by Ellen Wood
“Allow me to give you a chair,” he said. “I have the honour of speaking to Miss Serle?”
“No,” she replied. “I am Miss Danesbury,”
Charlotte Serle came in, and was soon followed by Louisa; for Louisa had declined her mamma’s suggestion of coming in with the dessert. The viscount scanned the dresses of the three, and suspected company. The next to appear was Mr. Serle, in orthodox dinner costume. Lord Temple looked down at his own frock-coat, and drew Mr. Serle outside the door.
“Have you visitors to-day?”
“Only a few, my lord.”
“Then, what am I to do? I am in morning dress. You said I should be quite en famille.”
“Your lordship’s dress is all-sufficient. We do not stand upon ceremony in our house, or our visitors either. They will not look at your coat, my lord, after they hear your name.”
Mr. Serle spoke the last sentence in a joking tone; but he was always obsequious to rank: to be so was innate with him.
“Well — if Mrs. Serle will excuse it. I must wash my hands, and be obliged to you for combs and brushes, and such things. There is no time to send to my house.”
“I will show your lordship to your room. It is ready.”
“Who is that gentleman?” inquired Isabel Danesbury.
“Don’t know him from Adam,” was the response of Charlotte Serle.
“He is a stranger,” resumed Isabel, “for he addressed me as Miss Serle.”
“I never saw him before. He has on a curious dress, if he is come to dinner. But he is evidently a gentleman.”
“It is some grand client of papa’s,” interposed Louisa Serle. “Mamma came to me, all in a flurry, when I was in the nursery having my hair done, and wanted me not to go down to dinner. The idea! Some important client bad dropped in, she said, and papa had asked him to dinner, and she did not like to have the table in a squeeze, and would not sit down thirteen. I told her there would be no squeezing at all, but plenty of room, and thirteen was as lucky as twelve. So I finished dressing and came down.”
“I liked his appearance very much,” remarked Isabel
“What is his name, Louy?” asked Charlotte.
“I forget. He is out of the common way. A duke, or a prince, or a something: at any rate, a nobleman.”
Charlotte laughed. “Louisa is rather given to romancing, Isabel. We never have noblemen here.”
As she was speaking, Mr. St. George entered. A little man with a thin face and keen, expressive dark eyes.
“Walter,” said his bride elect,” “who is this client, come unexpectedly to dine with us?”
“Viscount Temple.”
“A viscount! Louy’s tale was not all romance, then.”
The guests assembled. When dinner was announced, Lord Temple, who ought, in right of his rank, to have taken Mrs. Serle, drew back in all the humility of his frock-coat, and she was handed in by a big and burly queen’s counsel. The viscount looked among the young ladies, and offered his hand to Isabel.
So they sat together and conversed together, mutually
pleased. Opposite to Isabel was her brother William, a remarkably handsome young man, though not quite so tall as Arthur. He had inherited his mother’s soft dark eyes, and her beautiful cast of countenance; he had even her delicately-formed lips; but while hers had spoken of firmness, William’s told of irresolution.
“Tell me who all these people are,” whispered Lord Temple to Isabel.
“I do not know the strangers,” she replied. “Only the Series, Mr. St. George, and my brother. That is my brother sitting opposite to me.”
“A Mr. Serle, is he?”
“No,” laughed Isabel, “I told you I was Miss Danesbury. He is William Danesbury.”
“I really beg your pardon. Thrown amid so many strange people at once, it has made me confuse names. St. George is to marry one of the Series, is he not?”
“Yes; the one with the dark hair, sitting next to him.”
“You do not reside here?”
“I reside at Eastborough.”
“Eastborough—” spoke Lord Temple, half to himself— “Danesbury? Eastborough? why, you must be related to Arthur Danesbury?”
“He is my dear brother,” answered Isabel.
“If we were not in a crowd, I should take both your hands and cordially shake them,” exclaimed Lord Temple, his face, his eyes, his whole countenance lighting up with animation; “whatever you might think of me, I could not help doing it for Arthur’s sake. We were together at Cambridge. You must have heard him speak of me.”
Isabel reflected. “I do not remember that I have,” she answered. ‘‘Your name appeared strange to me when it was mentioned this evening.”
“Oh — I was not Lord Temple then. My father was alive. I was Mr. Dacre.”
“You never can be Reginald Dacre!” uttered Isabel.
“Reginald Dacre is no other than my unworthy self. Very unworthy, indeed, Miss Danesbury, if you knew all Arthur could tell you. He was a true friend to me, and saved me from many a pit-fall. ‘My good guardian,’ I used to call him; and such he was.”
“He is good to every one,” said Isabel.
“I am so glad to have met you,” continued Lord Temple; “I have not seen Danesbury since we parted at Cambridge, though I have often thought, since my return from abroad, of looking him up. Arthur Danesbury is almost the only man I ever had a respect for.”
“I hope not,” remarked Isabel. “It does not say much for your circle of friends.”
“He is, though. And now that I am told of the relationship, I can detect your likeness to him. You are very like him. Miss Danesbury. Your brother opposite is not.”
“He is not, I think. I and Arthur resemble papa: and William, they say, is the very image of what poor mamma was.”
“You have lost your mother?”
“When William was a baby.”
“Now that I have heard of Arthur, I shall not rest till I pay him a visit. You will find me intruding some day upon you, Miss Danesbury.”
“Danesbury House will be very pleased to welcome you. And if you respect and like Arthur, I am sure you will respect and like papa.”
“I thought my sojourn in Bedford Row would have turned out unmitigatedly dull,” candidly spoke the young nobleman, “but I need not fear that now, with you to talk to, and Arthur for the theme.”
“Are you going to stay here?” she inquired, in surprise.
“For a day or two. Serle and St. George are my solicitors, and are arranging some business matters for me. Will you introduce me to your brother William after dinner?”
“Certainly I will.”
“You do not drink your wine,” observed Lord Temple, perceiving that, however often Isabel complied with the request to take wine, the quantity in her glass was never sensibly diminished, and the space to be filled up each time got less instead of greater.
“Thank you: I do not like wine.”
“Not like wine!”
“I never drink it by choice. At a dinner-table such as this, I sip it, not to appear singular, but I do not like it well enough to do more than just put my lips to it.”
“I never heard of such a thing as not liking wine,” repeated Lord Temple. “What do you like?”
“Water.”
“I wonder you can choose any thing so insipid. Arthur never drank any thing but water, I remember.”
“Never. He is more particular than I. I almost call it one of the points in Arthur’s religion, to drink simple water.”
“But why?” inquired Lord Temple.
“For one thing, we were brought up to drink it; as children, neither beer nor wine was ever given to us; we were not suffered to know the taste of them. And,” added Isabel, sinking her voice, “the very last words mamma ever said to Arthur were an injunction not to drink any thing but water.”
“When she was dying?”
“Oh no. She was quite well; as well as we are now, and had been dining at this very t
able, for we were here on a visit. But mamma received a hasty summons home, and she took leave of me and Arthur, and left us here, and started. Before she reached Eastborough it had happened. The chaise was overturned, and mamma killed.”
“How shocking I how distressing!” uttered Lord Temple, his countenance betraying its sad interest.
“We were only children,” continued Isabel. “Mamma feared that in her absence Mr. and Mrs. Serle might be giving us wine and porter, and she whispered to Arthur, in the moment of her departure, not to touch either; and he promised. Those words, though only meant, at the time she spoke them, to apply to the period she expected to be away from us, Arthur has always regarded as a dying injunction, and he has never transgressed it. He is a strict water-drinker.”
“And you and Arthur really like water better than any thing stronger?”
Isabel smiled. “We like water much, and we do not like stronger things. The taste for water, which of course is born with every one, mamma took care should be cultivated in our childhood. She deemed it most essential to bring children up to like water, and equally essential not to let them acquire a predilection for ale and wine.”
“Well, all this sounds like a new theory to me,” said Lord Temple, good-humouredly, though, Isabel thought, not altogether in belief. “I fancy it must be pleasant to like water as a beverage; convenient at times. But your brother there does not confine himself to water,” he added, for he saw that William Danesbury drank as much wine as the rest of the table.
“No,” replied Isabel. “Papa’s second wife has had the bringing up of William, and she does not approve of the water-drinking system. She is Mrs. Serle’s sister.”
And thus they continued to converse, upon one topic or another, until the ladies rose. It was Lord Temple who, oblivious of his frock-coat, held the door open for them as they filed out of the room.
“You very essence of all flirtation!” uttered Charlotte Serle to Isabel, the moment they reached the drawing-room. “Had you and Lord Temple been old friends, meeting after a long absence, or on the point of marriage, as I and Walter are, you could not have been more wrapt up in each other.”
“A great deal less, before you all, had we been on the point of marriage,” merrily laughed Isabel. “But we really did not seem unlike friends meeting after an absence, though I never saw him till this evening. Before we had spoken many words, he discovered that I was Arthur Danesbury’s sister; and I, that he was the Reginald Dacre of Arthur’s college days. They were close friends at Cambridge: Lord Temple says he never had so true a one.”
“But you must have known that Reginald Dacre was Lord Temple’s son,” observed Mrs. Serle.
“Of course I knew it at the time,” replied Isabel; “but the title had quite slipped from my memory.”
“How singular!” exclaimed Mrs. Serle. “Such chance encounters do sometimes happen though. Mr. Serle is as Lord Temple’s right hand, and does every thing for him,” she added, for the benefit of her guests. “He has recently succeeded to the estates.”
“Such estates as they are,” spoke the Queen’s Counsel’s wife. “His father was a poor man — made himself poor; gamed, drank, and squandered his money. Lord Temple, the present lord, was the only child, has come into a dilapitated purse, and is as careless and hare-brained as his father was before him.”
“He seems a very delightful young man,” quoth one of the ladies.
“Yes. But he made a hole in his manners to-day, coming to a dinner-party in a frock-coat.”
“It was a — misapprehension,” interposed Mrs. Serle, not choosing to be more explanatory. “He expected a quiet chop with Mr. Serle, and did not go home to dress. He talked about not appearing when he found we had Mends, but Mr. Serle assured him — you know he is fond of a jest — that when the visitors had heard his name they would not see his coat. Miss Danesbury, will you give us some music?”
Lord Temple did not leave Mr. Serle’s at the end of a day or two. His affairs were in a more intricate state than Mr. Serle bad supposed, and not until the eighth day was he at liberty to depart He had not failed to improve his acquaintance with Isabel Danesbury. Indeed, it was no longer acquaintance or friendship either: it had grown into love. Ay, love on both sides, short as the period had been.
But they had been very much together. Mrs. Serle and her daughters were fully engaged with the preparations for Charlotte’s wedding, and Isabel was requested, as a great favor, to entertain the guest, that they might be more at liberty. She complied, nothing loth, for she had never met with any one she liked so well as Lord Temple. She did not care to analyze her pleasant sensations; he did not think to analyze his. To analyze any thing was not in Lord Temple’s line. They only felt that the presence of the other was becoming strangely dear, and, by the time the eight days had gone by, too dear to be relinquished. The first use Lord Temple, impetuous in all he did, made of his liberty, was to hasten down to Eastborough and lay his proposals for Isabel before Mr. Danesbury.
Arthur Danesbury was inexpressibly surprised: surprised at the sight of his former friend, and at his proposing for Isabel after so short a knowledge of her. Mr. Danesbury could say little, for or against. Lord Temple being to him a complete stranger. He inquired privately of Arthur what character he bore at college and what his principles were.
“He was no worse than many another at college,” was Arthur’s reply; “better than some. His chief fault lay in being so easily led away.”
“Is he one to whom we ought to give Isabel?”
“As he was then, no; as he might have been, yes,’’ answered Arthur. “His faults were not grievous ones. They were what are looked upon by the world with a lenient eye. Years have passed since then, and he had excellent seeds in his heart; quite sufficient to root out the tares.”
Mr. Danesbury looked perplexed. “The question is, has he suffered the seeds to bear fruit,” he gravely said, “or are the tares there still?”
“If they are there yet, the good must be well-nigh overrun,” was Arthur’s comment. “He has many good points. He is frank and truthful, and full of honour.”
“I shall write and inquire of Serle what he knows of his private character,” said Mr. Danesbury. “Lord Temple frankly states that his affairs are such that he can not marry yet, for his father’s death left all in confusion, and it will take time to get them even tolerably straight.”
“He informs me that he has made himself answerable for some of his father’s liabilities,” observed Arthur. “He used to be generous to a fault. Suppose, sir, you accept him conditionally?”
“Yes, I think that must be it. I will tell him that if we hear nothing to his disadvantage I will say yes, after a while. It is a higher alliance than a Danesbury could have expected; but I look to Isabel’s happiness, not to her grandeur.”
Lord Temple went over the extensive works. He was pleased with all he saw. He appeared not to share in the popular prejudice which men of his rank hold against commerce. “I should think it an honour to be a second Danesbury,” he remarked to Arthur, with whom he was alone, and very much in earnest he appeared when he spoke it: “and a lucky thing for me, if it were so, for it would keep me out of idleness.”
“Dacre,” returned Arthur Danesbury, in a grave voice, “have you sown your wild oats? Answer me truly. Because, if not, you know that you are no fit husband for my sister.”
“I have sown most of them,” replied Lord Temple, “and what few may cling to me still, a wife will, of necessity, dissipate.”
“It is a serious thing to us, Dacre, to give away Isabel.
Though pray forgive my still calling you ‘Dacre,’ “Arthur broke off to say; “I can not rid my tongue and memory of the old familiar name. And, were one to receive the gift who proved afterward unworthy of it, it would break some of our hearts.”
“She shall find me all she could wish,” returned Lord Temple, in his impetuous fashion. “I would go through fire and water for her.”
Arthur D
anesbury doubted his lordship’s being called upon to undergo the suggested ordeals. “Would you go through self-denial for her?” he asked.
“I would go through any thing and every thing for Isabel. Mr. Danesbury need not doubt me. She is the first woman who ever touched my heart, and I swear that I will do all in my power to make her happy.”
Viscount Temple was soon back in London, whither Arthur accompanied him. He — her lover — informed Isabel that her father had no objection to him, and they plighted their troth. Mr. Serle had written word, in answer to Mr. Danesbury’s application, that he knew nothing unfavourable of Lord Temple. The true fact was, that he knew nothing whatever of his private habits, except that he got out of money. And Isabel Danesbury returned home, after Charlotte Serle’s marriage, an engaged girl.
But now, what was in reality the daily life of Lord Temple? He was an idle nobleman. Had he been trained to engage in any worthy pursuit, he would have been a different man. Want of occupation rendered him indolent, and an easily-swayed disposition led him into sin: few men but could resist temptation better than Viscount Temple. Let us glance at four-and-twenty hours of his life, and that will serve for an illustration of all.
A choice knot of young men had assembled to dine at the bachelor residence of Sir Robert Payn; a wealthy commoner, of extensive purse, fastidious taste, and fast habits. The half-dozen guests collected, of whom Lord Temple made one, were all of fast habits likewise. Look at the preparations for the dinner: the costly table with its costly appurtenances. Silver ornaments; silver dishes; brilliant glass, richly cut; superb china from the fair manufactories of Worcester; with damask linen of rare beauty! The fitting-up of the room were luxurious; and the peculiar paintings on the walls, though finished and beautiful as to their execution, would have told that their owner was an unmarried man. The preparation of wines was great. There was Champagne, and there was sparkling Burgundy; Madeira, and golden sherry, and heady port; with the array of lighter wines from France, claret, Bordeaux; too many sorts to be named. Bottles of foaming ale were under the side-board, and spirits stood on it in their handsome stands.
The dinner was most recherché; Sir Robert’s entertainments always were; and the guests did it ample justice. They all drank deeply; not certainly to intoxication; that would have been a sin against good manners at that hour of the evening; and custom enabled them to drink much with impunity. After a potent cup of coffee and a glass of rich liqueur, they went out; to the opera, to the greenroom of a favoured theatre, or to look in for half an hour at some of the entertainments held that night by the noble and great. That over, the night-work began: their clubs; their gaming-houses; their questionable saloons; and the supper, the finish-up. The less said about these suppers the better. It was a motley scene: gentlemen and ladies eating, laughing, and getting tipsy together: red and white wines, ales, spirits, and showers of brandy and Champagne. Lord Temple’s coroneted cab was waiting for him outside, amid a crowd of other cabs, and wait it did till morning light. The grooms and servants in attendance on the cabs sometimes got loud and quarrelsome, for they also must while away the midnight hours in drink, while waiting for their masters.