitical-looking Jesuit I ever beheld!"
Though Agnes' first recontre with the Marquis of Doncaster had been socalamitous, and her first prejudice against his shadow, the Abbe, hadseemed most inveterate, she yet spent much of her time for the next fewdays in their society, and was delighted to engross the attention andthe evident admiration of the two most distinguished-looking personagesat the ordinary, while, without scruple, she flattered the Marquis mostflagrantly, by laughing to excess at her own very mistaken ideas of himprevious to their meeting, and hinting that this had rendered hersubsequent surprise the more agreeable. Lord Doncaster in return amusedhimself with talking to her in a style suited to the female society inwhich most of his own time had hitherto been spent, though it shouldnot certainly have suited any young girl educated like Agnes, whostretched her complaisance, however, to the utmost for a nobleman, andthe uncle of her intended, Captain De Crespigny.
Marion's refined and delicate feelings shrunk at once from thelibertine freedom of look and manner which she could not but observe inthe old Marquis' tone to ladies, and though he repeatedly tried toengage her in the flippant and almost dissolute conversation which, ina low lover-like tone, he addressed to her sister, and made anostentatious display of his admiration for both, Marion, disgusted andshocked at what seemed so utterly unsuitable to his years, gently butdecidedly evaded all intercourse, being of opinion that the coquetrywhich was dishonorable in the nephew, became ridiculous andcontemptible in the uncle, therefore she behaved to him with distantpoliteness, and a degree of gravity by no means natural to her ingeneral. Marion devoted herself almost exclusively to Sir Arthur,leading him about in his walks, and enlivening his conversation withold Captain Ogilvy, while she could not but frequently compare the ageand respectability of her venerable uncle, with the almost equal ageand very opposite character of the Roman Catholic Marquis, whose thinskeleton figure, hollow ghost-like laugh and old stories, as broad asthey were long, formed as unsuitable a contrast to his juvenile dressand manners, as his withered aspect did, to the fresh and fragrantflowers he constantly wore in his button-hole, and of which he lavisheda splendid profusion on Agnes.
Marion observed with increasing surprise and regret, that the lively_persiflage_ of her sister with the Marquis, was varied very frequentlyby long and apparently grave discussions, with the Abbe Mordaunt, andat the end of a week, she became startled to observe that Agnes woreround her neck a black ribbon, from which hung conspicuously suspendeda large gold crucifix of very beautiful workmanship. On many formeroccasions, Marion had found reason to dread the bitter vengeance ofAgnes' tongue, but at no loss to guess the source from whence thisunusual ornament had been derived, she inwardly resolved not to let itpass unnoticed, but warmly to remonstrate with her sister on thegrowing influence of the Abbe, which seemed surprising andunaccountable, while an undefined feeling of alarm respecting therapidly increasing intimacy of Agnes with Lord Doncaster, caused her tolong impatiently for the arrival of Sir Patrick, as she felt unwillingto distress her uncle on the subject of Agnes' extraordinary conduct,trusting that the whole affair was a mere girlish whim--a piece ofmissyish coquetry to please Lord Doncaster, who in the mean timelaughingly boasted that never before had he made a proselyte so youngand beautiful.
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