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 L161— O-1096
 
 THE 
 
 SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE
 
 Zu^^cZ^^>^::^ 
 
 THE 
 
 SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF 
 
 THE SEMI-DETACHED HOUSE.' 
 
 m TWO VOLUMES. 
 
 Vol. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 RICHAED BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. 
 1860.
 
 LONDON': PRINTED BY W. CI/DWES AND SONS, STAMiORD STREET.
 
 ^,2 3 
 
 V.I 
 
 I 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 This story was partly written nearly thirty 
 years ago, before railroads were established, 
 and travelling carriages-and-four superseded; 
 before postage-stamps had extinguished the 
 privilege of franking, and before the Eeform 
 Bill had limited the duration of the polling 
 
 'v^t borough elections to a single day. In re- 
 writing it I might easily have introduced these 
 and other modern innovations ; but as I be- 
 
 ;■ lieve the manners of England to be as much 
 changed as her customs, there would have 
 been discrepancies between my scenes and
 
 IV PREFACE. 
 
 characters: the background would not have 
 harmonized with the figures. 
 
 When I wrote it, I thought it a tolerably 
 faithful representation of modern society ; but 
 some young friends who are still living in the 
 world, from which I have long retired, and 
 who have read it with the indulgence of 
 happy youth, condescendingly assure me that 
 it is amusing, inasmuch as it is a curious 
 picture of old-fashioned society. Therefore, 
 in giving it to the world, I trust that to my 
 own contemporaries it may have the charm 
 of reminding them of their youth, and that 
 to the young it may have the recommenda- 
 tion of being a strange Chronicle of the Olden 
 Time. 
 
 E. E.
 
 THE 
 
 SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 " Well, I have paid that visit to the Esk- 
 dales, Mr. Douglas," said Mrs. Douglas in a 
 tone of triumphant sourness. 
 
 " You don't say so, my dear ! I hope you 
 left my card ?" 
 
 "Not I, Mr. Douglas. How could I? 
 They let me in, which was too unkind. I saw 
 the whole family, father and mother, brother 
 and sisters — the future bride and bridegroom. 
 Such a tribe ! and servants without end. How 
 I detest walking up that great flight of steps 
 at Eskdale Castle, with that regiment of foot- 
 
 YOL. I. B
 
 I THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 men drawn up on each side of it ; one looking 
 more impertinent than the other !" 
 
 '* There must be a frightful accumulation of 
 impertinence before you reach the landing- 
 place, my dear ; for it is a long staircase." 
 
 *' Don t talk nonsense, Mr. Douglas," said 
 his wife, sharply. " I shan't go again in a 
 hurry. That whole house is hateful to me : 
 Lady Eskdale with her dawdling, languid 
 manner, and her large shawl, and conceited 
 cap ; and that Lord Beaufort, with his black 
 eyebrows and shining teeth. Lady Eskdale 
 looked as old as the hills, with all that lace 
 hanging about her face. She has grown ex- 
 cessively old, Mr. Douglas. I never saw 
 anybody so altered.'* 
 
 *' Did you think so, Anne ? I thought her 
 looking very handsome yesterday, when I 
 met her in her pony carriage." 
 
 ^* Ah ! that pony carriage ; that is so like 
 her nonsense. Pony carriages are the 
 fashion, and she has taken to drive. I should
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 3 
 
 not be the least surprised any day to hear that 
 she had broken her neck. Why cannot she 
 go out in her britzka, and be driven by her 
 coachman ? and as for looking handsome, it is 
 not very likely that she should at her age. 
 Lady Eskdale is as old as I am, Mr. Doug- 
 las." 
 
 ^'You don't say so," was again on the point 
 of escaping Mr. Douglas's lips, and after a 
 pause he bethought himself of the lovers as a 
 safer topic than Lady Eskdale's beauty ; he 
 had tried that too often in his life. " Did 
 you see Helen^ my dear ?" 
 
 '' Oh ! to be sure. She was sent for. 
 ' Dear Love,' as Lady Eskdale drawled 
 out, ' she is so happy ; and you must see 
 Teviot, he is such a darling ; if he were my 
 own son, I could not love him more.' So in 
 they came, the dear love and the darling. 
 You know how I hate those London sort of 
 men, with their mustachios and chains and 
 offensive waistcoats, and Lord Teviot is one 
 
 B 2
 
 4 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 of the worst specimens I ever saw of the 
 kind—" 
 
 " And Helen?" again said Mr. Douglas. 
 
 " Oh, Helen !" said Mrs. Douglas, and then 
 paused. She was in imminent peril of 
 being forced to praise, but escaped with great 
 adroitness. ' Well, if Helen were not one of 
 that family, I should not dislike her. She is 
 civil enough, and promised to show the girls 
 her trousseau ; but she is altered too. I think 
 her looking dreadfully old, Mr. Douglas." 
 
 '' Old at eighteen, Anne ! what wrinkled 
 wretches we must be ! Has Helen grown gray ?" 
 
 '' No ; but you know what I mean : she 
 looks so set-up, so fashioned. In short, it 
 does not signify, but she is altered." 
 
 Mr. Douglas had his suspicions that Helen 
 must have been looking beautiful, since even 
 his wife could not detect, or at least specify, 
 the faults that were to be found in her appear- 
 ance. He had seldom seen her so much at 
 fault for a criticism. Mrs. Douglas had
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 5 
 
 never had the slightest pretensions to good 
 looks ; in fact, though it is wrong to say 
 anything so ill-natured, she was excessively 
 plain, always had been so, and had a soreness 
 on the subject of beauty, that looked perhaps 
 as like envy as any other quality. 
 
 As she had no hope of raising herself to 
 the rank of a beauty, her only chance was 
 brino'ing others down to her own level. *'How 
 old she is looking !" — " How she is altered !" 
 were the expressions that invariably concluded 
 Mrs. Douglas's comments on her acquaint- 
 ances ; and the prolonged absence of a friend 
 was almost a pleasure to her, as it gave her 
 the opportunity of saying after a first meeting, 
 " How changed Mrs. So-and-so is ! I should 
 hardly have known her ; but then, to be sure, 
 I have not seen her for a year — or two 
 years," &c. 
 
 People may go on talking for ever of the 
 jealousies of pretty women ; but for real genu- 
 ine, hard-working envy, there is nothing like
 
 6 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 an ugly woman with a taste for admiration. 
 Her mortified vanity curdles into malevolence ; 
 and she calumniates where she cannot rival. 
 
 Mrs. Douglas had been an heiress, which 
 perhaps accounted for Mr. Douglas having 
 married her ; but though no one could suppose 
 that he married for love, he had been to her 
 what is called a good husband. He let her 
 have a reasonable share of her own way, and 
 spend a reasonable portion of her own money ; 
 he abstained from all vivid admiration of 
 beauty within her hearing; he had a great 
 reliance on her judgment, and a high opinion 
 of her talents ; and though he was too good- 
 hearted to hear without pain her sarcasms on 
 almost all her acquaintance, he seldom irri- 
 tated her by contradiction, but kept his own 
 opinion with a quiet regret that his wife was 
 so hard to please. 
 
 The Eskdales and Douglases had been near 
 neighbours for many years, and had always 
 been on sociable and sometimes intimate terms.
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 7 
 
 Mrs. Douglas could almost have become 
 attached to her neighbour, had it not been 
 for the prolonged youthfulness of Lady Esk- 
 dale's appearance, and the uninterrupted and 
 increasing prosperity of her family. The pro- 
 vocation grew too great for endurance. The 
 ladies had become mothers at the same time, 
 and the comparison of their babies, monthly 
 nurses, and embroidered caps, had been the 
 commencement of their intimacy ; then came 
 the engagement of nursery governesses, and 
 discussions on the comparative merits of Swiss 
 bonnes, highly accomplished French gover- 
 nesses, poor clergyman's daughters, or respect- 
 able young, ignorant women. Then the 
 respective right shoulders of Sophia Beau- 
 fort and Sarah Douglas took a fit of 
 growing, without due regard to the stationary 
 dispositions of the left. 
 
 There are two years in every woman's life 
 in which the undue size of her right shoulder 
 is the bane of her own life, and of everybody
 
 O THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 about her. Mrs. Douglas called constantly 
 at Eskdale Castle to satisfy herself that 
 Sophia was growing absolutely deformed ; and 
 Lady Eskdale owned she should fret dread- 
 fully about her poor darling if she did not 
 think Mrs. Douglas so much more to be 
 pitied on her dear Sarah's account. 
 
 The girls grew up perfectly straight, of 
 course. 
 
 This period of reclining boards and dumb- 
 bells was the most flourishing age of the 
 Eskdale and Douglas friendship. After that 
 it gradually declined. There was a shght 
 revival when the two ladies entered into 
 a confederacy against an exorbitant drawing- 
 master ; but he was shortly reduced to terms ; 
 and when he had consented to walk fifteen 
 miles, and give a lesson of two hours for fifteen 
 shilHngs, instead of a guinea, all farther com- 
 munity of interests on the subject of accom- 
 plishments ceased. The Eskdales soon after 
 received an accession of fortune, and passed a
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 9 
 
 great part of each year in another county, 
 and also in London. The Ladies Beaufort 
 grew up, came out, were admired, and became 
 what Mrs. Douglas called " disgustingly 
 fine.'* 
 
 The Douglas family remained in the 
 country, mixed more with their second grade 
 of neighbours, in default of their great friends; 
 and the Misses Douglas were, Lady Esk- 
 dale said, '^ the dearest, most amiable girls in 
 the world;" she only wished they "dressed 
 better, and that Lord Eskdale did not think 
 them vulgar ; but unfortunately their voices 
 annoyed him, so that she could not ask them 
 to dinner so often as she should like for dear 
 Mrs. Douglas's sake." 
 
 Still a certain degree of intercourse was 
 kept up. An occasional letter passed, and 
 at last a dreadful blow fell on the unsus- 
 pecting Mrs. Douglas — an announcement from 
 Lady Eskdale of the marriage of her eldest 
 daughter. It began in the terms usually
 
 10 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 employed on such occasions, — " I cannot bear 
 that my dear Mrs. Douglas should hear from 
 any one but myself, that my darling Sophia's 
 fate is decided; and that in giving my 
 precious child to Sir William Waldegrave, 
 I feel no doubts," &c., &c. The remainder is 
 easily imagined : high principles, good looks, 
 long attachment — six weeks — worldly pros- 
 perity, mother's fears, these were the catch- 
 words of the sentences. Mrs. Douglas wrote 
 her congratulations, and kept her astonishment 
 and comments for home consumption. Twelve 
 months passed, and another letter arrived, but 
 Mrs. Douglas was prepared for the worst this 
 time, at least, she said she was ; and that it 
 would not surprise her at all if Amelia were 
 going to be married. Again, Lady Eskdale 
 could not bear that Mrs. Douglas should hear 
 from anybody but herself, that dearest Amelia 
 was to marry Mr. Trevor ; another delightful 
 young man with still higher principles, more 
 good looks, a still longer attachment — two
 
 THE SEMI- ATTACHED COUPLE. 11 
 
 months, at least — and the mother's fears, and 
 the trousseau, and all the rest of it, followed 
 in due order. The letter wound up with a 
 gay assertion that little Eskdale Waldegrave 
 was such a splendid child, that she forgave 
 him for making her a grandmother at eight- 
 and-thirty. 
 
 Mrs. Douglas read the communication in a 
 tone expressive of extreme ill usage. Neither 
 from herself nor from any one else could 
 Lady Eskdale hear that either of the Misses 
 Douglas were about to be married. They 
 had not even a disappointment to boast of, 
 not a report about them to contradict, and 
 Mrs. Douglas's chance of being a grandmother 
 at all seemed hardly worth having. She 
 began to rail against early marriages — hoped 
 Mr. Trevor would help Amelia to play with 
 her doll, and guessed that Sir William Wal- 
 degrave had repented long ago that he had 
 not taken time to find out Sophia's temper 
 before he married her.
 
 12 THE SEMI- ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 There was only Helen left — Helen, so 
 beautiful, so gentle, so light-hearted — the 
 pride of her parents, the petted friend of her 
 sisters, the idol of her brother, and loving as 
 warmly as she was beloved. Yes, I knew 
 Helen from her childhood, and had thought 
 that such a gentle, gay creature could never 
 be touched by the cares and griefs that fall 
 on the common herd. " It was very much 
 to the credit of my benevolence, though not 
 of my judgment," as Sneer says. Why was 
 she to escape ? I do not wish to be cynical ; 
 but if a stone is thrown into our garden, is it 
 not sure to knock off the head of our most 
 valuable tulip ? If a cup of coffee is to be 
 spilled, does it not make a point of falling on 
 our richest brocade gown ? If we do lose our 
 reticule, does not the misfortune occur on the 
 only day on which we had left our purse in 
 it ? All these are well-known facts, and, by 
 parity of reason, was it to be expected that 
 any one so formed as Helen was to enjoy as
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 13 
 
 well as to impart happiness, should escape the 
 trials that ought to have fallen on the peevish 
 and the disappointed — on me, for instance, or 
 such as me ? 
 
 Helen came out the year after her sister 
 Amelia's marriage. *' Lady Eskdale is so 
 lucky — in fact, so clever — in marrying off her 
 daughters, that it would not the least sur- 
 prise me if she actually caught Lord Teviot 
 for Lady Helen," was the spiteful prophecy of 
 many who were trembling at the idea of its 
 fulfilment. Their hopes and their fears 
 were both confirmed. Lord Teviot, the great 
 parti of the year, with five country houses 
 — being four more than he could live in ; 
 with 120,000/. a year— being 30,000/. less 
 than he could spend ; with diamonds that had 
 been collected by the ten last generations of 
 Teviots, and a yacht that had been built by 
 himself, with the rank of a marquess, and the 
 good looks of the poorest of younger brothers 
 — what could he want but a wife? Many
 
 14 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 people (himself among the rest) thought he 
 was better without one ; but he changed his 
 mind the first time he saw Helen, and then it 
 signified little whether other people changed 
 theirs. He danced with her, evening after 
 evening. He gave balls at Teviot House, 
 breakfasts at Rose Bank, white-bait dinners 
 on board the Sylph, and finally, paid a morn- 
 ing visit at Lord Eskdale's at an unprece- 
 dentedly early hour. Mrs. Fitzroy Jones, who 
 lived next door, and passed her life in an 
 active supervision of all Eskiale proceeding-, 
 declared that his cabriolet waited two hours 
 in the square, so she was sure he had pro- 
 posed. Lady Bruce Gordon, who lived at the 
 corner, asserted that she saw Lady Helen go 
 out in the open carriage with her mother later 
 in the afternoon, and that she looked as if she 
 had cried her eyes quite out of her head (this 
 was figurative) ; so she had no doubt that 
 Lord Teviot had jilted her. But Mr. Elliot 
 was looked upon as the highest authority, as
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 15 
 
 he happened to be passing Lord Eskdale's 
 door at half-past seven, and saw Lord Teviot go 
 in, though he had ascertained that there was no 
 other company expected. What did that mean ? 
 
 The next day the marriage was declared. 
 For the three following weeks Lord Eskdale's 
 porter had a hard place of it. He said him- 
 self that it required two pair of hands to take 
 in the notes and letters of congratulation, to 
 say nothing of the interesting-looking parcels, 
 wrapped in silver paper, that were sent by 
 attached friends, and the boxes and baskets 
 which arrived from distinguished milliners 
 and jewellers. 
 
 At the end of the fourth week, Mrs. Fitz- 
 roy Jones and all the little Joneses, Lady 
 B. Gordon and all the little Gordons, Mrs. 
 Elliot and all the little Elliots, were drawn up 
 at their respective windows, watching the 
 packing of the huge waggons which were 
 stationed at the Eskdale door, and reason- 
 ing themselves into a painful conviction of
 
 16 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 the melancholy fact that they were to be 
 defrauded of a view of the wedding. Perhaps 
 not, though. It may take place to-morrow. 
 But, No ! The next day brought the tra- 
 velling carriages to the door. Mrs. Jones 
 saw the family depart, then "" turned with 
 sickening soul within her gate," and said, " I 
 must say I think it very ill-natured not to have 
 the wedding in town." Mrs. Douglas thought 
 so too — or rather she thought it very ill 
 natured to have the wedding in her neigh- 
 bourhood, not only forcing on her the sight 
 of so much prosperity, -but, by an unfortunate 
 train of events, actually obliging her to form 
 part of the show. Eliza Douglas was asked 
 to be one of Lady Helen's bridesmaids.
 
 THE SEMI- ATTACHED COUPLE. 17 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 However, we have not come to the wed- 
 ding-day yet. There was the usual difficulty 
 about settlements which attends all marriages, 
 whether there be any property to settle or 
 not, and the delay gave the neighbourhood 
 the full enjoyment of watching the Teviots in 
 the interesting character of lovers, and nothing 
 excites so much curiosity, or affords such a fine 
 mark for criticism, as the conduct of any two 
 individuals who are placed in that critical 
 position. Mrs. Douglas, as we know, had 
 given herself the advantage of a regular morn- 
 ing visit and a formal introduction to Lord 
 Teviot, thereby acquiring a lawful right to 
 
 VOL. I. C
 
 18 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 make all her remarks by authority ; and this 
 visit was followed by an invitation from the 
 Eskdales to dinner — the invitation including 
 the two Misses Douglas as well as their father 
 and mother. So the Douglases took very 
 high ground on the great Teviot question. 
 
 The other neighbours had various degrees 
 of good fortune. Mrs. Thompson, the curate's 
 wife, had a very fair share of luck, considering, 
 as she said, that she was sure to be looking the 
 other way when anything worth seeing was 
 going on. But she had just called in at the 
 South Lodge with a tract, when she saw 
 several ladies and gentlemen riding up the 
 avenue, and she understood the happy pair 
 were of the party ; so that though she could 
 not distinguish who was who, yet she had a 
 right to say she had seen *'the marquess." 
 She really thought those large parties must 
 prevent young people from making acquaint- 
 ance : they ought to be left more to them- 
 selves. Mrs. Birkett, the apothecary's wife.
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 19 
 
 had had greater good fortune : she had crossed 
 in her walk an open part of the pleasure- 
 ground, and she had seen Lady Helen sketch- 
 ing, and a tall, dark-looking young gentleman 
 standing by her. "A most noble-looking 
 young man is the marquess — he reminds me 
 of what Mr. Birkett's cousin Sir Simon was 
 when he was young. I own I was a little 
 surprised — I won't say shocked — to see his 
 lordship and her ladyship without a chape- 
 rone ; but in high life I fancy there is a 
 great deal more ease than we should think 
 right. But I can't say I approve of young 
 engaged people being left so much to them- 
 selves. However, I am glad I have seen 
 them ; and I was much nearer to them than 
 Mrs. Thompson was." 
 
 However fortunate these two ladies had 
 been, Sunday was the day that was looked to 
 for the general gratification of public curio- 
 sity, and the church had not been so well 
 attended for months as it was on that par- 
 
 c 2
 
 20 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 ticular day. It was obvious to the whole 
 neighbourhood that the Eskdales wished to 
 avoid observation by coming early to church, 
 for they arrived before the end of the first 
 lesson — a most unusual degree of punctuality; 
 but this sign of timidity did not prevent 
 the whole congregation from fixing their eyes 
 intently on the tall young man who followed 
 Lord Eskdale into church, and who took a 
 seat opposite to Lady Helen in the pew. 
 Never was the congregation so alert in stand- 
 ing up at the proper opportunities. Old Mr. 
 Marlow, a martyr to rheumatic gout, and 
 Mrs. Greenland, who had, for two years, 
 made her stiff* knee an excuse for sitting 
 down during the whole of the service, were 
 both on their legs before the psalm was given 
 out. The clerk, who had a passion for his 
 own singing, saw his advantages, and gave out 
 five verses of a hymn, with repetition of the 
 two last lines of each verse. Seven verses 
 and a half! but nobody thought it a note too
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 21 
 
 long. Moreover, Lady Helen dropped her 
 prayer-book, and the tall young man picked 
 it up for her. Such an incident ! Mrs. 
 Thompson, as usual, missed it, because she 
 was unluckily tying her little girl's bonnet- 
 strings. There was a rush into the church- 
 yard the moment the sermon was over, to 
 which nobody had attended, except those who 
 were watching for " Lastly." And when 
 Lady Helen came out, leaning on her father's 
 arm, and Lady Eskdale followed, attended by 
 the tall young man, and when they all bowed 
 and curtsied, and got into the open carriage, 
 the father and mother sitting forwards and 
 the young people opposite to them, and when 
 Lord Eskdale took off his black hat and 
 bowed on one side, and the young man took 
 off his gray hat and bowed on the other, 
 nothing could exceed the gratification of the 
 assembly. Lord Teviot was exactly what 
 they expected, so very distinguished and so 
 good-looking. Some thought him too attentive
 
 22 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 to his prayers for a man in love, and some 
 thought him too attentive to Lady Helen for 
 a man in church ; but eventually the two 
 factions joined, and thought him simply very 
 attentive. They all saw that Lady Helen 
 was very fond of him, and nobody could be 
 surprised at that. It was a most satisfactory 
 Sunday ; and as most of them were addicted to 
 the immoral practice of Sunday letter-writing, 
 the observations of the morning were reduced 
 to writing in the evening, and sent off to 
 various parts of England on Monday morn- 
 ing. But hardly had the post gone out, when 
 an alarming report arose that the real, genuine 
 Lord Teviot had gone up to town on Satur- 
 day, and that the " observed of all observers " 
 was an architect come down to complete the 
 statue gallery. It was too true : the reaction 
 was frightful, and, as usual in all cases of 
 reaction, the odium fell on the wrong man. 
 The architect, who was in fact an awkward, 
 ungainly concern, remained in possession of
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 23 
 
 distinguished looks, and with the glory of 
 being very attentive to Lady Helen; and it 
 was generally asserted that Lord Teviot kept 
 out of the way — as he was quite aware of 
 being ill-looking ; that he was not attached in 
 the smallest degree to Lady Helen_, or he 
 would not have gone to London ; and that he 
 was very unprincipled, not to say an atheist, 
 or he would have gone to church.
 
 24' THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 The day of the wedding drew near. The 
 whole Eskdale family, with the exception of 
 the Waldegraves, were assembled for the 
 ceremony. Lady Amelia Trevor and Helen 
 had always been friends as well as sisters. 
 There was a difference of little more than a 
 year in their ages, and on every point of 
 amusement or interest — in their childish 
 griefs, or their youthful pleasures — their trust 
 and confidence in each other had been un- 
 bounded. Amelia's marriage had made no 
 difference in their relations to each other, for 
 Helen liked Mr. Trevor, and he admired her 
 with all Amelia's enthusiasm, and loved her 
 with all Amelia's fondness.
 
 THE SEMI- ATT ACHED COUPLE. 25 
 
 Amelia was in ecstasies on her arrival at 
 Eskdale. She thought Lord Teviot charm- 
 ing. Helen had never looked so beautiful. 
 Everybody ought to marry — a married life 
 was so happy ; and then it was so lucky that 
 she and Mr. Trevor had brought a set of 
 emeralds for Helen, for the Waldegraves 
 had sent a set of pearls, and she had once 
 thought of pearls herself. Lord Teviot was 
 quite as desperately in love as she had ex- 
 pected — ^just what he ought to be ; in short, 
 she worked herself up into such a state of 
 prosperous cheerfulness, that when she went 
 into Helen's room, three days before the ap- 
 pointed wedding, she was as childishly gay as 
 when she had run into it five years before, 
 with tidings of a whole holiday, or a child's 
 ball, and now, to her utter discomfiture, she 
 found Helen in tears. 
 
 " Helen, my darling, what is the matter ? 
 what is it, love ? Are you tired with your 
 long ride? I said you would be."
 
 26 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 " No, Amy, I am not tired ; we did not 
 ride far," said Helen, trying to stifle her tears. 
 *' Have you and Alfred been out ?" 
 
 " Yes — no. Oh ! I do not know ; never 
 mind where we went, but tell me what is the 
 matter. Do, dear Nell. Don't you remem- 
 ber how in former days I always used to tease 
 you out of all your secrets ? and you must not 
 cry without telling me why." 
 
 " I do not know that I can tell you, dear ; 
 perhaps I do not know myself. I dare say I 
 am tired, I often feel so now ; and then I 
 have so much to think of;" and she leant her 
 head on her hand with a look of painful 
 weariness. 
 
 *'Yes, so you have, but they are happy 
 thoughts too, Helen, in most respects. Oh, 
 dear me ! how well I remember the week be- 
 fore my marriage, going to my own room and 
 sitting down comfortably in my arm-chair, 
 just as you are now, and thinking I would be 
 thoroughly unhappy about leaving dear papa
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 27 
 
 and mamma, and you and Beaufort, and I meant 
 to cry about it, and to make a complete victim 
 of myself. And at the end of half an hour 
 I found I had been thinking of nothing but 
 dear Alfred, and wondering whether there 
 ever had been in the world any creature so 
 happy as I was — — " 
 
 " And yet you were leaving home !" 
 
 *' Yes, but not for ever," said Amelia, laugh- 
 ing ; " only for three weeks. I knew I should 
 come back, and bring dear Alfred with me ; 
 and so will you, and bring dear Teviot. Now, 
 Helen, do not look so deplorable ; nobody can 
 possibly pity you, I assure you." 
 
 " No^ I suppose not," said Helen, in a low 
 tone. 
 
 " Alfred and I have settled to remain here 
 till you come back from your great castle in 
 the north," said Ameha, determined to talk 
 away Helen's low spirits. "So you need not 
 fret about mamma's loneliness ; and besides, I 
 never saw her so pleased with anything as she
 
 28 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 is with your marriage. I had a horrible fit of 
 jealousy yesterday, thinking poor Alfred was 
 neglected — I may say, quite cut out ; but 
 mamma has taken a little more notice of him 
 to-day. Oh, dear ! what fun it will be when 
 we visit you in your own house ! I hear it is 
 an actual palace. Alfred went there once for 
 some shooting when he was a boy *, and then I 
 have never told you that I like Lord Teviot 
 so much." 
 
 Helen raised her head, but her lips qui- 
 vered, and she leaned back again without 
 speaking. 
 
 " I was so very anxious to see him, and to 
 make acquaintance with him 5 because, you 
 know, if I had not liked him, life would not 
 have been worth having. You would have 
 found it out, and would have thrown me off 
 at once as your friend." 
 
 *' Never, never!" said Helen; "I am sure 
 I never should." 
 
 "Oh yes you would, dear; and you ought.
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 29 
 
 You will soon see how naturally one acquires 
 a distaste for any ill-judging individual who 
 presumes not to like one's husband. You 
 would give us all up in a moment for Lord 
 Teviot's sake, if we " 
 
 " Oh, no, no !" exclaimed Helen, clasping 
 her hands ; ''I shall cling to you all more 
 than ever, and none of you must give me up. 
 Amelia, promise to be kind to me, to love me 
 more than ever when I am married ; indeed, 
 indeed, I shall want your love ;" and she 
 threw her arms round Amelia's neck, and 
 sobbed violently. 
 
 " Why now, darling, how silly this is ! 
 how can I love you more than I do ? You 
 are nervous and tired, and just see what a 
 state you have put us into : only look at me, 
 with my eyes as red as ferrets, and you know 
 how I hate to cry. Now we must not have 
 any more of this nonsense. There, you lie 
 down on this sofa, and I will sit at this 
 window, and pretend to read, while I cool
 
 30 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 my eyes. I won't speak another word ; and 
 if you fall asleep, so much the better, you 
 will wake up quite in spirits again." 
 
 Helen threw her handkerchief over her 
 eyes, and leaning back on the sofa, seemed 
 inclined to follow her sister's advice. Her 
 sobs ceased ; and Amelia sat quietly at the 
 window, in the fond hope that her direc- 
 tions were all obeyed, and that Helen was 
 asleep. 
 
 In half an hour she saw Lord Teviot walk* 
 ing on the terrace below ; he stopped under 
 the window, and looked up at her. 
 
 " Is Helen there ?" he said. 
 
 Amelia leaned forward, and putting her 
 finger to her lips, made signs to him to be 
 silent. 
 
 ** What is the matter ? Is Helen not well, 
 Lady Amelia?" he said, in a tone of vexa- 
 tion. 
 
 " Oh ! bless the man," murmured Amelia, 
 "why can't he hold his tongue ? he will wake
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 31 
 
 her. She's asleep — asleep, I tell you," put- 
 ting her head quite out of the window, and 
 speaking in a loud whisper. 
 
 " Who is it that you are talking to ?" said 
 Helen. 
 
 " There now, Lord Teviot, you have woke 
 her. I told you how it would be, only nobody 
 ever can be quiet. She was tired with that 
 hot ride you took her." 
 
 " Well, ask her. Lady Amelia, if she will 
 not come and sit in the shade a little while, 
 she will find it much pleasanter than it was 
 when we were riding." 
 
 " No ; she says she is sorry, but she must 
 keep quiet till dinner-time." 
 
 '* Did you tell her it would be pleasanter ?" 
 
 " Yes ; but she don't seem to believe it." 
 
 '•' Ask her if I may come and visit her in 
 her sitting-room." 
 
 " No ; she says you are very good, but she 
 does not wish you to take that trouble. There, 
 Helen, he is gone ; but why would not you
 
 32 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 let him come here? I wish you had seen 
 him, and then you could not have said no. 
 I cannot imagine how you could have been so 
 unkind to such a heros de roman looking man. 
 Whether he is more like Lord Byron, or the 
 superbe Orosmane, or Sir Philip Sydney, or 
 Alcibiades, I cannot decide, never having 
 seen any of them ; but he certainly is the 
 most distinguished-looking individual I ever 
 saw. Oh ! but, Helen," she said as she passed 
 the dressing-table, " who gave you this splendid 
 brooch ?" 
 
 " Lord Teviot ; he gave it to me this morn- 
 mg. 
 
 *' Well, I never saw such lovely rubies — no, 
 never. And you would not even come to the 
 window to look at the man who gave you such 
 a brooch, and who is so extremely well worth 
 looking at, as I tell you he is. What an un- 
 feeling little wretch ! Well, good-bye, darling, 
 you are better now, so I will leave you." 
 
 " No, don't leave me ; I am better now, as
 
 THE SEMI- ATT ACHED COUPLE. 33 
 
 you say, and I should like to have a little 
 talk. What was it, Amelia, that you were 
 saying about mamma — that she is pleased 
 with my marriage ?" 
 
 " Oh ! delighted with it ; she said that she 
 was the happiest mother in the world, and 
 that she was sure it had made dear papa ten 
 years younger." 
 
 ''And yet, if they had been told only six 
 weeks ago that I was to leave them — " 
 
 " Ah ! but, my dear, if it is your happi- 
 ness." 
 
 "Yes, if: what a frightful word that if 
 is, Amelia !" said Helen, turning to the 
 table £0 that her sister could not see her face. 
 *' Did it ever occur to you before your 
 marriage, that if your engagement were broken 
 off " 
 
 " Oh no, dear, I never thought of such an 
 impossibility. I should have died of it; be- 
 sides, Alfred v/as naturally too much charmed 
 with the precious treasure he had gained to 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 think of throwing it away — he is much too 
 sensible for that." 
 
 '' Oh ! I did not think of his changing 
 his mind ; but if you had found out that 
 you did not love him as much as he ex- 
 pected — that he had some great fault, a 
 bad temper, for instance, would you have 
 broken off your engagement? Would you, 
 Amelia?" 
 
 " No, decidedly not ; I should have married 
 him, bad temper and all, and have turned it 
 into a good one ; I could never have given 
 him up. Fancy me going through life without 
 Alfred. How can you put such shocking 
 ideas into my head ? Only think of the sin of 
 breaking one's promise, and of the poor man's 
 mortification, and of what papa and mamma 
 would have said ; and of the explanations and 
 the disgrace of the whole business. I should 
 have gone mad. I should have shut myself 
 up in a nunnery, if I could have found one. I 
 never could have shown my face again. My
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 35 
 
 dear, what could have put such a notion into 
 your head ?" 
 
 " Oh, nothing/' said Helen •, " ' it is talking 
 for mere talking sake,' as our governess used 
 to say." 
 
 " Helen," said Amelia, after a pause, " you 
 have frightened me ; but I see now how it is. 
 I suspect that you and Lord Teviot have had 
 some little quarrel to-day ; indeed, I am sure 
 of it. You were fretting about it when I came 
 in, and he was evidently very anxious to 
 make it up when he came under the window. 
 Dearest Nell, a slight unmeaning quarrel may 
 be an amusing little incident, but it should 
 not last half an hour, and it should not 
 happen more than once. Be kind to him, 
 dear, when you come down to dinner. You 
 have had your fit of dignity, and the pleasure 
 of putting yourself rather in the wrong ; and 
 now make it up, and let it be peace and hap- 
 piness for the rest of your life." She ran out 
 of the room, thinking she had said enough, 
 
 D 2
 
 36 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 only adding as she placed the brooch in 
 Helen's hands, " There, you ungracious little 
 thmg. Look and repent." 
 
 " Ay, repent indeed," said Helen, throw- 
 ing it from her; '^and unless I were as cold 
 and as hard as those stones, how can I but 
 repent? She will not understand me; she 
 will not help me ; and how can she unless 
 I had courage to tell her all ? Oh ! but the 
 disgrace would, as she says, be too great ; 
 and then papa and mamma, and the day fixed, 
 and so near. Oh ! what shall I do !" 
 
 The dressing-bell rang, so it was clear that 
 the first thing to be done w^as to dress fi)r 
 dinner; and happy for us is it that these 
 ordinary domestic habits of life watch over 
 its imaginative distresses with the sagacity 
 and decision of sheep dogs, and bark and 
 worry them till they fall into the proper path 
 of the flock.
 
 TEE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. >JT 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 This was the grand day of the Douglas 
 dinner. They arrived. Mr. Douglas pre- 
 pared to dine and to talk, and to be thankful 
 if the cookery and conversation were good ; 
 Mrs. Douglas, perfectly ready and able to 
 detect what might be amiss, and to say what 
 would be disagreeable ; and the girls, charmed 
 with the new gowns that had been manufac- 
 tured in honour of the occasion, and full of 
 mysterious curiosity about Lord Teviot, and 
 of real affectionate interest in Ladv Helen. 
 
 Lord and Lady Eskdale and most of the 
 guests were assembled. Amelia, for a wonder, 
 was ready in good time ; she was anxious to
 
 38 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 see her sister and Lord Teviot meet, and had 
 taken her station near the door on purpose. 
 Helen appeared soon after the arrival of the 
 Douglas family, and received the friendly- 
 greeting of Mr. Douglas, and the meaning 
 pressure of his daughters' hands, with the 
 kindest cordiality. She looked flushed and 
 excited when first she entered, but after a 
 glance round the room, her agitation subsided, 
 and it w^as evidently a relief to her to see that 
 Lord Teviot was not there. Dinner was an- 
 nounced, and he had not appeared. 
 
 " Are we to wait for him, Helen ?" said 
 Lord Eskdale, with a smile. 
 
 " Oh no, papa. Mr. Douglas, you must 
 take pity on me. Do you remember the first 
 day I dined down, how you protected me in 
 to dinner ?" 
 
 The whole party marshalled themselves, 
 and went on to the dining-room. 
 
 " How disappointing !" whispered Sarah to 
 EHza ; ''I wanted to see them together."
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 39 
 
 Helen always sat on one side of her father, 
 whatever guests there might be ; and Amelia 
 observed with pain, the earnestness with which 
 she tried to induce Mr. Douglas to take the 
 chair next to her on the other side ; but he 
 laughed and left her, telling her he preferred 
 going of his own accord to being sent away. 
 Lord Teviot came in just as the soup and 
 fish were taken away. He took his accus- 
 tomed place, but without looking at Helen, 
 and not till the second course came did any 
 conversation pass between them, and then it 
 seemed to be short and constrained; but. she 
 talked to her father in apparently good spirits. 
 Sarah and Eliza looked at each other, and 
 wondered whether that would be the right 
 manner to adopt under similar circumstances. 
 The ladies rose to retire. Helen had dropped 
 her bracelet. Lord Teviot stooped for it, but 
 with an air of such unwillingness that Helen 
 said, " Pray do not give yourself so much 
 trouble, I will send for it presently."
 
 40 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 " As you please," he answered coldly, and 
 stepped back tD let her pass. 
 
 '*Stay, Nell," said Trevor, ^'1 will find 
 it; Amelia has brought me into excellent 
 training. I am quite in the habit of grop- 
 ing about under the table for all the things 
 she drops. I am much more pliable than 
 Teviot." 
 
 " That you are," said Helen ; " thank you, 
 dear Alfred ;" and without another look at 
 Lord Teviot, she passed on. 
 
 Amelia did not at all like the aspect of 
 affairs, but consoled herself with the hope that 
 it was a mere lovers' quarrel, and would end 
 in a burst of sentiment ; and in the mean time 
 she was glad to divert Mrs. Douglas's atten- 
 tion by showing her Helen's trousseau. It 
 was indeed " showing her eyes to grieve her 
 heart ;" but if her saturnine dispositions could 
 exhaust themselves on the senseless gowns 
 and the poor dumb trinkets, it would be better 
 than allowing her to make remarks on more
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 41 
 
 sensitive victims. Sarah and Eliza were in 
 good-natured rapture with the whole show — 
 from the Brussels lace wedding-gown to the 
 very last dozen of embroidered pocket-hand- 
 kerchiefs, and they were quite sorry when a 
 summons to coffee took them back to the 
 drawing-room. 
 
 " Thirty morning gowns !" whispered Sarah, 
 as they went down stairs. '' The idea of a 
 new go\vn every day for a month. Now I 
 call that real happiness." 
 
 " Not such real, lasting happiness," an- 
 swered Eliza, half laughing, " as eighteen 
 bracelets, and then those heaps of gloves and 
 handkerchiefs. A quarter of them, Sarah, 
 would free our miserable allowances from 
 embarrassments for life." 
 
 " It must be very pleasant to be so rich — " 
 
 " And to be going to be married," said 
 Eliza ; and this sage conclusion brought them 
 to the drawing-room door. 
 
 Helen would perhaps have given them a
 
 42 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 different opinion. She began to doubt much 
 whether it were happiness, or anything like 
 it, to be going to be married. She had 
 accepted Lord Teviot on an acquaintance of 
 very few weeks, and that carried on solely in 
 a ball-room or at a breakfast. She knew 
 that her sisters had married in the same way, 
 and were very happy. No one, not even her 
 mother, had seemed to doubt for a moment 
 that Lord Teviot's proposal was to be accepted. 
 And except some slight misgivings as to whe- 
 ther she liked him as much as Amelia had 
 liked Mr. Trevor, she herself had had no dis- 
 trust as to her future prospects till she came 
 into the country. Then she found every day 
 some fresh cause to doubt whether she were 
 as happy, engaged to Lord Teviot, as she was 
 before she had ever seen him. He was always 
 quarrelling with her — at least, so she thought ; 
 but the real truth was, that he was des- 
 perately in love, and she was not; that he 
 was a man of strong feelings and exacting
 
 THE SEMI- ATTACHED COUPLE. 43 
 
 habits, and with considerable knowledge of 
 the world ; and that she was timid and gentle, 
 unused to any violence of manner or language, 
 and unequal to cope with it. He alarmed her, 
 first by the eagerness with which he poured 
 out his affection, and then by the bitterness 
 of his reproaches because, as he averred, 
 it was not returned. She tried to satisfy 
 him ; but when he had frightened away her 
 playfulness, he had deprived her of her greatest 
 charm, and she' herself felt that her manner 
 became daily colder and more repulsive. His 
 prediction that she would be happier any- 
 where than with him seemed likely, by repe- 
 tition, to insure its own fulfilment. Even 
 their reconciliations — for what is the use of a 
 quarrel, but to bring on a reconciliation? — were 
 unsatisfactory. She wished that he loved her 
 less, or would say less about it *, and he thought 
 that the gentle willingness with which she met 
 his excuses was only a fresh proof that his love 
 or his anger were equally matters of indifference
 
 44 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 to her. No French actor with a broken voice, 
 quivering hands, a stride, and a shrug, could 
 have given half the emphasis to the sentiment, 
 " J'aimerais mieux etre hai qu'aime faible- 
 ment," than Lord Teviot did to the up- 
 braidings with which he diversified the mono- 
 tony of love-making. This very morning he 
 had persuaded himself that Helen would have 
 preferred riding with her brother. She found 
 the sun hot, and proposed to return. This 
 was a fresh offence, and he declared that it 
 was only a desire to avoid him, that made her 
 wish to shorten their ride. Then he worked 
 himself up by a repetition of his wrongs to a 
 degree of violence that would have surprised 
 himself at another moment. At first she 
 laughed at his accusations, then she was 
 shocked at his bitterness, and at last, gay 
 and giddy as she was, her spirits gave way; 
 and when he helped her to dismount from her 
 horse, he saw that her cheeks were pale, and 
 that big tears were rolling over them. To
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 45 
 
 his entreaties that she would stay only five 
 minutes more with him, she shook her head, 
 and said faintly, ''No, I am too tired now, 
 I can bear no more 5" and as she left him 
 the thought rushed into her mind, " Perhaps 
 he is right. I do not love him as I ought ; it 
 is not yet too late." 
 
 It was in this mood that Amelia found her. 
 One word of encouragement would have given 
 her spirit to break off her marriage 5 but 
 Amelia, who had been in love with Mr. Tre- 
 vor from the first hour of their acquaintance 
 down to the present speaking, could not rea- 
 lize her sister's feelings, and gave the only 
 advice that she would herself have taken in 
 Helen's position. Helen went down to dinner 
 irresolute. Nothing in Lord Teviot's manner 
 tended to reconcile her to him ; and she 
 thought that in the course of the evening she 
 would bravely seek him and dissolve their en- 
 gagement. But perhaps he saw something in 
 her ease of manner that alarmed him : dinner,
 
 46 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 that useful counsellor, had smoothed his ruf- 
 fled temper ; perhaps the instinct that always 
 leads a man to foresee when an impending 
 explanation is not likely to end in his favour, 
 prompted him to divine that he should have 
 the worse of this. And the result was, that 
 when he came into the drawing-room, and saw 
 Helen conversing gaily with Mrs. Douglas, 
 he drew quietly towards her^ and sat down, 
 looking very penitent, on a wretched, hard, 
 cane chair with a straight back, immediately 
 behind her. Gradually he edged himself into 
 the conversation, took an opportunity of throw- 
 ing Helen's work on the floor, partly that he 
 might stoop for it with all Trevor's pliability, 
 and partly that in the course of that process 
 he might contrive to touch with his lips 
 Helen's hand, unperceived even by the sharp- 
 eyed Mrs. Douglas ; and that amende being 
 made, he took his accustomed place on the 
 sofa by her side, and was so gentle and so 
 pleasant that her resentment faded gradually
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 47 
 
 away, and all her magnanimous resolutions 
 were forgotten. Her misgivings as to the 
 degree of affection she felt for him remained ; 
 but she supposed Amelia was right : it would 
 be shocking to break her promise. And, in 
 short, she was too young to act for herself, 
 and too much devoted to her parents to ask 
 them to do for her, what she knew would give 
 them pain ; and so the evening ended peace- 
 fully.
 
 48 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 The Douglases rolled home, in their family 
 coach. 
 
 *'Pray, may I ask, Mr. Douglas, if you 
 thought that a pleasant dinner?" said his wife 
 in an insidious tone. 
 
 " Yes, my dear, I did indeed ; good cook- 
 ery, pleasant company, and very pretty ^Yomen 
 — I ask nothing more. Ought not I to have 
 liked it?" 
 
 ^' Oh dear, yes ! I am glad you did ; easily 
 pleased, that's all I can say. Perhaps, too, 
 you thought your beauty. Lady Eskdale, 
 looked well in that floppety cap ?" 
 
 *' I have not the good fortune to know what 
 a floppety cap is, my dear ; but I thought she
 
 THE SEMI- ATTACHED COUPLE. 49 
 
 looked very handsome, even by the side of 
 those two pretty daughters of hers." 
 
 *' Well, it is to me the strangest delusion of 
 yours, that about the beauty of the Eskdales. 
 Perhaps, too, in the extremity of your benevo- 
 lence, you think Lord Teviot is very much 
 in love with Helen?" 
 
 " Is not he ? I took it for granted that he 
 was, because, in the first place, most men who 
 saw her would be ; and in the next, because 
 I presume he would not marry her if he were 
 not." 
 
 *' What his reasons may be for marrying 
 her, I do not know ; but I never saw a more 
 unpromising-looking business than that. He 
 seems to me to be about the most ill-tem- 
 pered, disagreeable, odious, young man I ever 
 saw; and he does not care two straws for 
 Helen. Girls, I am sure you must have ob- 
 served it : he never spoke to her at dinner, 
 and I am convinced she is very unhappy." 
 
 "Oh, mamma, do you think so?" said 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 Eliza. ''I think Helen, when she is married, 
 will be just like Lady Amelia ; and I am sure 
 she is happy enough." 
 
 ^' She carries it off very well/' said Mrs. 
 Douglas ; '^ but in my humble opinion Mr. 
 Trevor is rather a poor creature, and Amelia 
 is sharp enough to find it out. After all the 
 fuss that has been made about Lady Eskdale's 
 luck in the marriage of her daughters, I see 
 nothing in it. The Waldegraves are never 
 here, to begin with." 
 
 ^' Oh, because he was obliged to go to Paris 
 about that money of his uncle's." 
 
 " Ah ! so they say ; I never believe those 
 stories of people going rambling about in 
 search of their uncle's money. I suspect he 
 is very unsteady, and Sophia's temper must 
 be a trying one, I am sure ; and probably they 
 do not wish the Eskdales to see how unhappy 
 they are. So much for one daughter. Then 
 Amelia is married to a man who looks, / 
 think, though nobody will agree with me, like
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 51 
 
 a fool, and moreover his father is ahve, and 
 may hve for ages, or marry again, and have 
 heaps of children ; so in a worldly point of 
 viev/ that is a deplorable marriage." 
 
 *' My dear, how you do run on imagining 
 grievances ! The Trevors are very well off." 
 
 ** How can you know, Mr. Douglas ? No- 
 body who has a father alive ever is well off ; 
 and besides, they are very extravagant ; you 
 will see that they will get into difficulties ; and 
 then Helen, we were told that hers was to be 
 a model marriage — the greatest piece of luck 
 that ever was known. Now I am not easily 
 taken in, but I really did expect to see a 
 tolerable chance of happiness for that poor 
 girl ; and there she is going to be the wife of 
 that horrid savage." 
 
 " Oh, mamma ! he does not look like a 
 savage." 
 
 *' No, my dear, savages would not be so 
 affected; but I was alluding to his temper, 
 which is evidently a savage temper. I am 
 
 E 2 
 
 SSn^~«'^«^
 
 52 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 sorry for it, for Helen is rather a favourite of 
 mine, and I see she will lead a wretched life ; 
 and taking all these circumstances together, I 
 cannot wonder that with all this care and 
 anxiety on her mind, Lady Eskdale looks as 
 old and haggard as she does." 
 
 ** Well, Anne, you have settled that family 
 thoroughly," said Mr. Douglas ; '' nobody can 
 accuse you of too much benevolence in your 
 opinions.'* 
 
 '* No, my dear, I don't set up for that sort 
 of character because I happen to see things 
 as they really are, and I am never taken in by 
 the cant of prosperity, and that sort of pre- 
 tension. So really, without offence, I must 
 be allowed to observe that I do not envy 
 Lady Eskdale her sons-in-law ; and that I 
 hope we shall not be asked to dine there any 
 more this year, that is all." 
 
 And on this conclusion the family rested 
 till they arrived at home.
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 53 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 " I WISH mamma did not hate dining at 
 Eskdale Castle," said Eliza to her sister when 
 they went to their own room ; " and I wish 
 they would ask us a little oftener ; I think it 
 is very good fun going there." 
 
 *'Do you ?" said Sarah, in an absent tone. 
 
 "Yes, I like their large rooms, and the 
 arm-chairs, and the sofas, and the sort of 
 smell of wealth that there is about the house. 
 And the dinner itself is so good. How lucky 
 it is that mamma does not hear me ! ■ It is 
 the sort of thing she would hate me to say ; 
 but the soup was perfectly delicious, so unlike 
 our dull Scotch broth; only I wish it had
 
 54 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 not been spilt on my new gown, and on the 
 front breadth too ; just look, Sarah. What a 
 pity ! and it was all the fault of the servant. 
 Those great tall footmen frighten me out of 
 my senses, and I wish they would not go on 
 offering one all the dishes, it is so tire- 
 some ; I go on saying ' No, no, no,' all dinner- 
 time. Lord Beaufort said I ate nothing." 
 
 *'Ah, by-the-by, miss," said Sarah, rous- 
 ing up, *^ how came you to contrive to sit by 
 Lord Beaufort ? You are always taking the 
 best places, and as I am the eldest, I ought 
 to have my choice sometimes." 
 
 "Yes, but as I am the youngest, other 
 people have their choice," said Eliza, laughing. 
 *' However, you need not mind it this time, 
 Sarah. Lord Beaufort was obliged to take 
 the only place that was vacant, because he 
 did not come in, you know, till dinner was 
 half over, and so that was the reason why he 
 sat by me. He spoke to me three times, and 
 asked me to have some wine. Did you ob-
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 55 
 
 serve his waistcoat, Sarah? 'such a love!' as 
 Lady Eskdale would say." 
 
 " How you do run on, Eliza ! I wish you 
 would let me have the looking-glass for one 
 minute, if you have looked at yourself 
 enough." 
 
 *' Law, my dear, you may have it for a 
 week if you like. I was only taking a last 
 fond look at this dear gown, before I take it 
 off. I shan't have an opportunity, probably, 
 of wearing it again for the next six months ; 
 not that I shall actually have any great plea- 
 sure in it again, because of those grease spots. 
 I wish that servant had not done it. So 
 awkward and provoking ! However, I hope 
 we shall dine there again some day or an- 
 other." 
 
 " And I hope we never shall as long as we 
 live," said Sarah, emphatically. She had 
 taken one look at herself in the glass, and 
 then threw herself into a chair with an air of 
 deep despondency.
 
 56 THE SEMI-ATTACIIED COUPLE. 
 
 " Never dine there again as long as we 
 live !" repeated Eliza. *' Why^ Sarah, what 
 is the matter ? You can't be well. What 
 can have happened ?'' 
 
 "Something dreadful," said Sarah, in a 
 deep tone. 
 
 " Why, what can it be ? You have not 
 greased your gown too ?" said Eliza, starting 
 up as if she had made a great discovery. 
 
 ''No." 
 
 " What then ? Have you lost anything ? 
 forgotten your fan ? dropped your brace- 
 let ?" 
 
 " Oh, no ; worse than all that ; it is some- 
 thing dreadful that has been said of us." 
 
 " Good gracious ! what ? What can they 
 find to say of us ?" 
 
 *' Something quite shocking ;" and Sarah 
 actually coloured at the mere thought of re- 
 peating it. 
 
 ^* Well, tell it, at all events ; I should like 
 to knov/ the worst."
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. O. 
 
 " It was just when you were sitting by the 
 pianoforte, and I was behind the sofa, and 
 Mr. Trevor came up to Lady Eskdale and 
 said, looking at the flowers and the silver 
 comb in your hair, 'Don't you think those 
 silver epergnes full of flowers would look 
 better on a dining-table than walking about a 
 drawing-room ? I know nothing of dress, 
 but is not that a little in the May-day line — 
 rather chimney-sweeperish ?' " 
 
 " No, did he really say that ?" and Eliza 
 looked aghast. ** What a horrid man !" 
 
 ''Yes, but that is not the worst. Lady 
 Eskdale said, ' Don't laugh at those poor girls, 
 Alfred ; they are dear good creatures, though 
 they are vulgarly dressed.' There, Eliza, 
 now is not that dreadful, and so hard too, 
 when we took such pains about our dress, and 
 thought it was so nice?" and Sarah's voice 
 quivered with vexation. 
 
 " Oh, never mind, dear ; don't fret about 
 it, you did look very nice. I'm sure I thought
 
 58 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 SO \ and if we wore too many flowers to-day, 
 next time we will wear none ; and as for that 
 Mr. Trevor, I dare say he knows nothing 
 about dress." 
 
 "But I wish we were not like chimney- 
 sweepers." 
 
 " I say, Sarah, it would be rather good fun to 
 go to Eskdale Castle with our faces blackened, 
 and we, covered with flowers and tinsel, danc- 
 ing round ]\Ir. Trevor, rattling our shovels." 
 
 " Don't talk nonsense, Eliza. I never 
 thought we were vulgar." 
 
 '^ Nor I ; but we cannot help it if we are. 
 I think we are two very nice girls, and Helen 
 does not despise us. Oh, Sarah, how beauti- 
 ful she is, and how I should like to be going 
 to be married to Lord Teviot ! that is, I 
 should not like it at all except I were Helen. 
 I should be afraid of him as I am." 
 
 " Ah, she looked very pretty," said Sarah. 
 '' She had no flowers in her hair," and with 
 a deep sigh, Sarah unpinned a gigantic bunch
 
 THE semi-attaghi:d couple. 59 
 
 of camellias, " and her hair was braided 
 quite smooth ;" and Sarah gave a desperate tug 
 at a highly frizzed set of bows which she had 
 built up on the top of her head with some pride. 
 
 Eliza burst out laughing ; Sarah's distress 
 seemed to her to be out of all proportion to 
 the calamity, and she was too merry and too 
 light-hearted herself to be discomposed by 
 such a trifle. '' I hope they will ask us 
 again," she murmured as she sank to sleep, 
 
 " What shall we wear if they do ?" Sarah 
 responded. 
 
 *' Black jackets, tin foil^ and calico roses, 
 with shovels for fans," said Eliza, in a sleepy 
 voice ; and in another moment their troubles 
 were forgotten.
 
 60 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Eliza's wishes were more than fulfilled, for 
 the following day she received a very kind 
 note from Helen, asking her to be one of her 
 bridesmaids, and this was accompanied by a 
 very pretty dress, with Lady Eskdale's *' kind 
 love," and a note to invite Mrs. Donglas also 
 to the wedding, and Mr. Douglas and Sarah 
 to the breakfast that was to follow it. 
 
 Mrs. Douglas could hardly do less than 
 make a very great grievance of what was 
 intended as a kindness. She hated a wedding : 
 it was just the sort of thing that the world 
 chose to make a fuss about, but which she 
 thought the most uninteresting ceremony on
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 61 
 
 earth. She did not see why she was to dress 
 herself oat in satin and blonde just to go and 
 hear two young people make foolish promises 
 that they never could keep. What could be 
 more absurd than to assemble a crowd to 
 witness a man and woman promising to love 
 each other for the rest of their lives, when 
 we know what human creatures are, — men so 
 thoroughly selfish and unprincipled, women 
 so vain and frivolous ? This wholesale way of 
 dealing with her fellow-creatures was one of 
 Mrs. Douglas's favourite methods of treating 
 them. '' I should like to go in my garden 
 bonnet and coloured muslin gown, just to 
 show how I despise their love of fashion," 
 she said, as she sealed the note to her milliner, 
 which was to order the well-chosen dress and 
 bonnet on which she had determined for the 
 occasion ; for the energy with which she 
 declaimed against dress did not at all interfere 
 with her inclination to spend a great deal 
 of money on it.
 
 62 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 So to the wedding she went, and this is her 
 description of it. 
 
 **My dear Sister — You will expect to have 
 some account of the Eskdale wedding, so I 
 may as well write to-night, though I am 
 completely knocked up. You know what a 
 wretched sleeper I am, and of course I 
 could not close my eyes till five, from feeling 
 that I was to be called an hour earlier than 
 usual; and then, what with breakfasting in a 
 hurry, and dressing, and fancying we were too 
 late, I was quite ill by the time we arrived at 
 the Castle. Eliza was to be one of the brides- 
 maids, and Lady Eskdale gave her her 
 dress. I must own I thought it a shabby 
 present ; but as Eliza was pleased, of course 
 I did not say so. When we arrived at the 
 Castle, there was poor Lady Eskdale looking 
 ninety at least, though Mr. Douglas will not 
 see how old she is grown, and the tears rolling 
 down her cheeks, while she kept saying, 
 ' We are to have no crying, that is all
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 63 
 
 settled, and no melancholy leave-takings on 
 account of poor dear Helen ; we are none of 
 us to shed a tear.' I am the worst person in 
 the world, you know, to enter into these ]j^^^i- 
 tinesses, I could only say, 'There was no 
 use in crying,' or some platitude of that sort, 
 for sentiment bores me. Lady Amelia stayed 
 with Helen till almost the last moment, and 
 then came and made the sort of fuss with her 
 mother which all that family make with each 
 other. Amelia's beauty is one of those de- 
 lusions I have never given into. Large eyes 
 and dark eyebrows, and a great display of 
 hair — I presume it is all her own — and a 
 way of playing her features about as if she 
 were more intelligent than other people. It 
 may be natural, but it looks like affectation. 
 We all went in solemn procession to the 
 chapel, through rows of servants. What the 
 expense of that establishment must be I 
 cannot imagine, nor how the Eskdales have 
 gone on so long without coming to a stop.
 
 G4 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 As soon as we were arranged in our places, 
 
 Lord Eskdale and Helen came in at one 
 
 door, and Lord Teviot and Lord Beaufort at 
 
 another; and they all went straight to the 
 
 altar, with a great tangle of bridesmaids 
 
 behind them. I thought it all a most 
 
 theatrical arrangement. Why could they 
 
 not come like John and Jane Smith to be 
 
 married, like other people, at the village 
 
 church ? Helen was so covered with Brussels 
 
 lace that I cannot say how she looked ; some 
 
 of the company, of course, declared she 
 
 looked beautiful. I saw nothing but a veil — 
 
 a mere lace veil ; and besides, I have always 
 
 set my face against the absurd idea that all 
 
 brides look pretty. She shook very much, 
 
 and though I am the last person, from my 
 
 friendship for the Eskdales, to hint at the 
 
 real state of the case, I have a sad foreboding 
 
 that Helen marries with the prospect of being 
 
 one of the most unhappy women in England. 
 
 And I do not wonder at it. Lord Teviot is
 
 THE SEMI- ATT ACHED COUPLE. 65 
 
 one of the worst specimens of the class 
 dandy I ever saw ; and I am much mistaken 
 if his temper will not be a sad trial to poor 
 Helen. However, don't quote me. You 
 never saw such a frightful effect as the 
 coloured glass had on Lady Eskdale's looks ; 
 and I think Lord Eskdale's hair has grown 
 suddenly gray. It may have been the reflec- 
 tion of the blue glass; but it gave me the 
 impression of gray hair : and I suppose all 
 his worries must tell upon him at last. The 
 chapel was all dressed out with flowers; 
 and I could hardly attend to the ceremony, 
 because I was expecting every moment to feel 
 faint with the smell of the lilies and heliotrope ; 
 and then I thought I should catch my death 
 of cold by standing on the marble pavem-cnt. 
 To be sure, the manners of the present day 
 are very different from what even I can 
 remember. I saw Lord Beaufort shuflOiing a 
 cushion about with his feet, and thought that 
 he was of course going to give it to me 
 YOL. I. F
 
 6Q THE SEMI- ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 to stand on, when down he went on his knees, 
 and began saying his prayers, without the 
 least consideration for my chances of cramp. 
 After the ceremony, there was a long scene 
 of congratulation, and we all embraced each 
 other, without sparing age or sex. I had a 
 narrow escape of ' a salute ' from Kobinson, 
 the old tutor, and Lizzy was frightened out of 
 her wits by a kiss from Lord Eskdale. There 
 was a great breakfast immediately after the 
 wedding, to which most of the neighbourhood 
 were invited. Helen went to change her 
 dress, and Lord Teviot stalked about amongst 
 the company, for a little while, looking bored 
 and sullen. I always pity the bridegroom on 
 these occasions. The bride is supported by 
 her father, and attended by her bridesmaids, 
 and everybody is or pretends to be in a fright, 
 lest she should faint or cry ; and she has all 
 the protection of a veil in case she should be 
 too shy, or not shy enough ; and there is a 
 general sympathy in her feelings. The poor
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 67 
 
 man has to walk himself up alone to the altar, 
 where he stands, looking uncommonly foolish, 
 without even the protection of his hat. There 
 is the mother sobbing at him for carrying off 
 her child ; the sisters scowling at him because 
 he did not choose one of them ; the clergyman 
 frowning at him for not producing the ring at 
 the right moment, or for neglecting the re- 
 sponses in their proper places; the brothers 
 laugh at him ; the bride turns from him ; and 
 the only person who pays him the slightest 
 attention is the clerk, who tells him when he 
 is to kneel, and when to stand, and which is 
 his right hand, and which his left, and helps 
 him to the discovery of his waistcoat pocket, 
 in which the ring may or may not be. Lord 
 Teviot is not a man to look foolish, but he 
 decidedly looked cross. 
 
 " Two carriages and four were waiting at 
 the door, and an immense crowd was assembled 
 round them. We all went and stood on the 
 
 F 2
 
 68 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 marble terrace above, and in half an hour 
 Lord Eskdale led Helen out from the cloister 
 door, and handed her into the carriage. Lord 
 Teviot stepped in, and they drove oft^ fol- 
 lowed by the other carriage, in which all the 
 dressing-boxes and the jewel-cases and the 
 valet and the maid had been packed up for 
 some time. You know that Lady Teviot's 
 maid is that pert Nancy who originally waited 
 in my school-room, and of course I am rather 
 amazed at her presumption, calling herself 
 Mrs. Tomkinson, and travelling in a carriage 
 and four. Lady Eskdale came back to the 
 company, still crying, and still declaring it 
 was the gayest wedding she had ever seen, 
 and that she was so glad there had been no 
 tears. I was dead tired when we got home, 
 and am very glad that the Eskdales have 
 married all their daughters, and that we have 
 no more weddings to do. Adieu, my dear 
 sister. Is it true that your son has sold out
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 69 
 
 of the 15th? If I were you, I would advise 
 him to live less at clubs, and not to keep so 
 many horses. 
 
 " Yours ever, 
 
 " A. Douglas."
 
 70 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 And now, whatever might have been 
 Helen's fears or hopes, her fate was sealed. 
 She had turned to that page of life over 
 which she had lingered with distressful doubt ; 
 and now it must be read, though on her- 
 self partly must she depend for the interpre- 
 tation of the characters it bore. St. Mary's 
 Abbey, at which her honeymoon was to be 
 passed, was the most magnificent of all Lord 
 Teviot's residences. It almost calls for a 
 formal description; but how can any one 
 be expected to write what no one ever 
 reads when it is written ? That pert
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 71 
 
 Nancy, now by the grace of presumption 
 styling herself Mrs. Tomkinson, addressed 
 a letter to Mrs. Hervey, the housekeeper 
 at Eskdale Castle, in which she gave her 
 views of St. Mary's Abbey, and in her 
 sketchy way she succeeds so well in the 
 descriptive art, that it is impossible to 
 join in the total contempt with which Mrs. 
 Douglas looked down upon her from the 
 marble terrace. 
 
 "Dear Mrs. Hervey, — I hope this will find 
 you in good health and sperrits — not forget- 
 ting all other friends at the old house. Me 
 and my lady are quite well, and have no 
 reason to complain that we have changed our 
 abode for the worst. We were very nervous 
 that day what we left you, me, in particular, 
 that had been sitting in the Bruche, baked to 
 a jelly, and watching all those jewel-boxes 
 while my lady was bidding good-bye, and 
 with that great mob of people staring at 
 me. But Mr. Phillips was very attentive, and
 
 72 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 helped me to bow to them as we driv off. He 
 seems a superior young man, quite a London 
 bred servant, and quite confidential with my 
 lord, which was the reason why he was left 
 at St. Mary's during my lord's courtship, 
 because he knew all the plans about the furni- 
 ture. We went at such a pace that I was 
 quite giddy, but found great comfort in the 
 sandwiches, and gingerbread, and chicken and 
 buns you put into the carriage, which was a 
 kind thought, for otherwise we should have 
 gone the whole fifty miles without refreshment. 
 When we had arrived all but a mile, my lord's 
 tenants met us, and took the horses off from 
 my lord and lady, and dragged them their 
 own selves ; and they came to drag us, but 
 Mr. Phillips explained that we was only own 
 man and lady's maid, and that our horses were 
 to be let alone. So they hurraed and threw 
 flowers, and it was very agitating. When 
 we arrived, my lord made a speech, and 
 my lady made a curtesy, and I got the
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 73 
 
 imperials and boxes in as soon as I could. 
 I was terrified lest any of our new troosso 
 should be stole. Dear Mrs. Hervey, St. 
 Mary's is a most beautiful place, and the great 
 mirrors in the ball-room are alone worth 
 coming to see, and I have not power to de- 
 scribe the scenery. There is a lake quite full 
 of water, like the lakes abroad, and endless 
 woods filled with the finest trees, that seem 
 to run for miles and miles, and gardens that 
 beat our gardens at the castle all to nothing. 
 The furniture would please you in particular, 
 chiefly silk and damask, but some rooms with 
 velvet ; and my lady's suite of rooms is what 
 I can't describe — straw-coloured satin embroi- 
 dered with real flowers — and such cabinets and 
 china, and on the dressing-table a service of 
 gold plate with my lady's name on it. Mrs. 
 Nelson won't like to see it, she was so set up 
 about her lady's. In every respect I feel 
 satisfied with the accommodations for me and
 
 74 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 my lady, except that I was obleeged to ask 
 for another wardrobe, and to tell Mrs. Stevens 
 that I was accustomed to a larger looking- 
 glass in my own room. Mrs. Stevens and me 
 seem inclined to be very friendly; she is the 
 very moral of a housekeeper in a romance, 
 quite an old lady. We are a princely esta- 
 blishment, and sit down twelve in the Steward's 
 room, with wine, and a man and boy to wait. 
 Mrs. Stevens and me joke each other about 
 our beaux, for there are ten gentlemen, and 
 only us two ladies, and Mr. Phillips has, of 
 course, the precedence. I hope to pick up a 
 little French between the cook and the con- 
 fectioner. I wish you would ask Mrs. War- 
 ren whether, when Lady Amelia married, she 
 did not get all her ladyship's shawls with the 
 rest of the things. My lady kept her suit of 
 Brussels, and I had nothing to say again that, 
 for I believe Brussels lace is what every lady 
 have a right to keep ; but she also kept two
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 75 
 
 shawls, which I believe are my perquisites, 
 as my lady wore them before my lord pro- 
 posed. I want to know if you and Mrs. 
 Warren and Mrs. Nelson think that their 
 being real Ingee makes a difference. My 
 mind misgives me, it does. It is not for the 
 lucre of gold I speak, nor that I would grudge 
 my lady the shawls, nor the gown off my back 
 if she wanted it, but I hate to see poor ser- 
 vants defrauded, and if the shawls is my due, 
 I shall take the liberty of mentioning it. I 
 had not time to tell you of the pride of that 
 Mrs. Douglas, who met me on the wedding- 
 day, and said * Fine times for you, Nancy ; 
 your head will be turned.' I was mad with 
 myself afterwards for having made her a 
 curtesy, and said, *Yes, indeed, ma'am,' when 
 I might as well have said something sharp. 
 If Lady Eskdale asks if you have heard from 
 me, will you, please, make my duty, and say 
 that my lady is quite well, and has had no 
 cold or headache. Mrs. Stevens thinks her
 
 76 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 the beautifullest lady she ever saw, and com- 
 pliments me high on my manner of hair- 
 dressing. 
 
 " I remain, dear Mrs. Hervey, 
 
 '^ Your kind friend, 
 
 " Ann Tomkinson.'*
 
 THE SEMI- ATT ACHED COUPLE. 77 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 It is not worth while to give any of Helen's 
 letters to her family. Some years ago it was 
 the fashion of all newly-married people to 
 write word to their friends that they were the 
 happiest of human creatures. Heaven alone 
 knows if it were true, but so they always said. 
 Now this romantic state of bliss has been 
 laughed at in society, and sneered at in novels, 
 till nobody dares say a word about it. It may 
 be wiser, but it is not quite satisfactory. The 
 domestic novels of the day have described 
 with such accuracy, and with so much satire, 
 all the little fidgety amiabilities of hfe, that
 
 78 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 a wife who is inclined to praise her husband 
 checks herself, for fear she should be reckoned 
 like "Mrs. Major Waddell." An active 
 mother has a suspicion that she is laughed at 
 as a Mrs. Fairbairn, and the kindly affections 
 of the heart are now so carefully wrapped up 
 and concealed, that it seems just possible that 
 they may die altogether of suffocation. 
 
 Helen did not commit herself by any asse- 
 verations of extraordinary happiness, and 
 made no mention of any fresh trait of perfec- 
 tion that every day must have revealed in 
 Lord Teviot's character ; but there was 
 St. Mary's to describe, and the neighbour- 
 hood to explain, and all the various congra- 
 tulatory letters she received were duly quoted, 
 and her own regularly ended with " Teviot's 
 love to all ;" and Lady Eskdale was satisfied. 
 Amelia read her sister's letters with greater 
 distrust. She thought they were written in a 
 constrained, guarded tone, and she remem- 
 bered the week that preceded the wedding
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 79 
 
 with pain and doubt. She hoped in another 
 fortnight to see and judge for herself; but 
 Mr, Trevor and she were summoned into 
 Sussex by the sudden death of his father ; and 
 ten days after Helen's marriage, Lord and 
 Lady Eskdale sat down, for the first time 
 during the last ten years, to a tete-a-tSte 
 dinner. Poor dear people, it fairly puzzled 
 them. They were more attached to each 
 other than many husbands and wives are 
 after twenty-four years of married life ; and 
 they had been in the daily habit of taking a 
 comfortable half-hour's talk in Lord Eskdale's 
 library, uninterrupted by any of their chil- 
 dren. But they had never contemplated the 
 possibility of dining and passing the whole 
 evening together, without a child to come in 
 to dessert, or a daughter to look at and listen 
 to. Then who was to make breakfast the 
 next morning, and to answer notes, and to 
 receive visitors ? Lady Eskdale was quite 
 posed. She actually ordered a riding-habit,
 
 80 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 and declared she would begin riding again 
 with Lord Eskdale, who hated going out 
 alone, and had always been accompanied by 
 one of his children. Then she thought she 
 could rub up music enough to play to him 
 after dinner ; but when the evening came she 
 was fast asleep on the sofa, half dead with the 
 fatigue of her morning ride, and she almost 
 cried when a note was brought to her that 
 required an answer — partly because, as she 
 said and thought, she missed Helen so much, 
 and partly because she was too indolent to sit 
 up to write. 
 
 '* I don't think I can ever exist in this 
 way, Lord Eskdale," she said. "What 
 is to be done? here is this note to be an- 
 swered." 
 
 *^ Give it to me, Jane ; I will be your secre- 
 tary." 
 
 ** Thank you, that is very good of you. It 
 is a great relief for this once ; but how am I 
 to get on when vou are out ? To be sure, that
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 81 
 
 poor dear Lord Walden might as well have 
 put oif dying just for a month, and then the 
 Trevors could have stayed here. I am uttefly 
 lost without Amelia. There never was any- 
 thing so unlucky. I wish Beaufort would 
 marry. A daughter-in-law would be better 
 than nothing; or if the Waldegraves would 
 come back to England, Sophia might come 
 here. It is really very hard to have no 
 daughter at all, after all my trouble ;" and 
 Lady Eskdale's voice faltered. 
 
 " The schoolmistress, my lady," said the 
 groom of the chambers, " is waiting for direc- 
 tions about the children's stuff frocks." 
 
 '' There again, now ! What am I to do ? 
 I have mislaid the patterns. Very well, tell 
 her I will send to her. Now^, Lord Eskdale, 
 you know you cannot settle about the school- 
 children's frocks *, that was poor Helen's busi- 
 ness. Dear child ! I do trust she is happy, 
 but it is sad work marrying off one's daugh- 
 ters ; it makes me very low at times. Lord 
 
 VOL. I. a
 
 82 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 Eskdale, do you think if I were to ask Mrs. 
 Douglas to let me have Eliza here, that it 
 would bore me very much ?" 
 
 " You must be the best judge of that, my 
 dear Jane ; at all events, take care to ask 
 the right daughter, not the one with the 
 voice." 
 
 " No, no ; I mean Eliza, who was Helen's 
 bridesmaid. You know you thought her 
 very pretty that day. She plays very well on 
 the pianoforte, and I could take care that 
 she should be always well dressed ; and she 
 would write my notes, and see the school- 
 mistress, and help to entertain the company. 
 She is a good-humoured, amiable girl, and I 
 have always felt that I could be fond of her ; 
 and it would be such a thing for her, for the 
 Douglases see so few people. I wish I could 
 guess whether I should like this plan or not. 
 I can ask her for a fortnight only at first, and 
 if it does not do, then there would be an end 
 of it."
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. S3 
 
 " As you please, my love ; it concerns you 
 more than me." 
 
 " Yes, but I wish you would say what you 
 think best; I am so little in the habit of 
 making up my own mind. Helen always 
 knew what I should like. I must say we 
 have been unlucky in our daughters all marry- 
 ing rich people. If any one of them had 
 married a younger son without a shilling, they 
 must have lived with us ; but my girls had no 
 time allowed them to look about them and 
 choose for themselves ; and so they have all 
 married men with country-houses of their 
 own, and I have lost them all." 
 
 And roused by this overpowering calamity 
 of wealthy sons-in-law, Lady Eskdale sat up 
 to write her note to Mrs. Douglas. 
 
 G 2
 
 84 THE SEMI- ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 CHAPTEK X. 
 
 "Mamma," said Eliza Douglas, as they 
 were sitting working in the evening, " did 
 you know that the Trevors had left Eskdale 
 Castle r 
 
 *' No, my love ; how should I know any- 
 thing about the Trevors ? Lady Amelia never 
 deigned to call here but once, and then at an 
 hour when she knew I should be out." 
 
 " Yes, another time with Mr. Trevor, 
 mamma. If you remember — " 
 
 " Well, Mr. Trevor wanted to see your 
 father, and she was obliged to come with him; 
 I do not call that a visit."
 
 . THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 85 
 
 *'Aiicl then on Sunday, mamma, after 
 church ?" 
 
 *' My love, what is the use of contradicting 
 me ? If Lady Amelia did call then, she 
 ought to be ashamed, ^Yith all her pretence of 
 goodness, to pay visits at all on Sunday. And 
 all these little trifling facts make no differ- 
 ence, in my opinion, that all these young 
 women are much too fine to pay any attention 
 to their mother's old friend. Who told you 
 they were gone ?" 
 
 '• Mrs. Birkett told Sarah, and Betsy 
 said, when she was dressing me, that she 
 had seen Lady Eskdale's maid, who had 
 mentioned it." 
 
 *'' ^Vell, now, I should like to know what 
 business Betsy had to be talking to Mrs. 
 Nelson. It will not at all do for our servants 
 to get a habit of gossiping at Eskdale Castle ; 
 not that I shall be at all sorry if it obliges 
 me to speak out and to make a thorough 
 reform in our household : I am always glad of
 
 86 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 an opportunity to tell servants what a tho- 
 roughly bad race I think they are." 
 
 " That must be encouraging to them," said 
 Mr. Douglas, " and produce a great increase 
 of attachment to yourself." 
 
 " Oh ! my dear, that is one of the subjects 
 you do not understand, and so you may as 
 well not talk about it. If you would let me 
 send away that old Thomas of yours, the 
 house would go on much better. Mrs. Bir- 
 kett, and Mrs. Dashwood, and everybody says 
 I manage servants better than anybody ; and 
 I know I do, by never letting them have their 
 own way on any one point ; and as for attach- 
 ment, you might as well expect it from this 
 table." 
 
 *'I should think so, under the circum- 
 stances," said Mr. Douglas ; '' but whatever 
 you do, do not interfere with Thomas." 
 
 A silence followed while Mrs. Douglas was 
 thinking what a clever manager she was, and 
 how well she contrived to make her servants
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 87 
 
 hate her ; and then her thoughts recurred to 
 the Eskdales. 
 
 " So Amelia is gone ; I suppose to some 
 gay party at a country-house. I must say, 
 that after all the fuss that has been made 
 about those girls, it is not much to their credit 
 that they leave their parents quite to them- 
 selves in their old age, while they are flying 
 about in search of amusement. I will answer 
 for it Amelia went off because she thought it 
 dull." 
 
 "Are you speaking of the Trevors?" said 
 Mr. Douglas, who was reading the paper. 
 "I see his father is dead, and they have been 
 sent for into Sussex. Trevor is now Lord 
 Walden." 
 
 ^* Oh !" said Mrs. Douglas ; and there was 
 another long silence. 
 
 " Well,'* she began again, "I do pity Lord 
 Eskdale : I do not see what he is to do, after 
 being accustomed to the society of his daugh- 
 ters, and used to having one of them always.
 
 88 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 with him. Those die-away, languid airs of 
 Lady Eskdale's must be rather trying. To 
 be sure, she is not so young as she was, what- 
 ever you may say, Mr. Douglas ; but she 
 might exert herself to be a little more of a 
 companion to him. She has none of my 
 ideas that a wife is bound to exert herself for 
 her husband's good." 
 
 *' I met them riding together to-day," said 
 Mr. Douglas. 
 
 '' Eiding, my dear !" 
 
 "Yes, riding, Anne." 
 
 ** You must be dreaming, Mr. Douglas. 
 Lady Eskdale on a horse !" 
 
 '' No, my love, on a mare ; the gray mare 
 Helen used to ride." 
 
 " Impossible ! How was she dressed, Mr. 
 Douglas ?" 
 
 *'In a habit, my dear, and hat, with a veil. 
 I can swear to the hat, for it became her par- 
 ticularly." 
 
 *'Well,'' said Mrs. Douglas, with a scornful
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 89 
 
 laugh, '^ I think this is by far the most amus- 
 ing thing I ever heard. Lady Eskdale doing 
 the youthful, galloping about the country 
 flirting with her husband ; I suppose she will 
 begin dancing next. Lord Eskdale and she 
 are probably at this moment practising the 
 Gavotte de Yestris up. and down the saloon. 
 I don't know when I have been so diverted ; 
 but to a person of plain common sense like 
 myself, the tricks and ways of these London 
 ladies are amazingly entertaining." 
 
 " However, you must allow, Anne, that 
 this is not a die-away, languid air; and as 
 you take such a kind interest in Lord Esk- 
 dale's fate, you will be happy to hear that 
 he said he was quite delighted to have his 
 wife riding with him again." 
 
 " Oh, my dear love ! unless you mean to 
 make me quite ill, you must not offer me the 
 mawkish idea of Lord Eskdale making pretty 
 speeches to his wife ; I really cannot stand 
 that. And pray, are this promising young
 
 90 THE SEMI- ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 couple likely to remain long in their solitary- 
 paradise ? or are they going to St. Mary's ? 
 or is there any company coming to the 
 castle ? " 
 
 " I think they are expecting a large party 
 at home. Lord Eskdale was beginning to say 
 something about it, ai\d then she gave him a 
 look, and he stopped short." 
 
 "What! I suppose we are not to know, 
 for fear we should expect to be asked. 
 Why, it is just the very thing I would go 
 miles out of the way to avoid, and the last 
 society into which I should like to take my 
 girls." 
 
 " Oh, mamma !" said Eliza,' " I wish you 
 would not say that ; and I wish they would 
 ask us constantly to their house. It is very 
 odd, that though I feel afraid of everybody 
 all the time, there is nothing I like so much 
 as dining there. And I am sure, mamma, it 
 would be very good for my manner, which, 
 you say is so unformed at home. Before I
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 91 
 
 have crossed the hall at Eskdale Castle I 
 feel quite refined/' she said, laughing. 
 
 Mrs. Douglas laughed too, for though she 
 rarely lost any opportunity of speaking ma- 
 levolently of her neighbours' children, she was 
 very much disposed to admire her own. And 
 her own misanthropy found a pleasant relief 
 in Eliza's enjoyable views of life.
 
 92 THE SEMI-ATTACIIED COUPLE. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 Lady Eskdale's note of invitation arrived, 
 worded in the most engaging manner. She 
 begged Mrs. Douglas to consider her forlorn 
 situation, and to lend dear, gay Lizzy to her for 
 a few days — the few days not to be construed 
 literally, but to extend to a fortnight if Eliza 
 could bear to leave home for so long. She 
 feared it would be very dull at first, but 
 hoped that some friends who were expected 
 would amuse that " tres amusable petite per- 
 sonne." If Mrs. Douglas consented to this 
 plan, the carriage would come for Eliza and 
 her maid the next day. 
 
 Mrs. Douglas was excessively surprised.
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 93 
 
 It was unlucky that she had just said so much 
 against the manners and customs of Eskdale 
 Castle — protests made, too, in vain, for she 
 had no hesitation in allowing Eliza to accept 
 the invitation. The friends who were ex- 
 pected might include a second Lord Teviot. 
 That horrid, rude Lord Beaufort might be at 
 home, and she could magnanimously forgive 
 his nefarious conduct at Helen's wedding, if 
 there were any chance of her officiating at his 
 own in the capacity of his mother-in-law. 
 Visions of grandeur rose before her eyes ; and 
 when Mr. Douglas, in the consultation held 
 between them on the subject, asked if she 
 had not said that the society at Eskdale 
 Castle was not what she would like for her 
 daughters, she boldly took FalstafF's line of 
 defence when accused by Justice Shallow of 
 having broken into his park and stolen his 
 dear. *' I have, Mr. Justice, I have — and so 
 I hope that's answered." 
 
 *'Yes^ my dear, I said so, but what of
 
 94 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 that? It is rather hard to be tried in the 
 morning for every little careless word spoken 
 over night ; nothing provokes me so much as 
 to be accused of inconsistency, when it does 
 so happen that I am remarkably consistent. 
 However, I am decidedly in favour of Lizzy's 
 going, so it does not much matter what I said. 
 We may as well tell her." 
 
 Eliza was in raptures. *' A whole fort- 
 night of visiting ! and only think, mamma, of 
 Lady Eskdale saying she would send for my 
 maid. Why, I have none." 
 
 " You must take Betsy, I suppose, and 
 my maid must dress Sarah. It will turn 
 Betsy's head, and make her rather perter 
 than she is *, but it cannot be helped." 
 
 " What fun it will be ! only what shall I 
 do about going into the room alone ? and I 
 hope I shall not be sent out to ride with Lord 
 Eskdale, for I do not know how to talk to 
 him. And then about dress, mamma, what 
 gowns am I to take ? and then poor Sarah,
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 95 
 
 left all alone, how unhappy she will be ! Oh, 
 no ! she won't though, because of Mr. Went- 
 worth's coming here; and besides, I shall 
 write to her every day." 
 
 This hint of Mr. Wentworth was well 
 thrown in. Sarah was just beginning to 
 wonder whether she ought not to be affronted 
 because Lady Eskdale had not invited her ; 
 but the handsome manner with which Mr. 
 Wentworth was made over to her — he being 
 the only semblance of a lover that had ever 
 appeared at the house — quite appeased her, 
 and her affection for her sister was always 
 strong enough to conquer any little feelings 
 of jealousy awakened by Eliza's superior 
 popularity. 
 
 " Yes, you must certainly write every day," 
 she said when they were alone, "and de- 
 scribe all your little difficulties. I think you 
 will be very fond of Lady Eskdale." 
 
 ''Yes, I am sure of it; she is ^such 
 a dear,' as she would sav herself. But
 
 96 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 Lord Eskdale, Sarah, is very alarming, is not 
 her 
 
 '*Eather so; but perhaps he will not take 
 much notice of you. If I were you, Lizzy, I 
 would read the newspaper more than you do ; 
 and then you can talk to him about trials, and 
 murders, and politics, and accidents : I ob- 
 serve that those are the kind of topics he 
 likes." 
 
 " Oh goodness, Sarah ! think of me talking 
 politics to Lord Eskdale ; a nice mess I 
 should make of that. No, I had better not 
 think about it. I must take some pretty 
 work with me, something that will not annoy 
 Lady Eskdale in the drawing -room ; and 
 then music is always a resource. And my 
 daily letter to you; and, Sarah, mind you 
 send me every particular of Mr. Wentworth's 
 visit, and what he says, and looks, and thinks. 
 Oh dear! if you should write me word he 
 had proposed, what a state I should be in !" 
 " Oh, nonsense !" said Sarah ; " there is no
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 07 
 
 chance of that ;" but the idea led her into a 
 dream of happiness ; and when Eliza and her 
 Eetsy, her embroidery and her best gowns 
 were all carried off the following morning in 
 Lady Eskdale's carriage, Sarah saw her 
 depart without one twinge of envy, for Mr. 
 Wentworth had sent word he should arrive in 
 time for dinner. 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE, 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 The Teviots had reached the end of the 
 second week of their honeymoon undisturbed, 
 except by the visits of two or three neighbours. 
 It was ahnost time that there should be some 
 change, at least Mrs. Tomkinson wished to 
 goodness there might soon be what she called 
 *' a little staying company " in the house, if it 
 were only that my lady might wear some of her 
 bettermost gowns ; and she also thought my 
 lady seemed rather moped somehow. Mr. 
 Phillips gave it as his humble opinion that " our 
 folks had had enough of their own company 
 for one while." It has never been definitely 
 stated what period of time " one while " com-
 
 THE SEMI- ATTACHED COUPLE. 99 
 
 prises, nor whether there is a plural to the 
 substantive, and that '* two whiles " represent 
 a certain number of days or weeks. However 
 that may be, Phillips and Tomkinson had 
 judged with their usual discrimination. That 
 same day Lord Teviot went into Helen's 
 boudoir with some letters in his hand. 
 
 " Helen, here is some company for you. 
 Lady Portmore has offered herself for Friday." 
 
 *' That is rather a short notice, is it not ?" 
 
 *' Yes — no ; I do not think that signifies. 
 We should be glad of her visit, either on a 
 short notice or a long one. / shall be de- 
 lighted to see her, and she must know she 
 is welcome at St. Mary's — always has been, 
 and always will be." 
 
 ''Are you expecting any other friends?" 
 said Helen, putting aside the question of the 
 Portmore welcome, 
 
 " Yes, two or three men. Lady Portmore 
 says she is sure we shall have been too much 
 occupied with each other" — and he smiled 
 
 H 2
 
 100 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 rather scornfully — " to think of arranghig a 
 pleasant party, and that we shall be obliged 
 to her for inviting a few people we all know." 
 
 '' I am not sure that I am obliged to her 
 just now," said Helen, hurrying on through 
 her sentence. " My letters had given me the 
 idea of a totally different plan. The Trevors 
 have been obliged to go to Walden, and papa 
 and mamma are left quite alone ; and I thought 
 we might surprise them with a visit now, 
 instead of next month, when you promised to 
 go to them. How I should like it ! but, if 
 we cannot put off Lady Portmore " 
 
 '' We neither can nor will," said Lord 
 Teviot. '' I am sorry you are already tired 
 of your own home ; but, such as it is, I am 
 afraid I must trouble you to stay in it. And 
 though my friends are not, of course, to be 
 compared to yours, I cannot begin by affront- 
 ing them all." 
 
 Helen made no answer, and after a moment's 
 pause took up her work. Lord Teviot walked
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 101 
 
 to the window, and began playing with the 
 tame bullfinch that stood in it. The silence 
 that ensued was long and awful^ but was 
 broken by hini as he said, in a constrained 
 voice, " Have you had no other letter but 
 that from your mother ?" 
 
 " None of any consequence." 
 
 " Did not Beaufort write ? I thought I 
 saw his hand." 
 
 " There is his letter ; there are all my 
 letters^ if you like to see them," said Helen — 
 a faint suspicion dawning on her mind that 
 Lord Teviot was jealous of her family. He 
 seemed to waver, but she placed them on the 
 table, and moving her work-frame nearer to 
 the window, left the field open to him. He 
 took up the letters with a slight sensation of 
 shame. Lady Eskdale's was as usual affec- 
 tionate and amiable ; and though she expressed 
 strongly her wish to see her daughter, she 
 said she knew it was not likely Lord Teviot 
 could leave his home again so soon ; and she
 
 102 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 mentioned her invitation to Eliza Douglas^, 
 which she hoped would satisfy Helen's doubts 
 of her comfort. "It is a sad change, my 
 darling, but as it is for your happiness I can- 
 not complain, and your letters are the greatest 
 possible comfort to me. Do tell your idle 
 husband to write to me.'' Lord Beaufort 
 wrote from London, where he had seen the 
 Portmores, and he said he should have joined 
 their party to St. Mary's, but that he was 
 seized with a fit of filial duty, and meant to 
 run down to Eskdale Castle, to console his 
 respected and deserted papa and mamma. 
 " They fancy, poor deluded creatures, that 
 they miss you dreadfully, and that no one 
 can fill up your vacant place. Strange illu- 
 sion ! which my august presence will instantly 
 dispel. After I have raised their spirits to 
 their proper pitch, it is just possible that I 
 may raise my own, by coming to see my little 
 Nell *, so tell Teviot to expect me, and to 
 turn his attention towards partridges and phea-
 
 THE SEMI- ATTACHED COUPLE. 103 
 
 sants." There was a third letter in a hand- 
 writing Lord Teviot did not know. " Am I 
 to read this, Helen ?" 
 
 *' If you like. It is from my friend Mary 
 Forrester, of whom you may have heard me 
 speak." 
 
 '^ Yes ; I have seen her at the Portmores : 
 a very handsome girl. Where is she now ?" 
 
 '^ At Eichmond, with her aunt." 
 
 She, like the other two, seemed full of deep 
 interest in Helen, and it was with a strange 
 mixture of pride in the affection she inspired, 
 and jealousy of those who expressed it so 
 warmly, that he perused these letters. He 
 saw how tenderly Helen had always been 
 treated ; how dear she was to her family. He 
 himself loved Lady Eskdale almost as a 
 mother. Lord Beaufort was one of the 
 young men of his own standing, whom he 
 liked best ; but when he looked upon them as 
 his rivals in the heart of his wife, he could 
 not bring himself to speak kindly of them, at
 
 104 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 least not to her. He hardly knew how to 
 begin the conversation again. Helen seemed 
 to have no curiosity about his guests ; but he 
 recollected a paragraph in Beaufort's letter 
 that might help him. 
 
 '' Did you observe that Beaufort says your 
 cousin Ernest is coming here ?" 
 
 ^' Yes, I supposed he was — at least, that he 
 was asked ; he is sure to be included in the 
 For tm ore list." 
 
 *'That is a hit at Lady Portmore, I sup- 
 pose," said Lord Teviot, again on the point of 
 taking fire ; but he checked himself. " It will 
 be a great pleasure to you to see Ernest, I 
 should think ?" 
 
 " Yes," said Helen, faintly ; " he is rather 
 amusing." 
 
 " More than that, he is clever, and can be 
 very pleasant when he chooses. I am going 
 to answer Lady Portmore ! Have you any 
 message ? She asks if she can bring any- 
 thing from town for you ?'*
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 105 
 
 *' Nothing whatever, thank you." 
 
 " Have you any letters for the post-bag ?" 
 
 " I shall have one for papa." 
 
 " To your father ?" said Lord Teviot ; and 
 suddenly the thought occurred to him that 
 she was going to write to complain of her 
 situation. She was silent. ^' Might I ask, 
 without being considered impertinent, what 
 is this sudden fancy for writing to Lord 
 Eskdale, and when the idea entered your 
 head ?" 
 
 Helen stooped down, and taking a letter 
 from the work-basket that stood by her side, 
 broke the seal. She pushed away her work- 
 frame, and passing quickly by the table at 
 which Lord Teviot sat — • 
 
 " I nmst go and breathe the fresh air," she 
 said, and her voice sounded low and dispirited. 
 ^' There is my letter to my father; will you 
 seal it and send it ? If you like to write in 
 this room, you will find pens and paper there, 
 and vou will not be disturbed, for I am going
 
 106 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 out" She went without waiting for an 
 answer. 
 
 '' So ! I drive her out of her own room, if 
 I come into it," thought Lord Teviot. "She 
 thinks I am jealous, or curious, or she would 
 not have shown me all these letters. She 
 cannot say one kind word ; she does not even 
 look kindly at me, and she evidently thinks 
 of nothing but her own family. I suppose 
 she compares me with all these doting rela- 
 tions, and thinks me cold and hateful ; and 
 yet which of them can dote on her as I do 
 if she would let me ? She would actually 
 have gone back to them without me, I believe. 
 No, I remember she said we ; but still she 
 called Eskdale Castle her home. My house 
 is clearly not her home *, and she has not asked 
 one of her friends to come and stay here. 
 Does she think I should not like it, or is she 
 afraid that they will see she is not happy ? 
 Not happy ! Helen, my own Helen, whom 
 I could have loved, whom I do love, as I
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 107 
 
 never loved any human being. There are 
 moments when I think she hates me. Now 
 here is this letter to her father. Hov/ quick 
 and angry she was about that ! I did not ask 
 to see it. I did not knov/ she had written to 
 him till she said so herself. I have a great 
 mind to write to Lady Eskdale, and to ask 
 her to come here. She and Lord Eskdale, 
 and Beaufort, and that Miss Douglas, and the 
 whole clan, and that will show Helen I am 
 not jealous of them, and it is the best chance 
 I have of pleasing her. I dare say, that be- 
 cause / ask them, she will not be glad to see 
 them. Who's knocking there? Come in. 
 Come in, I say. Good heavens, how I hate to 
 be made to roar out ' Come in' ten times over!" 
 ''It's only me, my lord," said Mrs. Tom- 
 kinson. " If you please, my lord, her lady- 
 ship has left her bonnet here." 
 
 *' Yery well, Mrs. Tomkins, look for it." 
 " Her ladyship will be ready in a moment, 
 my lord," said Mrs. Tomkinson, who could
 
 108 THE SEMI- ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 not resist the chance of a little talk. She had 
 an ambitious idea that she was diving into my 
 lord's character. 
 
 ''Yery well; shut the door." 
 
 '' Umph !" thought Mrs. Tomkinson, as she 
 obeyed ; " how very uncivil ; and calling me 
 Tomkins, too ! I hate to be called out of my 
 name. Now I should like to know what he's 
 doing of with all those letters. I wonder 
 whether my lady chooses for him to be ran- 
 sacking her papers, and whether that's the 
 right thing with married people. Here's 
 vour ladyship's bonnet. I could not lay my 
 hand on it rightly, because of my lord's sitting 
 so just at the writing-table." 
 
 '^ Is my lord writing?" 
 
 " His lordship seemed to be busy with 
 some papers as was on the table," said Mrs. 
 Tomkinson, guardedly, and with a look of 
 curiosity to see if the hint told. The pause that 
 ensued left her still in doubt. " Shall I step 
 back and tell my lord your ladyship is ready ?"
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 10J5 
 
 '^ No," said Helen, absently. 
 
 '^ I can easily go back on pretence to see 
 for your ladyship's gloves ;" and Tomkinsoii 
 began to think the case was assuming great 
 interest. 
 
 "No, no," said Lady Teviot, thoroughly 
 roused ; ^' don't disturb Lord Teviot ; he was 
 so good as to offer to finish and seal my 
 letters *, don't run in and out to disturb him ?" 
 
 "Law, my lady, how good his lordship is! 
 It quite pleased me to see him sitting so com- 
 fortable and at home in your ladyship's 
 beautiful boudoir. I wish Lord and Lady 
 Eskdale were here to see how happy your 
 ladyship is. There! there's my lady gone; 
 I declare I think she looks very bad ; not a 
 hatom of colour compared to what she had. 
 I aint quite sure yet, but what I think m}" 
 lord a brute ; at least, I shall make a point of 
 thinking so if he plagues my lady. And 
 calling me Tomkins, too — such an idea!"
 
 110 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Lord Teviot wrote all his invitations ; 
 then he thought of showing them to Helen 
 before he sent them ; and then again, he felt 
 some difficulty in renewing the conversation. 
 The waywardness of his temper had so often 
 displayed itself, that between him and Helen 
 many of the commonest topics of conver- 
 sation were attended with awkwardness ; and 
 he had discovered that she not only abstained 
 from contradicting him on any point that had 
 once inflamed his temper, but that she never 
 even alluded to the disputed point again. 
 Even this caution oifended him. A bright 
 thought now occurred to him ; he would ask
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. Ill 
 
 Lady Portmore to bring Miss Forrester with 
 her. He knew they were acquainted with 
 each other, and the arrival of Helen's favourite 
 friend would reconcile her to the Portmore 
 visitation, and to the consequent delay of 
 her return to Eskdale Castle. And then if 
 her family came, he did not see anything of 
 which she could complain ; he had done all 
 he could to please her ; she ought to make 
 allowance for his manner, for he owned that 
 it was at times rather taunting; but she 
 ought to be above such trifles. It was a pity 
 Lord Teviot had never read Hannah More. 
 Her prose would have been of great use to 
 him ; but even her poetry would have taught 
 him that 
 
 " Since trifles make tlie sum of human things, 
 And half our misery from trifles springs — 
 Oh ! let the ungentle spirit learn from thence 
 A small unkindness is a great offence." 
 
 And, consequently, a series of small un- 
 kindnesses is very offensive indeed, and i^.
 
 112 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 would not have been surprising if Helen were 
 offended. But she was not ; she was de- 
 pressed, half frightened, and half unhappy. 
 Lord Teviot's expressions of affection were 
 almost as alarming as his anger; he was so 
 energetic in all his professions, so violent, as it 
 seemed to her who had been accustomed to 
 the gentle love of her mother and the playful 
 tenderness of her brother and sisters, that she 
 did not know how to answer his vehement 
 protestations and eager upbraidings. And 
 then his sudden starts of temper puzzled her. 
 In short, she did not understand him; and 
 amidst all the grandeur that surrounded her, 
 and the magnificent gifts which Lord Teviot 
 heaped on her, she felt troubled. She longed 
 to be at home again, and at her ease ; but she 
 was too gentle to be resentful. 
 
 When Lord Teviot had despatched his 
 
 etters, he found her in her garden ; not one of 
 
 the old-fashioned gardens, full of roses and 
 
 honeysuckles, and sweet peas, suggestive of
 
 the country, and redolent of sweetness — but 
 in a first-rate gardener's garden, every plant 
 forming part of a group, and not to be picked 
 or touched on any account ; all of them 
 forced into bloom at the wrong time of the 
 year ; and each bearing a name that it was 
 difficult to pronounce, and impossible to re- 
 member. Helen was standing apparently 
 absorbed in admiration of a Lancifblium 
 speciosum, which she had been assured by her 
 gardener was " a better variety" of the Lan- 
 cifolium punctatum ; but in reality she was 
 thinking first of her mother, wondering when 
 she should see her again ; and next what she 
 could find to say to Lord Teviot at dinner. 
 She hoped he would not look for her before 
 that; but just as she had devised an inoffen- 
 sive remark, which might be hazarded before 
 the servants, she saw him standing beside her, 
 and the conversation had to begin forthwith. 
 The flowers were a safe topic, Li Hum punc- 
 tatum played its part ; that led to admiration 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 THE SEMI- ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 of the place. Then Lord Teviot, who as well 
 as Mrs. Tomkinson, perceived that " My lady 
 had not a hatom of colour/' offered her his 
 arm, and finding no signs ^ of resentment, 
 thought that it would be a greater support if 
 he put it round her waist ; and once esta- 
 blished in that confidential and highly con- 
 jugal attitude, he felt he could explain away 
 more easily the misunderstanding of the 
 morning. And when he saw the delight 
 with which Helen heard^ of the arrangements 
 he had made, and the ecstasy with which she 
 looked forward to the arrival of her family, 
 his heart smote him for the pain he had in- 
 flicted on her. His kindness gave her cou- 
 rage and spirits. 
 
 "And so you have written yourself to 
 Mary Forrester ; how pleased she will be ! 
 Oh ! I hope she will come. And you have 
 really asked Eliza Douglas, your ov/n 
 particular guest? Mrs. Douglas will be 
 enchanted, and of course say something
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 115 
 
 bitter about it; but still she will think th a' 
 ' that Lord Teviot has some good qualities : 
 at least, she tries to think so for poor Helen's 
 sake ; and, at all events, he is very civil to 
 us.' '' 
 
 " Poor Helen," repeated Lord Teviot, as 
 he pressed her fondly to his heart; *'and ma\ 
 I ask why you are poor Helen with Mrs. 
 Douglas ?" 
 
 *' Oh ! because everybody who is not a 
 Douglas is poor something or somebody. She- 
 has for years pitied poor mamma, who ha? 
 never known what grief is ; and I heard of 
 her saying that the high spirits of poor Lord 
 Beaufort would end by wearing out himself 
 and everybody belonging to him." 
 
 '' And would she pity you now ?" 
 
 '* Not at this moment," said Helen, gaily 
 and carelessly. 
 
 " And even a moment of happiness is to 
 be prized," he answered, coldly ; *' happiness 
 seldom lasts much longer. However, let us 
 
 I 2
 
 IIG THE SEMI- ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 hope you may overtake it again on-Thursday. 
 I suppose you will have your family here 
 then." 
 
 " Did you name Thursday ?" 
 
 ^' I said the sooner the better — that you 
 would be very uneasy till they came, and that 
 I should hardly be able to persuade you to 
 stay at St. Mary's much longer without 
 them." 
 
 " It was only because mamma was alone 
 that I wished to go to her now," said Helen, 
 timidly, for she felt a change of tone in the 
 conversation, " and I thought she would be 
 unhappy." 
 
 " Oh ! it requires no excuse ; nothing can 
 be more natural. It is only a matter of sur- 
 prise to me, Helen, how you ever prevailed on 
 yourself to leave her. I ought to be flattered 
 that I had influence enough to persuade you 
 to take such a step, though it is rather a 
 check to my vanity to find I cannot prevent 
 your regretting it"
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COrPLE. 117 
 
 " Dear Teviot, I have never expressed any 
 regret, I am sure.'* 
 
 ** No, you are much too guarded, too care- 
 ful of giving offence I mean ; and besides, 
 let us hope that even moments of happiness, 
 since you can have no more — " 
 
 ''Has that offended you? Oh, Teviot, 
 how you icill misunderstand me !" 
 
 '' I am very unfortunate, certainly ; my 
 want of comprehension is most distressing. 
 Perhaps if our feelings were more the same, 
 my obtuseness would not be so great ; but, as 
 it is, I am not sufficiently cool and guarded 
 to judge calmly. I hoped I had at last found 
 a way to please you ; however, it is of no 
 consequence. I have intruded on your 
 ladyship's horticultural pursuits, I fear," 
 he said, with a bad imitation of playful- 
 ness ; " you must have wished me away 
 repeatedly, and as I have hardly time for a 
 gallop before dinner, I have the honour to 
 take my leave.*'
 
 118 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 " I thought you meant to ride in the even- 
 ing, but I can be ready in a moment." 
 
 '^ It is just possible that I may be able to 
 ride twice in one day, and that for once I 
 may choose to ride alone. I have been long 
 enough in your way now, and so good-bye." 
 
 " Xow, what can I have said that has 
 annoyed him again ?" thought Helen ; " but 
 so it always is ; he never understands me. 
 I w^onder why he married me ; and yet at 
 first how different he was from what he is 
 now ! When w^e danced together in London, 
 how pleasant he w^as— so gay, and so ready 
 to talk and laugh and to be amused ! but then 
 I was different too, and more amusing, I 
 should think, for I feel so grave and dull 
 now ; and whenever I try to be in spirits, I 
 say something that vexes him. Well, papa 
 and mamma will be here soon, that is one 
 comfort, and dear Beaufort. Nothing ever 
 puts him out of sorts ; but I must not think 
 of that."
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 119 
 
 Helen wandered home, absorbed in rumina- 
 tions over her new position : and she was so 
 absent that Mrs. Tomkinson's distrust of my 
 lord was confirmed ; and it seemed almost 
 time to hint her very low opinion of him to 
 Mr. Phillips. 
 
 The evening passed away better than Helen 
 had expected. Lord Teviot's gallop had put 
 him into better humour ; and Helen's spirits 
 rose when she was dressed for dinner. I have 
 often observed that the petty vexations and 
 worries of the early part of the day are taken 
 off and folded neatly up with the morning 
 gown ; and a fresh fit of spirits and good- 
 humour put on with the evenuig adornments. 
 It is a change for the better, personally and 
 mentally.
 
 120 THE SEMI- ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Thursday came with its promise of guests. 
 There was no answer from the Portmores ; so, 
 besides the interesting uncertainty of their 
 arrival, it remained to be seen whether Mary 
 Forrester would accompany them. Lady 
 Eskdale had written one line of joyful ac- 
 ceptance, apologizing for bringing Eliza 
 Douglas ; but adding, that she was a dear 
 good girl, and the idea of paying Helen a visk 
 pleased her so much, that Lady Eskdale could 
 not resist bringing her, if Mrs. Douglas gave 
 the consent for which Eliza had written to ask. 
 As I consider the Douglas papers valuable, 
 not only for their own merits, but as proofs
 
 THE SEMI- ATTACHED COUPLE. 121 
 
 of the exact truth of this history, I shall make 
 use of some of Eliza's letters. 
 
 '' Dearest Mother, — I do not know what 
 you will say to it, but Lady Eskdale desires 
 me to ask if you have any objection to my 
 going to St. Mary's with her and Lord 
 Eskdale to-morrow ? I hope you will let me 
 go. Lord Teviot asked me himself, for Lady 
 Eskdale told me so ; and besides, my name 
 was in his letter, which was lying open on 
 the breakfast table, so I could not help seeing 
 it. I am very happy here^ though rather 
 sleepy in the evening, because they sit up so 
 late. There never was anything like Lady 
 Eskdale's kindness. She has given me two 
 beautiful gowns and a bracelet, — two pomps 
 and one vanity, — and she takes such care of 
 me, that I am quite ashamed of never 
 feeling ill : she is always asking how I am. 
 I write in such haste, that I have not time 
 for more than several very important ques- 
 tions which I want you to answer. What
 
 122 TBE SEMI-ATTACHED COrPLE. 
 
 am I to give the housema'ds here ? and do 
 you object to my reading r.ovels, if Lady 
 Eskdale says there is no harm in them ? They 
 look very tempting, particularly one called 
 ' Pride and Prejudice.' And when we go to 
 St. Mary's, that is, if you let me go, ought 
 not I to sit backwards in the carriage, though 
 Lord Eskdale is so civil, he will be sure to say 
 not ? I play to him every evening ; he is so 
 fond of music, I am glad I can play. Every 
 evening he says, ' Now, Miss Douglas, are 
 we to have a little harmony ?' May I sing 
 to him? My love to papa, and I wish he 
 would advance me my next quarter's allow- 
 ance ; and pray tell Sarah my work is turning 
 out beautiful, and that gowns are still Avorn 
 without any trimming. I wish she would 
 hear Susan Dawson her catechism while I am 
 away, else she will be sure to forget that long 
 answer to ' What is thy duty to thy neigh- 
 bour?' And it has been such a trouble to 
 teach it to her. It nearly wore your poor
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 123 
 
 little Eliza quite out. Lord Beaufort came 
 last night, and is also going to St. Mary's. 
 
 " Ever, dearest mother, 
 
 " Your dutiful and affectionate, 
 " Eliza Douglas.'* 
 " Please mention what papa's politics are. 
 They talk a great deal about government and 
 opposition, and I do not know which I am 
 for." 
 
 Mrs. Douglas's answer was propitious ; and 
 she was so gratified by the prospect of her 
 daughter's amusement, that she assured Mrs. 
 Birkett, much to that worthy person's 
 surprise, that Lady Eskdale was one of 
 the most warm-hearted, amiable people she 
 knew ; not that she joined in the common 
 cant about warm hearts and kind dispositions, 
 because she happened to know what men and 
 women really were ; but still there were 
 exceptions, and from long intimacy with the 
 Eskdales, she was able to say, &c., &c. In
 
 124 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 short, she evmced a spirit of benevolence that 
 took poor Mrs. Birkett quite by surprise, and 
 spoiled her visit. She had coiuc armed with 
 some little anti-Eskdale anecdotes, and with 
 a small supply of malevolence, which would, 
 she had expected, make her visit unusually ac- 
 ceptable, and she was left without a word to 
 sav for herself
 
 THE SEME-ATTACHED COUPLE. 125 
 
 CHAPTER XY. 
 
 Eliza wrote to her sister immediately after 
 her arrival at St. Mary's : — 
 
 *' I begin my letter after I have come up to 
 bed, dearest Sarah, for there is so much to 
 say, that unless I write at night, I never shall 
 have time to say it all. This is such a beau- 
 tiful place ; but you hate descriptions, and so do 
 I. We arrived an hour before dinner, and met 
 Lord and Lady Teviot at the first lodge, when 
 Lady Eskdale got out, and walked home with 
 them. I wish you could have seen how pretty 
 and happy Helen looked. Lord Eskdale 
 and Lord Beaufort arrived just after we did,
 
 126 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 and we had not been half an hour in the 
 house before a number of other people came. 
 A Colonel Beaufort, a horrid man, like that 
 Mr. Brown we used to call Ape Brown — 
 though Colonel Beaufort is very good-looking 
 — but he is so grand and conceited. Then, 
 there are two Mr. Sterlings and a Sir Charles 
 de Vere, and one or two others, and at last 
 there came Lord and Lady Portmore, and 
 with them a Miss Forrester, a great friend of 
 Helen's. Don't you remember how Mrs. 
 Duncombe used to talk of her, and say how 
 clever she was, and that she was going to be 
 married to somebody, I forget who, who liked 
 somebody else ? I do not like Lady Portmore 
 at all. She came in just as if she were mis- 
 tress of the house, and as if it were her place to 
 receive the guests ; and she called everybody 
 by their names, and without their titles. * Oh ! 
 Teviot, why did not you ask Melmoth to meet 
 me ? So Beaufort, you are here, that is right. 
 Earnest' (meaning Colonel Beaufort), 'you
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 127 
 
 should have sent to my house before you set 
 off; I wanted you to bespeak horses for me on 
 the road. Well, now we must go and dress, 
 it is almost time for dinner. I have my old 
 room, I suppose, Teviot; so, dear Helen, 
 you need not come with me, I am quite at 
 home, so stay where you are. Who is that 
 with your mother?' Miss Douglas, Helen 
 said : ' Oh, Miss Douglas, rather pretty, is not 
 she ?' Now you know, Sarah, that I am not 
 vain, nor perhaps even rather pretty, but I 
 longed to say ' Yes, quite beautiful,' just to 
 quell Lady Portmore, who walked off, saying, 
 ' Well, good people, will you all go and dress, 
 I hate waiting for dinner.' I should have 
 liked to put it off for half an hour, for the 
 pleasure of thwarting her, though I was rather 
 hungry myself. I have such a pretty room, 
 with a dressing-room, and such looking-glasses 
 and sofa and arm-chairs, mamma would be 
 shocked. Lady Eskdale was so good as to 
 send for me before she went down stairs, and
 
 128 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 Lord Beaufort took me in to dinner, so I was 
 less frightened than might have been ex 
 pected. He is so good-natured, I am not at 
 all afraid of him. I wore my blue gown. 
 This is such a magnificent house. How I 
 should like to be married to a very rich man, 
 with a very fine place ! 
 
 " Your atFectionate sister, 
 
 " E. Douglas." 
 
 Helen was quite happy at dinner, with her 
 father on one side of her, and Marv Forrester 
 sitting next to him, and her mother nearly 
 opposite to her. She had been all day pre- 
 paring for the arrival of her family. Survey- 
 ing their rooms again and again, and adorning 
 Ihem with flowers. The books that she thought 
 would amuse them were placed on their tables. 
 The claret cup which Lord Eskdale drank after 
 dinner had been ordered and tasted by herself; 
 even the bill of fare, which was usually sub- 
 mitted only to Lord Teviot, was looked over
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 129 
 
 by her, lest the boiled chicken for Lady Esk- 
 dale, and the potage which Beaufort liked so 
 much, should have been omitted. And now 
 they were all there, the guests and their 
 comestibles, and she felt at home again. She 
 had more questions to ask her father about 
 Eskdale Castle than he could possibly answer 
 during one dinner, for she was obliged to do 
 the honours to the rest of the company ; but 
 that was no trouble to her. Her eye was bright, 
 and her cheek flushed with happiness. She 
 was willing to laugh at every joke, and to 
 break through every silence, for there was a 
 pleasant consciousness about her, not only that 
 the good things of life were collected very 
 handsomely and becomingly around her, but 
 that those she loved best were with her to 
 share them. 
 
 " Upon my word. Lady Teviot," said her 
 father with a gratified smile, as the ladies rose 
 to withdraw, " you seem to me to be a very 
 finished specimen of the lady of the house ; 
 
 YOL. I. K
 
 130 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 that little head will be turned, and my little 
 Helen will be spoiled." 
 
 She kissed his hand as she moved on, but 
 the . gloomy look with which Lord Teviot re- 
 garded her as she passed him at the door, 
 might have satisfied Lord Eskdale that there 
 was still a chance that his daughter would 
 not be utterly spoiled by unqualified indulg- 
 ence.
 
 THE SEMI- ATTACHED COUPLE. 131 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 It was a beautiful August evening — a real 
 summer's evening — and the ladies, instead of 
 betaking themselves to the drawing-room, 
 strolled out on the lawn. Helen, passing her 
 arm through her mother's, contrived to draw 
 her away, and turned into the shrubbery, 
 having whispered to Miss Forrester to take 
 charge of the others ; and Lady Portmore, 
 who hated walking, sat down on one of those 
 wretched gridirons commonly called garden 
 chairs, and desired Mary to take another. 
 Eliza thought she should be in the way, and 
 was quietly withdrawing, but Lady Portmore, 
 who had seen Lord Beaufort talking and 
 
 k2
 
 132 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 laughing with her, and had heard Lady Esk- 
 dale call her '' Dear Liz," thought it would 
 he the right thing to make much of her. 
 
 " My dear Miss Douglas, you must not 
 leave us ; I foresee that you and I shall be 
 great friends. Pray sit down with Mary and 
 me. Mary is one of my dearest friends; 
 and you must not be afraid of her, though 
 she is the cleverest creature in the world." 
 
 '* There is one of the prettiest creatures in 
 the world," said Mary, waving away the com- 
 pliment to herself, and pointing to Lady 
 Teviot's receding figure; "and there Miss 
 Douglas will agree with me, I see." 
 
 " And I, I am sure," said Lady Portmore; 
 *' in fact, you could not speak to any one who 
 is such an authority on the subject of He- 
 len's beauty as I am, for I was the very first 
 person who discovered it. The night she 
 came out at H. House," just as she entered 
 the room, so that nobody else could have seen 
 her, I said to the Duke, ' There is the pret-
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 133 
 
 tiest girl that has appeared this year ; ' and I 
 remember turning round and instantly saying 
 to Count CzernischefFski, the man with the 
 scar, you know — Princess Saldovitch's hero — 
 ' Yoila, M. le Comte, une jolie debutante ;' 
 and after that, all the world, English and 
 foreign, raved about her beauty. I really set 
 that fashion." 
 
 "I suppose," said Mary, *' that when she 
 appears next year as Lady Teviot:|r-that is, if 
 .she does appear — " 
 
 " How do you mean, my love ? What is 
 to prevent her appearing ?" 
 
 ^'Nothing but her own good will and 
 pleasure," said Mary, laughing : '' it is a 
 foolish expression ; but I meant to say that I 
 hope Helen will not adopt the reigning fashion 
 of young married women, and lead a life of 
 balls and parties. I think she will be a stay- 
 at-home wife." 
 
 " I don't understand," said Lady Portmore, 
 fussily ; *'if she stays at home, what becomes
 
 134 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 of her position, and her rank, and Teviot 
 House ? And you forget her diamonds. But 
 that is the way with you clever people ; you 
 so often overlook the important point which 
 we silly ones remember. If she shuts herself 
 up, what is the use of her having married 
 Teviot?" 
 
 "But she liked him, did she not?" said 
 Eliza, who looked aghast at Lady Portmore's 
 reasoninaf — or rather calculation — for reason- 
 ing was not Lady Portmore*s strong point. 
 "I think if I were married to anybody I 
 liked, I should prefer staying at home with 
 him to going to a ball." 
 
 ^' You dear little romantic thing ; now that 
 is so like me ! I foresaw we should suit each 
 other exactly. There is nothing equal to the 
 comfort of a long evening at home for the 
 husband and wife ; but then, you know, other 
 people must be considered — the people who 
 invite one to their houses — and one must 
 go, for fear of not being asked again ; and
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 135 
 
 that is the rock on which my domestic hap- 
 piness splits." 
 
 There was a pause while Lady Portmore 
 mused sadly upon this shipwreck of her do- 
 mestic felicity ; and then the conversation 
 began again with the Teviots. 
 
 " Did Helen's marriage take you by sur- 
 prise, Mary ?" 
 
 ^'I could not be surprised at any amount 
 of admiration that Helen might excite ; but I 
 was in the country at the time, and I had 
 heard very little of Lord Teviot. It was a 
 short romance, you know ?" 
 
 *' My dear Mary, there is nobody who 
 knows so much about it as I do. Miss 
 Douglas will think me very vain, but as she 
 does not know me, I must just let her a little 
 into the secret of my character. She will 
 say I am frank, too frank perhaps; but the 
 fact is, as all the world knows, that before his 
 marriage Teviot almost lived at my house. 
 I/t was his home, literally his home. He is
 
 136 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 the most warm-hearted creature on earth, and 
 chose to take a great fancy to me. Why, I 
 am sure I can't guess ; but he was on that 
 footing at my house that my own brother 
 might have been. It was the sort of thing 
 that the world might have talked of; and I 
 never know how I escaped all sorts of ill- 
 natured remarks. In fact, but this is between 
 ourselves, I did say to Lord Portmore, ' If you 
 think Teviot had better not come so much to 
 our house, only tell me so, and I will contrive 
 that he shall not dine here so constantly — and 
 yet there shall be no scene, no esdandve! I 
 thought this right ; don't you agree with me ?" 
 
 " And what did Lord Portmore say ?" said 
 Eliza, who was listening in breathless delight 
 to what she thought a very odd and slightly 
 improper story. 
 
 " Oh ! it was a most gratifying answer to me. 
 He said he had not the smallest objection to 
 Teviot's dining with us as often as he liked, 
 and that he saw no opening for any scene.
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 137 
 
 and no necessity for any explanation ; in 
 short, he evidently placed the greatest confi- 
 dence in me. This was in June, and there 
 were constant fetes at Teviot House and 
 the Villa ; and I was rather annoyed by the 
 notion that the world would say they were 
 given for me. And one day, I remember it 
 as well as possible, it was at a breakfast at the 
 Villa, I said to my friend Mrs. Hanbury, 
 * I charge you, Cecilia, if you hear any ill- 
 natured comments made on my being at all 
 these fetes, that you will give me warning in 
 time. I can tell Teviot they had better be 
 given up.' And she said in her odd way, 
 ' Why, my dear, what do you mean ? Don't 
 you know that he is desperately in love with 
 Helen Beaufort ? I believe he has proposed ; 
 if not, for mercy's sake say nothing to him, 
 or you may do mischief ' I do mischief ! I ! 
 who am the last person in the world to think 
 of such a thing. I went to Teviot directly, 
 and said, * My dear Teviot, tell me the
 
 138 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 truth. The world says you are in love with 
 Helen. Are you quite sure of your own 
 feelings ? Will she suit you ?' and so on, 
 exactly what his own sister might have said 
 to him. And I am as much convinced as if 
 it were told me by an angel from heaven that 
 I made that marriage, for he proposed the 
 next day, the very next day. I suspect he 
 had been a little piqued by my easy way of 
 talking of it, for when he came to tell me it 
 was settled, I never saw a creature in such a 
 state of agitation. It was a very hot day, 
 and he asked directly for a glass of iced water, 
 which shows how nervous he was. I took my 
 line at once, and wished him joy, and said 
 that I would call on Helen, and that I was 
 much flattered that he had put me in his 
 confidence the day before ; and then he grew 
 calmer. But he \aughed and talked a great 
 deal, and was certainly very much excited, 
 and hurried away again, so unlike him. After 
 that I saw him but little ; indeed, I kept out
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 139 
 
 of his way, as I guessed the Eskdales would 
 wish to keep him to themselves ; but as soon 
 as he was marrried, I was so anxious for his 
 sake and Helen's that there should be no 
 a%vkwardness, no coolness between us, that I 
 offered to come here — actually offered myself 
 — and you saw how well the meeting went 
 off" 
 
 " Perfectly," said Mary ; *' nothing could 
 be more commonplace — more easy I mean." 
 
 Lady Portmore did not look as if she quite 
 liked the answer, and was on the point of 
 turning to Eliza to extract a more flattering 
 opinion, when the gentlemen appeared, and 
 her thoughts took a new direction. 
 
 Lord Teviot looked round as he came out 
 on the lawn, and seemed to miss some one, 
 though he asked no questions ; but Lord 
 Beaufort said immediately, *' Where's Helen ? 
 Miss Douglas, have you a mind to come and 
 look for her ? I saw her and my mother go 
 up that walk."
 
 140 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 " I should like to go," said Eliza, " but " 
 
 " Oh dear ! yes, we want a chaperone, I 
 forgot/' said Lord Beaufort ; " perhaps my 
 respected father will have the kindness to act 
 ruffian to us babes in the wood." 
 
 '^Not I," said Lord Eskdale ; "I can't 
 stir a step without my coffee ; but there are 
 your mother and sister in sight, at the end of 
 that avenue, so you may go in all propriety 
 and join them." 
 
 " Will you come, Miss Forrester ?" said 
 Eliza. 
 
 " Now, Miss Douglas," said Lord Beaufort, 
 '' let us be off, or they will be here, and our 
 excessive attention in going to look for them 
 will not be appreciated. Don't ask that Miss 
 Forrester to come," he added, as they walked 
 away, " I can t abide her." 
 
 *' Oh ! why not, Lord Beaufort ? I like 
 her looks so much." 
 
 " Her looks then are deceitful above all 
 things. I am not going to add that she is
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 141 
 
 desperately wicked ; but she affects to be 
 desperately good, which is nearly as bad." 
 
 '^ I dare say it is not affectation. Why 
 should she not be really good? Now, Lord 
 Beaufort, what right have you to judge of 
 either real or affected goodness ?" she added, 
 laughing. 
 
 " That right. Miss Douglas, which lookers- 
 on assume of knowing most of the game ; and 
 as for Miss Forrester's game, I neither admire 
 it, nor the way in which she has played 
 it. Neither do I admire her, and let 
 me advise you not to be taken in by her, 
 as Helen is." 
 
 " I am afraid your advice will be thrown 
 away. I feel frightfully tempted to like her. 
 I like everybody, except Lady Portmore, by- 
 the-by. I am very willing to dislike her if 
 that will satisfy you." 
 
 " Ah ! poor Lady Portmore, all women 
 hate her. I wonder why ? but we have not 
 time to discuss her now. Well, Helen, my
 
 142 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 beauty, we are come to conduct you and our 
 well-beloved mother to coffee. Have you 
 finished your confidential communication ? 
 and can you listen to a few original remarks 
 in the Repton line, which Miss Douglas and I 
 are prepared to make on St. Mary's ?" 
 
 " Is it not pretty, Eliza ?" 
 
 ^^ More than pretty — beautiful. Oh I 
 Helen, how happy you must be here !" 
 
 ** So I have been telling mamma," answered 
 Helen, with a faint smile ; " and she has been 
 making me jealous of you. You are creeping 
 into my place. She says you take such care 
 of her." 
 
 " I should be very ungrateful if I did not," 
 said Eliza, gliding round to Lady Eskdale's 
 side, and pressing her hand. 
 
 " No sentiment, dear Liz/' said Lady Esk- 
 dale, " for we must all put on our company 
 faces and company manners now." 
 
 They joined the rest of the circle, and 
 found Lady Portmore proving to Lord Esk-
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 143 
 
 dale that she had brought about most of the 
 political changes of the past year; and that 
 she knew beforehand all that were likely to 
 take place in the ensuing one.
 
 144 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 " What will you all like to do to-day ?" said 
 Helen one morning after breakfast, " drive ? 
 or ride ? or stay at home ? or go to Langley 
 ruins? Lady Portmore, what is your good 
 will and pleasure ?" 
 
 " I hardly know," she said, with an air of 
 mystery. ** Let me have a little talk with 
 you in your dressing-room ; a real comfort- 
 able chat, before I decide." 
 
 "Good heavens, how inhuman!" said 
 Ernest Beaufort, who was lolling on a sofa, 
 supported by countless cushions, and reading 
 the paper; ''you are not going to make that 
 guiltless Helen endure the agony of a regular
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 145 
 
 talk at this early hour of this broiling day. 
 Besides, what is there to talk about ?" 
 
 ^' A thousand things. I have not seen 
 Helen for ages ; and we have so much to hear 
 and to say." 
 
 " And are you, Lady Portmore," he said, 
 giving the cushion that supported his back a 
 languid push, ''are you still going on with 
 all that old humbug of being glad to see 
 people, and of having something to say to 
 them ? Has not everything been said forty 
 times over ? and is not any one individual 
 quite as good as another ?" 
 
 " Now that is so like you, Ernest. How 
 odd your theories are ; and yet how true ! I 
 said myself the other day, that one never 
 hears anything new till it is old ; and Cra- 
 croft the poet, who was sitting with me, 
 laughed very much at the originality of the 
 idea. You and I think so exactly alike, 
 Ernest." 
 
 '* Perhaps then, Lady Portmore, you are 
 YOL. I. L
 
 146 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 thinking of picking up the supplement of the 
 * Times,' which I have had the misfortune to 
 drop. In the similarity of our dispositions 
 we are probably of opinion that it ought to be 
 picked up by one of us." 
 
 " Now that is too bad. Oh, Miss Douglas," 
 she said, as Eliza stooped for it, "you are 
 spoiling that wretch !" 
 
 " Miss Douglas, the wretch thanks you ; 
 your attentions to me in my old age do you 
 infinite credit. When I was as young as you, 
 a period which my enfeebled memory can 
 scarcely recall, I doubt whether I was equally 
 mindful of the infirmities of the old." 
 
 " And what may be your age ?" said Lady 
 Portmore. 
 
 " It is a painful subject. You have probably 
 observed this morning that I am unusually 
 grave and meditative. To-day is one of those 
 eternal birthdays of mine, which are always 
 coming round, and with shame I avow, that 
 for six and- twenty years I have now existed
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 147 
 
 in this very tiresome world, bored and boring. 
 Now don't all begin to wish me many happy 
 birthdays. I am tired of good wishes. If 
 you like to make me any presents, you may ; 
 but I am tired of things too — so do not give 
 yourselves any trouble. I am twenty- six, 
 and can't help myself." 
 
 " Oh! we must leave him, Helen, he is really 
 too odd. Come and show me your boudoir." 
 
 " Directly," said Helen. "Teviot, as you 
 and Beaufort are going to the stables, will you 
 order the open carriage for mamma ? and the 
 pony phaeton will be wanted. Shall I ride 
 with you?" she said, timidly. 
 
 " Your attention, my dear, is most grati- 
 fying, but as you know that the Smiths, 
 Beaufort, and I agreed to have our first shot 
 at the partridges to-day, your obliging offer is 
 made in all safety." 
 
 " I am glad you will be so well employed," 
 answered Helen, speaking as unconcernedly 
 as she could, for she saw Mary looking in- 
 
 l2
 
 148 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 quiringly at her. " Then I will make my 
 own arrangements, as I am discarded by you. 
 Mary, you have brought your habit of course, 
 and there is a charming horse which Teviot 
 provided for me ; but papa has given me my 
 old favourite, so we will ride after luncheon. 
 Now for Lady Portmore. Shall I get off 
 under an hour of confidences ?" 
 
 Mary shook her head, and the party 
 dispersed in various directions.
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 149 
 
 CHAPTEE XVIII. 
 
 The library at St. Mary's was of a high, old- 
 fashioned form, and within it was a small 
 flight of steps which led to a light gallery 
 built round three sides of the room, giving 
 thus an easy access to the higher shelves of 
 books. The room itself was full of odd, deep 
 recesses, and was altogether a dangerous style 
 of apartment, for the occupants of the gallery 
 were not necessarily visible to the occupants 
 of the room, so that if any two conversable 
 guests were inclined to discuss the character 
 of a third, there was a very reasonable proba- 
 bility that their conversation might be over- 
 heard by the party most concerned. Mary
 
 150 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 Forrester had entered this gallery from a door 
 above, and was standing in one of the recesses, 
 with a book under her arm, which she meant 
 to take to her room, and another in her hand, 
 which she read as she stood. And while she 
 was thus occupied, Lord Beaufort and his 
 cousin came into the room below. *' We can 
 get out through that window," said Lord 
 Beaufort. 
 
 '' Oh ! then I need not announce myself," 
 thought Mary. 
 
 '' Why, so we can ; but won't it be a great 
 deal of trouble ? I wish, Beaufort, you would 
 tell me why you hate her, before you drag me 
 any further." 
 
 Again Miss Forrester was on the point of 
 saying, '* I am here," when a name that had 
 the power to arrest her at any moment drove 
 her back. 
 
 " Why, on that poor Eeginald Stuart's 
 account : she led that man on to attach himself 
 to her in the days of his prosperity, and threw
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 151 
 
 him over the moment his little money pecca- 
 dillos came to light." 
 
 " That's bad," said Ernest; " but I dare 
 say they were dead tired of each other. It is 
 so difficult to go on liking the same person for 
 ever and ever ; and besides, as Reginald was 
 ruined, they could not have lived on air." 
 
 " No, but she had had a large fortune left 
 her, and jilted him just when she might have 
 helped him 5 and that is what people call a 
 saint. And there is that unfortunate Stuart 
 getting into no end of scrapes, for he has 
 become reckless, and will be thoroughly 
 dished." 
 
 Mary could stay no longer. As quietly as 
 she could, she glided to the gallery door, and 
 certain that she could not be recognized, 
 allowed herself the natural solace of letting it 
 fall with a slight tendency to a bang, and 
 rushed along the passage to her own room. 
 The sound of the closing door made the two 
 gentlemen start. '' Who's there ?" said Lord
 
 152 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE, 
 
 Beaufort in a very guilty voice. '' Is there 
 anybody just come into that gallery?" he 
 added, as the silence continued. 
 
 " Nobody just come in, but somebody just 
 gone out," 'said Ernest, drily. "If it were 
 Miss Forrester, you are about as much dished 
 as Stuart. My chief merit happily is, that I 
 am a good listener ;" and he sauntered on to 
 the anteroom. 
 
 Lord Beaufort rushed up the steps, still 
 with a vague hope of finding a deaf librarian 
 or a dusting housemaid : but no, there was 
 nothing but a handkerchief, and on one of its 
 corners an intricate arrangement of Forget- 
 me-nots and roses, represented to an acute 
 decipherer the word " Mary". Lord Beau- 
 fort laid it down again as if it were made of 
 glass, walked down the steps as if he were 
 treading on ice, and following Ernest, 
 whispered to him, " We never must open 
 our lips again in that confounded room." 
 
 Mary, on her part, was promising to her-
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 153 
 
 self never again to fetch a book from that 
 same unlucky apartment. She would never 
 enter that gallery again. She would never 
 speak to Lord Beaufort as long as she lived ; 
 or perhaps she had better annoy him by 
 talking to and at him constantly, though she 
 was not quite sure whether she would not 
 leave St. Mary's at once. But she would tell 
 Helen to explain to him all the Stuart history, 
 and then crush him by the most lofty con- 
 tempt — not that she cared what he said or 
 thought, in fact she rather enjoyed his malice ; 
 and then she burst into a violent fit of crying, 
 and found she had dropped her handkerchief. 
 There is nothing like a good handsome flood 
 of tears when these atrocious attacks on our 
 good name or good looks are detected. The 
 whirl of resentful thoughts, the angry resolves, 
 the crimson cheeks, the burning eyes, the 
 swelling heart, and the twitching fingers — all 
 these moral and physical symptoms of injured 
 innocence are Distantly alleviated by a hearty
 
 154 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 cry. Mary felt better directly, and then she 
 began to look at her mortification rationally, 
 and not passionately. She still thought Lord 
 Beaufort very unjust, because she had really 
 behaved so uncommonly well ; she had taken 
 such pains to do what was right in that busi- 
 ness ; but she began to see how her conduct 
 might have been so represented as to take a 
 selfish colouring ; and then the recollection of 
 Lord Beaufort's hatred of her as a saint made 
 her smile as she thought of the fit of temper 
 to which she had just given way. '* Oh ! that 
 I were one," she said, " in the genuine 
 sense of the word !" and pursuing that train 
 of thought, the momentary mortification she 
 had suffered sank to its proper dimensions. 
 Better feelings resumed their sway, and 
 though she ended by thinking it a great pity 
 that Helen should have such a detestable 
 brother, and should live in a house that con- 
 tained such an absurd room as a library with 
 a gallery, yet she thought there was no
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 155 
 
 necessity for leaving St. Mary's ; that Lord 
 Beaufort might have some good qualities, 
 though she could not guess what they were ; 
 and that Ernest, who was at first involved 
 in his cousin's disgrace, was not to be treated 
 as a criminal at all. By degrees she began to 
 see that it was for her good, that her vanity 
 had met with such a check ; her natural good 
 temper and her acquired humility helped 
 each other, and when she joined the rest of 
 the party at luncheon, she was almost as 
 cheerful and as benevolent as she was when 
 she left them after breakfast. 
 
 Helen's morning had not been passed much 
 more prosperously. Lady Portmore had talked 
 unceasingly for an hour and a half; and though 
 from the vague diffusiveness of her words, and 
 the hopeless entanglement of her ideas, it was 
 difficult to ascertain the precise purport of her 
 remarks, Helen felt that the general result 
 was irritating, though she hardly knew 
 why. She had not the remotest idea what
 
 156 THE SEMI- ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 Lady Portmore meant to convey, when she 
 said — 
 
 *' Dearest Helen, you will be candid with 
 me. You will understand me when I implore 
 you to tell me frankly if you think my visit 
 likely to do harm. Helen, you know my 
 heart ; you may trust me — say, am I wel- 
 come : 
 
 " Dear Lady Portmore, why should you 
 doubt it ? Of course I am delighted to see 
 you, and so is Teviot ; and as you have asked 
 your own party, I hope you will be amused." 
 
 ''' Helen, you are a noble creature ; I see 
 you understand me." 
 
 Helen felt thoroughly puzzled, but tried 
 hard for a look of intelligence, so that she 
 might escape a long explanation. 
 
 '' We shall be friends — we are friends ; 
 and as a proof of confidence, before I say 
 anything further on the subject which is at 
 this moment uppermost in both our hearts " 
 ("I wonder what it is," thought Helen), *'I
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 157 
 
 will ask your advice on a point that more 
 immediately concerns myself. It is a difficult 
 case to explain, Helen, cannot you guess 
 what I mean ?" 
 
 ''No, indeed, I cannot imagine the point on 
 which I should be capable of advising you." 
 
 "• Oh, what a relief! I was afraid you were 
 condemning me all this time ; that you 
 thought it so strange I had let him come." 
 
 '' Let who come, where ?" said Helen. 
 '' Pray remember the seclusion in which we 
 have been living ; and have pity on my igno- 
 rance." 
 
 " Oh^ yes ! I forgot, you lost all the end of 
 last season ; but you must have heard — in fact, 
 you must have seen yesterday, how it was — 
 Ernest ! Helen, do you think that I was 
 wrong in asking him to come here ?" 
 
 " Certainly not ; we always expected him 
 this week. He had promised to come 
 when — " 
 
 " Yes, yes ; but, my love, you must know
 
 158 THE SEMI- ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 (this is of course in the strictest confidence) ; 
 but you must see that Ernest is desperately 
 smitten with me. It is ahnost ludicrous ; for 
 he is not the sort of person from whom I should 
 look for sentiment ; but he has been too ab- 
 surd. I had really been completely Wind to 
 the whole thing, till one day at my house, 
 your brother said to me, with one of his mean- 
 ing looks, ^ If I want to find Ernest, Lady 
 Portmore, I always come here.' I caught his 
 eye ; I felt myself colour to my finger-ends ; 
 and I instantly guessed what the world was 
 saying, and what was the warning Beaufort 
 intended to convey. I shall always feel obliged 
 to him for the candour and courage with 
 which he put me on my guard. How he came 
 to be so very clear sighted it is not for me to 
 guess. I was rather puzzled what to do, for, 
 Helen, you and I have, 1 know, the same 
 high ideas of a wife's duty — and I really hate 
 scenes ; but it is so difficult to make that 
 strange creature, Ernest, understand hints.
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 159 
 
 He made the most absurd excuses for calling : 
 the streets were so hot, or he wanted luncheon, 
 or dinner ; and if I looked grave^ he affected 
 to be bored, or to fall asleep. At last I 
 thought of coining here ; and I said honestly 
 to him, ' Now, Ernest, I positively forbid 
 your following me to St. Mary's.' And what 
 do you think was his answer ? * My dear lady, 
 there is nothing I should dislike so much as 
 following you ; the roads are so dusty, I 
 should be smothered ; so I will go before 
 you.'" 
 
 " How like Ernest !" said Helen. " How- 
 ever, that does not sound very sentimental." 
 
 *'But, my dear, if you had seen his look — 
 I know Ernest's looks so well. You do not 
 understand your cousin, Helen ; but I must 
 teach you to know each other thoroughly. 
 You will like him." 
 
 " Like Ernest ! why, my dear Lady Port- 
 more, I have known him and liked him all 
 my life. He was brought up at Eskdale
 
 160 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 Castle. I think I told you so when I intro- 
 duced him to you in London." 
 
 " Ah, true ! but he is so reserved ; and yet 
 there is a great deal under that dry manner 
 that I am sure you will like," said Lady 
 Portmore, who invariably claimed a right 
 to be the first and only friend of all her ac- 
 quaintances. ^*It would have been foolish, 
 don't you think it would, if I had put off our 
 visit when I found that Ernest had contrived 
 to include himself in the party ? I think ap- 
 parent unconsciousness is the most dignified 
 line to take, don't you ? You see, Helen, 
 what confidence I have in your judgment." 
 
 ^* You are very good ; lam sure you will 
 do what is right." 
 
 ''No speeches, my love. Thank you for 
 your attention and advice ; you have put me 
 quite at my ease ; and you must not think ill 
 of poor Ernest fi"om what I have told you ; 
 he is an excellent creature, you may take my 
 word for it. And now, my dear, talk to me
 
 THE SEMI- ATTACHED COUPLE. 161 
 
 about yourself: are you quite happy, 
 Helen ?" 
 
 '*What a question! clear Lady Portmore," 
 said Helen, affecting to laugh; 'Wou must 
 really find out the answer for yourself." 
 
 " My love, do not misunderstand me ; I 
 see," she added, looking round with rather a 
 vexed air, " that you have all the luxuries of 
 life in profusion *, but I am sure that you are 
 like me, and do not care for those kind of 
 things, and that Teviot's feelings — " 
 
 " I beg your pardon, I care very much for 
 the luxuries of life," said Helen, determined 
 to pursue that safe subject. ^' It is a real 
 pleasure to me to look round and see the ab- 
 solute perfection of my room ; and besides, 
 most of my pretty things are gifts, and I love 
 them for the sake of the givers. Do look 
 at this beautiful gold dressing service, which 
 Teviot gave me on our wedding-day." 
 
 " Ah, very handsome, beautiful ! Lord 
 Portmore wanted to give me just the same 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 set ; at least I told him of one I had seen, 
 and he would have given it to me, only he 
 thought it would be useless ; but to return to 
 Lord Teviot." 
 
 *^ But just look first at my sapphires ; I 
 have heard you admire sapphires." 
 
 " Yes, so I do in the abstract ; the blue is 
 beautiful, and Lord Portmore would have 
 given me a set if I had wished for them ; but 
 don't you think — not that I wish to put you 
 out of conceit of your stones — but don't you 
 think they are less becoming than rubies ?" 
 
 " Do you think so ?" said Helen, raising 
 the tray on which they were placed. " I sup- 
 pose papa agrees with you, for he gave me 
 these; but Teviot and I like the others 
 best." 
 
 " You agree in that then. Ah ! similarity 
 of tastes, even in trifles, is a blessing; but 
 now, my love, shut that box, and let us talk 
 rationally. I know Teviot so well that I am 
 sure I can give you some useful hints."
 
 THE SEMI- ATTACHED COUPLE. 163 
 
 *' Do you think this miniature on my watch 
 is like him ?" 
 
 " Yes, very like ; I have seen it before,' said 
 Lady Portmore, impatiently. "Of course I 
 know all about it ; I recommended Holmes to 
 Teviot. But it is of himself, and not of his 
 picture_, that I wish to speak ; for though you 
 seem to fly from the subject, let me tell you, 
 Lady Teviot — " 
 
 " Nothing of my husband, Lady Portmore," 
 said Helen, firmly. *^ Mamma told me that 
 married people were never, under any circum- 
 stances, to make each other the subjects of 
 discussion or comment ; so tell me nothing of 
 Lord Teviot." 
 
 Lady Portmore was completely defeated, 
 and it seemed to her quite marvellous that 
 such a child as Helen should presume to with- 
 stand and baffle her. But even she could not 
 renew a conversation so pointedly interrupted, 
 and after settling her plans for the afternoon, 
 and advising Helen to have her sapphires reset 
 
 M 2
 
 164 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 M'ith more diamonds, she left the room, saying 
 as she passed — • 
 
 *'Now, my love, you are not angry with 
 me. I quite agree with you that we wives 
 should say nothing and hear nothing about 
 our husbands. I should fire up just as you 
 did if any one spoke to me about Portmore ; 
 but I know Teviot so well, and am so aware 
 of all the little shades of his character on 
 which everything depends — " 
 
 " Yes, yes ; but I mean to see nothing but 
 lights— no shades ; and so good-bye, luncheon 
 will be ready at two." 
 
 *' Ah ! you are very discreet, but I respect 
 you for it;" and she walked off rather morti- 
 fied, while Helen soothed herself by repairing 
 to her mother's room for the rest of the morn- 
 ing ; but she first threw her windows wide 
 open, having a vague idea that nothing short 
 of a thorough draft could drive Lady Port- 
 more's conversation thoroughly out of the 
 room.
 
 THE SEMI- ATTACHED COUPLE. 165 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 The gentlemen all dropped in to luncheon, 
 beginning: by wondering how people could eat 
 at that time of day, and ending by seating 
 themselves and enjoying a good hot dinner. 
 Beaufort came in last, with a very guilty 
 countenance ; but Miss Forrester was talking 
 to Sir Charles Smith, and showed no sign of 
 mortification or pique. He began to dislike 
 her more than ever. The walk with the 
 gamekeepers was apparently given up, as 
 Lady Portmore was imparting to Ernest in 
 an apologetic tone that Teviot insisted on 
 driving her in the phaeton. 
 
 " And what vehicle is ordered for me, and 
 who is to drive me ?" said Ernest, languidly.
 
 166 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE, 
 
 '' Helen, will you take a little more care of 
 the rest of your guests ?" 
 
 " You may ride with all of us — Mary, papa, 
 and Beaufort, and me. Sir Charles goes with 
 mamma and Eliza in the britzka, and we are 
 all to meet at the most beautiful ruins you 
 ever saw." 
 
 "So be it," he said, "I shall be a beau- 
 tiful ruin myself by the time I have ridden 
 an hour in this sultry weather ; but I am 
 resigned *," and the party set off. 
 
 " I shall be dreadfully frightened if we get 
 mixed up with that crowd of people and 
 horses," said Lady Portmore, as she took her 
 place in Lord Teviot's phaeton. *' Cannot 
 w^e take some other road ?" 
 
 ^' Certainly, if you are afraid, but my horses 
 are very quiet ; and if you w^ish for a pretty 
 drive — " 
 
 " But all the drives are very pretty. Let 
 us go down that road, and I will give you my 
 advice as to any improvements that may strike
 
 THE SEMI- ATTACHED COUPLE. 1G7 
 
 me. Nesfield says I have a good eye for the 
 picturesque ; but above all, I want a quiet talk 
 with you, and we should be interrupted if we 
 went with the others. Is that Helen's new 
 horse she is riding ?" 
 
 "No ; Miss Forrester is on Selim." 
 
 " Well, I wonder Helen did not prefer 
 your gift. I am sure that from sentiment I 
 should never allow any human being but my- 
 self to ride a horse that had been given to me 
 by the person I loved best in the world." 
 
 "That is an interesting and romantic idea ; 
 but as I shall probably have the honour of 
 furnishing Lady Teviot's stud to the end of 
 our days, it is not very likely that she will 
 refuse to lend a horse to her friends when 
 they come." 
 
 " Oh dear, no, that would be selfish ; and 
 you know how I hate selfishness. I often say 
 there is nobody thinks so little of self as I do. 
 Still I wonder Helen did not ride Selim." 
 
 Lord Teviot was silent.
 
 168 THE SEMI- ATT ACHED COUPLE. 
 
 " Are you well, Teviot ?" said Lady Port- 
 more with an air of great interest. 
 
 " Quite well, thank you." 
 
 '' My dear Teviot, do you know I am not 
 quite easy about you. You certainly are not 
 in your usual spirits. Do tell me, is there 
 anything the matter ?" 
 
 " What can be the matter, Lady Port- 
 more ? Pray do not put fancies of illness into 
 my head, and allow for a little additional 
 steadiness in a respectable married man." 
 
 " Yes, that is all very well, my dear friend, 
 but I know you too well to be satisfied with 
 that sort of joke. Come, Teviot, shall I put 
 you at your ease at once ? that pretty little 
 wife of yours is not the least in love with 
 you, and your vanity — men are so vain — is a 
 little hurt. Is not this the truth ?" 
 
 "If so, it is another proof that * toute verite 
 n'est pas bonne a dire,'" said Lord Teviot, 
 hastily, for he was stung to the quick by the 
 remark. Why is it that fools always have
 
 THE SEMI- ATT ACHED COUPLE. 169 
 
 the instinct to hunt out the unpleasant secrets 
 of life, and the hardiness to mention them ? 
 
 " But I am speaking entirely for your good, 
 and you must not be angry with me. You 
 know what a warm friendship I have for you, 
 and the interest I take in your happiness ; and 
 I really look upon Helen as a sister of my 
 own. So I want to make out why it is that 
 you are not so happy together as I wish to see 
 you. Perhaps you expect too much from 
 Helen. She is a child, you know, and a 
 petted child ; and she has been idolized at 
 home, so it is natural that she should love her 
 own family. I see you think she is too much 
 devoted to them, and perhaps a little afraid 
 of you." Lord Teviot gave the reins a jerk, 
 in the fond hope of giving Lady Portmore a 
 fright; but she went on. ^'Perhaps that is 
 the case now, but you must give her time. 
 Her little head was turned by your rank and 
 position in the world, and she married without 
 that attachment that a girl older and more
 
 170 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 experienced would have felt. But trust me, 
 Teviot, she will fall in love with you some of 
 these days. It is impossible it should be 
 otherwise ; and then you will forget that now 
 her father and mother and all that Eskdale 
 clan are more to her than you are." 
 
 This was the pith of Lady Portmore's 
 harangue. Lord Teviot hated to hear what 
 she was saying ; he hated her for saying it, 
 and himself for listening ; but yet, because she 
 fed the delusion under which he laboured, 
 because she talked to him of himself, and 
 because she was handsome and foolish, he 
 allowed her to go on putting "rancours in 
 the vessel of his peace," confirming all the 
 painful suspicions against which he liad strug- 
 gled, and extracting from him avowals that 
 he wished unmade the moment they were 
 uttered. Lady Portmore prevented Lord Te- 
 viot from meeting his wife and his guests at 
 the ruins. She put into words, thoughts most 
 repulsive to his better feeling. She told him
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 171 
 
 all that he had rather not have heard ; and he 
 came home dispirited and annoyed, but con- 
 vinced that Lady Portmore was an excellent 
 friend, and that it was most kmd of her to 
 persuade him that his wife did not care a 
 straw about him.
 
 172 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 - CHAPTEE XX. 
 
 **Law! Mrs. Nelson and Mrs. Hunt," said 
 Mrs. Tomkinson, when this riding party set 
 off, "do make haste to look at our folks — 
 here, put your heads out, but don't let them 
 be seen for all the world." 
 
 ''Well, what a many!" said Mrs. Hunt, 
 who was the original Betsy of the Douglas 
 young ladies, but called Hunt on her travels. 
 Her manners were not quite equal to her 
 position. "Well, what a sight of company, 
 to be sure ; and what a show of horses !" 
 
 " Mrs. Hunt," said Mrs. Nelson, who was 
 prim, and considered rather pompous in her
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 173 
 
 own set, " I must trouble you not to squeedge 
 my sleeve." 
 
 *' There's another window," said Mrs. Tom- 
 kinson ; '' you go there, Mrs. Hunt ; you can 
 see quite as well. She's shocking uncouth, 
 Mrs. Nelson," she added, as Betsy bustled off 
 to a distant windbw. 
 
 " She squeedges, certainly, and pushes about 
 too much ; but she has had no time to learn 
 manners. Eome was not built in a day. 
 There's your lady getting on her horse, Mrs. 
 Tomkinson." 
 
 "Yes, and your young lord a-helping of 
 her; and there's the old lord helping Miss 
 Forrester ; and there's them Smiths !" 
 
 " Who are they, Mrs. Tomkinson?" 
 
 '* The heavens above only know, Mrs. Nel- 
 son ; there is such a tribe of Smiths in this 
 world. I see Miss Douglas goes with your 
 young lady in the brooche. Between our- 
 selves, Mrs. Nelson, what's the meaning of 
 this fancy for the Douglases ?"
 
 174 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 '* I have not been consulted, Mrs. Tomkin- 
 son ; but my lady's as full of fancies as an 
 egg's full of meat. I can't rightly account 
 for it, except, to be sure, that it is lone- 
 some for her now all the young ladies is 
 gone. However, the girl's pretty, and civil 
 enough. 
 
 " Well, and if there aint my lord and 
 Lady Portmore driving off by theirselves ! 
 I do declare, if I was my lady I would not 
 stand that. Do you know, Mrs. Nelson, now 
 that there Betsy don't hear us — do you know, 
 I can't tell what to think with any certainty 
 of my lord. He don't stand high in my good 
 books by any means." 
 
 '^ I am sorry to hear you say so," said Mrs. 
 Nelson, in her primmest manner, *'for of 
 course a person's servants is the best judges ; 
 but I am sure my lady has no idea that any- 
 thing is amiss." 
 
 " Oh, and my lady makes no complaints ; 
 but still, you know, if one has eyes one must
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COrPLE. 175 
 
 see what's under one's nose ; and my lady 
 has not half the fine sperrits she had." 
 
 " She feels strange, poor young thing, I 
 dare say, at first." 
 
 " Yes ; but ma'am, I'm sure it's more than 
 that. My lord has one of the most naggingest 
 tempers it's possible to see *, and it's my belief 
 he frets and worrets her ladyship till she 
 wishes herself back at her old home again. 
 And as for that Lady Portmore, if all's true 
 as I hear, she's not one as I should choose to 
 see driving about in a curricle with my hus- 
 band." 
 
 "What do they say of her?" said Mrs. 
 Nelson ; ^^ those Portmores have never come 
 much in my way." 
 
 ** Oh, I heard enough of her when I lived 
 chambermaid with the Stuarts : they say she 
 has no more respect for Lord Portmore than 
 she has for the hearth-broom ; and that all 
 she is at from morning to night, is to catch up 
 admirers ; and she don't care for other people's
 
 17G THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 husbands being other people's husbands, but 
 likes all the better to make them follow 
 her. And that is just the sort of lady who 
 says poor servants aint to have any followers 
 at all, not even to keep company. I have 
 no patience with her ; and if I was my 
 lady, I should look after her pretty sharp 
 v.'ith my lord." 
 
 *' These are early days for subspicions, 
 Mrs. Tomkinson," answered Mrs. Nelson, 
 dogmatically; "and I hope your lady will 
 never have cause for any." 
 
 " I hope so too, ma'am ; but I don't quite 
 like my lord ;" and so they parted. 
 
 One of the odd channels scooped out by 
 Lady Portmore's restless vanity was a per- 
 suasion that she was the world's universal 
 confidante ; and she would enter into long 
 arguments to prove that she must necessarily 
 have foreknown any piece of intelligence or 
 gossip that was imparted to her. Like all 
 very vain people, she was contradictory ; and
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 177 
 
 this, added to her pretensions to universal 
 knowledge, rendered her conversation a glo- 
 rious mass of inconsistences. 
 
 ''I have heaps of news," she said one 
 morning when she came down to breakfast. 
 '* I dote upon letters, particularly from clever 
 people, though it is a sad thing for me having 
 the reputation of a good letter-writer to keep 
 up. You know there is no vanity in saying 
 so, for my letters a7'e very original." 
 
 " Particularly so," said Ernest, ''for they 
 always seem to me to consist of rows of 
 rather crooked lines, without either vowels or 
 consonants." 
 
 Lady Portmore gave him a look which 
 meant to imply to the company at large that 
 Ernest w^as committing a little indiscretion, 
 by letting out that she corresponded with 
 him. She put on an air of pretty con- 
 fusion, and said, "Pray what do you know 
 about my letters?" and then went on. 
 " But now for my news. One of my great 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 favourites is going to be married — Charles 
 Wyndham." 
 
 " Yes, here is an account of the wedding in 
 the paper," said Lady Teviot. 
 
 " What, already ! Well, I have shown 
 my discretion. I take you all to witness I 
 never said he was going to be married ?" 
 
 " Did you know^ it ?" said Ernest. 
 
 *' Of course I did, because the Wyndhams 
 are my second cousins — at least, we are con- 
 nected somehow ; but now I have another 
 piece of news about Reginald Stuart." 
 
 Lord Beaufort could not resist a look at 
 Mary. She seemed quite calm. 
 
 '' I am so vexed about Stuart, as you may 
 well guess. He is such a dear creature, and 
 he has actually gone off to Scotland with that 
 dancing girl, Pauline Le Gay. I am sorry for 
 him, and still more for myself. It will put me 
 into such an awkward position as to visiting 
 her. He is actually married by this time." 
 " I doubt it," said Lord Teviot, quietly.
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 179 
 
 " I wish I could," said Lady Portmore, 
 with a deep sigh ; " but there is no use keep- 
 ing his secret any longer." 
 
 '' Not the least, unless you mean to let 
 him have the pleasure of telling it himself. 
 He will be here to-day." 
 
 " Stuart here ! Then he is coming at last. 
 I thought he would — I made such a point 
 of it; but he will marry that horrid girl at 
 last, you will see."' 
 
 " There is one strong reason against it." 
 
 "You would not think so if you were in 
 his confidence," said Lady Portmore, most 
 mysteriously. 
 
 "To a certain degree I am," said Lord 
 Teviot, "for he tells me here ' That fool Keid 
 has actually carried the Paulina off to Scot- 
 land, and took the precaution to change his 
 name for fear of pursuit, though who was to 
 run after them except her dancing-master 
 remains a mystery. However, he has cleared 
 me of the odium of being supposed to ^ courtiser 
 
 X 2
 
 180 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 la belle Pauline.' Now, Lady Portmore, are 
 you satisfied ?" 
 
 " Yes, bwt not at all surprised. I remem- 
 ber Peid applauded her so in that stupid 
 ballet, 'Rose d'amour,' that I said he must 
 be in love with her. Mary, you were with 
 me that night ; you must remember it." 
 
 " Was I ?" said Mary, with an air of 
 doubt; " I do not recollect '' 
 
 " Oh, but I did indeed ; I always foresee 
 these things. I am so glad I persuaded 
 Peginald Stuart to come here, out of the way 
 of that girl. Mary, my love, she said, lower- 
 ing he 1 voice, and affecting great interest of 
 manner, '' have you a headache ? you look 
 pale this morning." 
 
 '* Oh no, pray don't have the headache, 
 Mary," said Helen, indignant at this instance 
 of Lady Portmore's want of tact. " I beg 
 that both my young ladies," she added, 
 smiling at EHza^ "will look their very best, 
 for there will be a large party to amuse, to 
 say nothing of Colonel Stuart."
 
 THE SEMI- ATTACHED COUPLE. 181 
 
 ^' Jean promise to take some of that trouble 
 off your hands, young ladies," said Lady Port- 
 more, ill a tone of pique. " Colonel Stuart 
 comes on my invitation." It was an unlucky 
 morning for her. She had been vexed by 
 the total failure of her letters and her nev»'s ; 
 and when her vanity was in a state of morti- 
 fication, she became more than usually untact. 
 She complimented Helen on her dress, and 
 asked if it were Teviot's taste — " but I am 
 sure it is^ for he used to complain of your 
 style of dress as too simple before he knew 
 you well, so I must congratulate you on the 
 improvements he has made : you are tiree a 
 quatres epingles this morning." This plea- 
 sant speech made three people uncomfortable- 
 Helen did not like to hear that Lord Teviot 
 had ever found fault with her, — Lady Eskdale 
 was hurt that it was supposed she had dressed 
 her daughter ill, — and Lord Teviot did not 
 choose it to be supposed that he had made 
 Lady Portmore his confidante, and that on 
 the very important point of his wife's dress.
 
 182 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 Then she tried a little sportive condescension, 
 in the shape of a joke to Eliza on Lord Beau- 
 fort's attentions ; and that made Eliza colour till 
 the tears came into her eyes, as in the primi- 
 tiveness and innocence of her home education, 
 she looked upon love and lovers as sacred 
 mysteries never to be profaned by a jest ; 
 and, moreover, expected that Eskdale Castle 
 would fall down at the mere idea of Lord 
 Beaufort's condescending to admire her. Lady 
 Portmore finished by what she thought a 
 noble touch of magnanimity. Taking Mary's 
 hand, and saying in an audible whisper, " You 
 must forgive me, my love, if I distressed you 
 by what I said of Colonel Stuart. You know 
 how thoughtless I am ; but we won't allude to 
 that history any more. Pray say you forgive 
 me." What a woman ! and what a fine 
 quality, what an absolute virtue Tact is. 
 Lady Portmore never had a grain of it — a 
 misfortune that fell more heavily on her 
 friends than on herself.
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 183 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 Colonel Stuart arrived ; but another 
 change took place in the society at St. Mary's. 
 Lord and Lady Eskdale were sent for by 
 Lady Sophia Waldegrave, who had had a 
 sudden attack of ilhiess ; and Sir W. Walde- 
 grave requested her mother to come and assist 
 in nursing her. There was a consultation 
 and a demur, and a fuss about Eliza's destina- 
 tion. Lady Eskdale thought Mrs. Douglas 
 would not like her daughter to be taken so 
 far from home as the Waldegraves', so she 
 was left to Helen's care till Mr. and Mrs 
 Douglas should come and fetch her. Eliza's
 
 184 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COrPLE. 
 
 letters to her sister give an accurate account 
 of St. Mary's at this time. 
 
 ''My dearest Sarah, — I would give any- 
 thing for a good hour's talk with you. You 
 have not told me half enough about Mr. 
 Wentworth, and that walk to the mill, and 
 your lit of dignity about the music book. It 
 is so interesting, and quite as amusing as one 
 of Miss Austin's novels ; and this is ail true, 
 and your happiness is concerned in it ; so you 
 may guess how I pore over your letters. If 
 he does not propose soon, I shall think he is 
 behaving very ill, and shall hate him ; but I 
 know he will. We go on very happily here ; 
 at least, I hope dear Helen is happy ; but I 
 do not feel quite sure. Lord Teviot is very 
 pleasant, I dare say, and very clever, but he 
 is sometimes rather cross, and he seems to 
 tease Helen. I always wish when he does 
 that I were a lady of great consequence, and 
 could speak out and tell him what I think. 
 Talking of great ladies, that Lady Portmore
 
 THE SEMI- ATT ACHED COUPLE. 185 
 
 is Avorse than ever. I am sure Helen cannot 
 like her. She takes up so much of Lord 
 Teviot's attention ; and yet she is not satisfied 
 with that. Last night when Colonel Beau- 
 fort came and sat down by me, she actually 
 called to him to come to her ; and though of 
 course I did not care whether he went or 
 not, it was very uncivil of her. He is very 
 amusing. I was quite wrong when I said he 
 put me in mind of Ape Brown, and he is 
 always trying to persuade me that I shall be 
 bored, and that life is nothing but a trouble ; 
 and you know, I never was bored in my life, 
 and I think life very good fun. There is a 
 Colonel Stuart here, who was once engaged to 
 Miss Forrester, they say, but it cannot be 
 true, or she would not seem so unconcerned 
 as she does ; and he does not take so much 
 notice of her as he does of Helen. He is a 
 great friend of Lord Beaufort's; and Lady 
 Portmore says he is a great friend of hers, 
 but so she says of everybody. She says the
 
 186 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 same of Colonel Beaufort, and yet one day- 
 after she had left the room he said, 'Bless 
 that fair lady ! she talks greater nonsense 
 than ever. She has been talking rural eco- 
 nomy for the benefit of the country neighbours. 
 I would give 100/. to hear her explain the 
 Door-laws to Harriet Martineau ; she is capa- 
 ble of it. She becomes a greater treat every 
 dav.' Now that does not seem as if he liked 
 her ; does it ? If mamma comes to fetch me 
 home, I wish you would send my other white 
 bonnet. I suppose there is no chance of 
 mamma's letting me stay here till Lady Esk- 
 dale comes back. I shall be very glad to be 
 at home again ; but it is so seldom we pay 
 any visits, I should like to stay here a little 
 longer. When I said that Colonel Beaufort 
 was amusing, I did not mean that he made 
 jokes, and laughed a great deal ; but he says 
 odd things in a dry, grave way, that make 
 other people laugh, without seeming to take 
 any trouble about it himself I am afraid
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 187 
 
 mamma will think him aiFected ; not that it 
 would signify, only I do not think he is. 
 
 " Yours, affectionately, 
 
 "Eliza Douglas." 
 
 Colonel Stuart's history, which Miss Doug- 
 las could not explain, was simply that he 
 had been as much attached to Mary Forrester 
 as it was in his nature to be, and his peculiar 
 talents for pleasing had not been exerted less 
 successfully with her than they had in many 
 other instances of which she knew nothing. 
 He disguised his faults for a time, and when 
 Mary discovered that he was extravagant, 
 that he played, and that he was totally without 
 religious principle, she found that the deter- 
 mination to give him up, which followed her 
 discoveries, was accompanied by bitter feelings 
 of regret. But Lord Beaufort was wrong in 
 his assertion that she jilted Colonel Stuart on 
 her accession to wealth. Their engagement 
 was at an end some weeks before the unex-
 
 188 THE SEMI- ATT ACHED COUPLE. 
 
 pected death of a distant relation gave Miss 
 Forrester her fortune. This circumstance 
 added to the mortification which Colonel 
 Stuart felt ; and if he had not actually said 
 that her sudden prosperity had induced her 
 to change her mind, he had allowed it to be 
 said by his friends. He was a popular man 
 with men, and there were many of his partisans 
 who made it their business on this occasion 
 to talk of Miss Forrester as cold hearted and 
 capricious ; and who, when they meant to go 
 the extremest lengths of vituperation, accused 
 her of being actually a saint. But this awful 
 assertion was of course made in a low tone 
 of horror, and mentioned only in strict con- 
 fidence. Colonel Stuart for some time kept 
 up an appearance of attachment and regret. 
 Perhaps he thought it impossible that any 
 woman whom he had condescended to love 
 could give him up and forget him. But 
 when the consistency of Miss Forrester's 
 conduct convinced him that she was in
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 189 
 
 earnest, lie returned to his former courses, 
 played higher, betted more, and flirted 
 more determinedly with married vfomen ; and 
 whether his love of Mary w^ere really or not 
 forgotten, in the bottom of his heart, he met 
 her in society with apparent indifference, and 
 in general seemed to forget that they had ever 
 been on more intimate terms. He did not know 
 that she was at St. Mary's when he accepted 
 Lord Teviot's invitation; but her presence, 
 wdien he found her in the drawing-room, ap- 
 peared to give him neither pain nor pleasure. 
 
 Lady Portmore talked to him in the evening 
 for two hours and a half, in a low, confidential 
 tone, making him thoroughly uncomfortable 
 by assurances that she was his constant friend 
 with Mary Forrester. 
 
 " Now, my dear Stuart, I am not paying 
 you a compliment w^hen I assure you I feel 
 quite justified in persuading Mary that she 
 ought to relent at last. She will be a model 
 wife ; and I know you have too much good
 
 190 THE SEMI-ATTACIIED COUPLE. 
 
 taste not to give up play, and any other little 
 pursuits when you marry." 
 
 '' My dear Lady Portmore, for propriety's 
 sake don't talk of my other little pursuits in 
 that meaning tone ; and for my sake, do not 
 propose in my name to Miss Forrester. She 
 might accept me." 
 
 ^'Well, and ycu know you are dying to 
 marry her. Now you must have no disguise 
 with me, Stuart ; we know each other too 
 well for that. You are a little mortified — yes, 
 you know you are — at Mary's perverseness. 
 Come, own it at once, and then trust to me 
 for taking up your cause warmly." 
 
 *' Good heavens. Lady Portmore, what a 
 strange way you have of proving your friend- 
 ship ! I will trouble you not to assume that 
 I wish to pay court to your rich friend, or 
 that, if I did, that I am not able to make my 
 own cause good. But I see how it is. You 
 wish to get Miss Forrester out of the way. 
 She has evidently been tampering with some
 
 THE SEMI- ATT ACHED COUPLE, 191 
 
 of your victims. Has Ernest wavered in bis 
 allegiance ?" 
 
 Colonel Stuart [^had often found that there 
 was no way of checking Lady Portmore's 
 remarks but by a bold impertinence addressed 
 to herself. She had not wit enough to answer 
 it, nor discretion enough to seem not to un- 
 derstand it. So it threw her into long 
 verbose explanations, during which she lost 
 sight of her original topic. And now she 
 had, in her character of the most virtuous 
 woman in the world, to repel with becoming 
 scorn the imputation that Ernest should 
 admire her at all, and in her character of the 
 most attractive woman in the world, to explain 
 how it was that he should admire her so 
 much. It took her nearly twenty minutes to 
 conduct this argument with herself to a 
 satisfactory conclusion, during which time 
 Colonel Stuart took a survey of the rest of 
 the society, and at last broke in v/ith the 
 abrupt question, " And how about our host
 
 192 THE SEMI- ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 and hostess? Are they very tiresomely in 
 love still ? or have they begun to be good 
 company again ?" 
 
 '^ Teviot is a great friend of mine," said 
 Lady Portmore, with a look of great discre- 
 tion. '' So there is no use in trying to extract 
 from me any opinion about him, poor 
 fellow r 
 
 " What! Is it come to poor-tellowing 
 him already? that's awkward. Come, out 
 with it ; you know you are longing to tell me 
 all about it — is he bored ? or jealous, or what 
 is it ? If he is not desperately in love with 
 that little jewel of a wife, I am surprised at 
 his taste, that's all ; but those wealthy dogs 
 never are satisfied, and I don't wonder at it. 
 Wealth is not allowed its rights in this strait- 
 laced countrv. It is monstrous hard that a 
 man who is rich enough to pension off his old 
 wife when she grows tiresome, and marry a 
 new one, should be obliged to go plodding on 
 in the old routine, with the same woman
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 193 
 
 sitting everlastingly opposite to him at his own 
 table. But Teviot can't be bored already. 
 Is he ? I am half in love with his wife 
 myself." 
 
 " I will not have any remarks of that shock- 
 ing kind made, and above all to me ; and, 
 what is more, Stuart, I must insist upon it 
 that you talk no nonsense to my little friend 
 Helen. She does not knoAv you so well as I 
 do, and it might put ridiculous ideas into her 
 head — and then Teviot's temper. But that 
 I say nothing about, only let me tell you 
 Mary Forrester will not take very well any 
 marked attentions of yours to Helen." 
 
 "Won't she? Suppose we try,'' said 
 Colonel Stuart, and rising, he joined Lady 
 Teviot, and devoted himself to her for the 
 rest of the evenino:. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 194 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXII. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Douglas arrived at St. Mary's, 
 bringing to Eliza satisfactory accounts of the 
 Wentworth affair. Mrs. Douglas, to be sure, 
 knew that there was no trust to be placed in 
 any man on earth ; they w^ere all as hard as 
 boards, and as fickle as the winds, and one 
 more selfish than another. Therefore, if Mr. 
 Wentworth jilted Sarah at last, it would not 
 surprise her for a moment ; but otherwise, 
 she would have said, nobody could doubt his 
 intentions. 
 
 '* And, mamma," said Eliza, who had met 
 her parents with unfeigned delight, "Sarah 
 herself seems sure Mr. Wentworth hkes her,
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 195 
 
 and I am sure of it from what she says. So I 
 dare sav he is not so unfeeling as vou think. 
 I like him very much." 
 
 '' Oh ! my dear, I do not say there is any 
 harm in him. In fact, I had rather have 
 him for a son-in-law than such a Jerry as Sir 
 William, such a goose as Lord Walden, or 
 such a bashaw as Lord Teviot; but even if 
 he is really attached to Sarah, that will not 
 make me think better of men in general. 
 And pray, Eliza, how does Lord Teviot be- 
 have to Helen, and at what time do they 
 dine? It must be nearly dressing-time." 
 
 '' You will hear the bell, mamma. It rings 
 half an hour before dinner. Helen seems very 
 happy, and Lord Beaufort and Colonel Beau- 
 fort and Miss Forrester are so fond of her, 
 that she must be delighted while they are 
 here." 
 
 There w^as an intonation in Eliza's voice, 
 when the name of Colonel Beaufort occurred, 
 that struck Mrs. Douglas's ear. No woman, 
 
 2
 
 196 THE SEMI- ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 be she ever so hardened or hackneyed in the 
 ways of the world, can ever achieve an in- 
 different pronunciation, if the term may be 
 allowed, of the name of the individual most 
 interesting to her. There is no disguise she 
 does not attempt ; she drawls it out slowly, it 
 will not be slighted. She runs it over quickly, 
 it will not be slurred. She inserts it between 
 two other commonplace names, it is still the 
 guinea between the two halfpence. Still it is 
 spoken in the tone of voice that belongs only 
 to Mm. 
 
 "I have not seen Colonel Beaufort since he 
 Avas quite a boy," said Mrs. Douglas. " I 
 suppose he is like all the rest of the family, 
 thoroughly grand and ^\\q. I think you 
 wrote word he was very conceited." 
 
 *' No, mamma, affected. I thought him so 
 at first; and perhaps he is a little affected. I 
 do not think you will like him, mamma." 
 
 *' I dare say not, my dear : I v;ry seldom 
 do like anybody •, but probably he is not worse
 
 THE SEMI- ATTACHED COUPLE. 197 
 
 than Lord Teviot, nor so bad as Lord Beau- 
 fort. I have an idea that I shall prefer him 
 to them." 
 
 Eliza was quite enchanted with such posi- 
 tive praise of her hero, but she defended Lord 
 Beaufort valiantly ; declared that he was the 
 most good-natured man in the world, and not 
 the least grand or fine. 
 
 *' In short, the best of the two cousins?" 
 asked Mrs. Douglas; "but now, my dear, we 
 must dress, and when I have seen all your 
 fine friends, I shall know better w^hat to think 
 of them. Ring for Hunt. How I hate these 
 large rooms, where the bells are always a mile 
 off"!" 
 
 Mrs. Douglas found considerable food for 
 observation in the party assembled at St. 
 Mary's, and after the lapse of two or three 
 days, she had drawn from the events that 
 were passing before her eyes, the cheering 
 conclusions, — that the Teviot menage was not 
 happy ; that Lady Portmore, a beauty and a
 
 198 THE SEMI-ATTAC3KD COUPLE. 
 
 fine lady, was perfectly insupportable, and 
 that it would be a virtuous action to be as 
 disagreeable as possible to her ; that Colonel 
 Stuart was in his way quite as detestable ; 
 that there was no chance of Lord Beaufort's 
 marrying Miss Forrester, and that Colonel 
 Beaufort was a shade less languid when Eliza 
 was talking to him than under any other cir- 
 cumstances. 
 
 The house was full of company, for the first 
 week in September had arrived, and Lord 
 Teviot's friends seemed to be unanimously 
 possessed with an unusual eagerness to visit 
 him. The breakfast table was covered every 
 morning with letters from enterprising travel- 
 lers, who were naturally going to the other side 
 of England ; but who could make a detour to 
 St. Mary's if they were w^anted, and who 
 added in a postscript that they should be 
 there before an answer could arrive to stop 
 them. Some, who did not know Lady Teviot, 
 wrote to express their anxiety to make her
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 199 
 
 acquaintance ; and those who did, were par- 
 ticularly desirous to renew it. Xobody said 
 a word about partridges ; but it was remark- 
 able that from each carriage that arrived, there 
 was taken a long mahogany case, followed by 
 a tin cannister and a powder flask ; and that 
 each new comer, in the course of the first 
 evening, invariably asked if the harvest were 
 well in, and if the birds were tolerably strong 
 and numerous. 
 
 The crowd in which the Teviots lived was 
 not favourable to the growth of their eventual 
 happiness : at least, in nine cases out of ten, 
 a young couple should be left very much to 
 themselves during the first few months of 
 their married lives. That complete depend- 
 ence on each other, which insures habits of 
 confidence and forbearance, is more easily ac- 
 quired while the first dream of love lasts ; and 
 tastes and tempers amalgamate better in the 
 end when there are no witnesses to observe 
 ■ihat they do not quite fit at first.
 
 200 THE SEMI-ATTACHKD COUPLE. 
 
 Lord and Lady Teviot ^yould, even if they 
 had wished it, have found it impossible to be 
 much together in their present train of life. 
 He was out shooting all the morning with his 
 friends ; and in the afternoon she w as riding 
 or driving with hers : during dinner they 
 were at opposite ends of a long table, and in 
 the evening there were guests to be attended 
 to, and the work of general amusement to 
 carry on. Helen did not own it to herself^ 
 perhaps she did not know it, but it was a 
 relief to her to be spared those tete-a-tetes with 
 her husband, which she had found so alarming 
 in the outset of her married life. Her youth- 
 ful spirits were sufficient, and more than suffi- 
 cient, to carry her through the many hours of 
 amusement which each succeeding day pre- 
 sented. Joining great powers of enjoyment 
 to a strong wish to please, and aided by ad- 
 ventitious circumstances, she moved amongst 
 her guests the queen of a gay circle ; and if 
 she caught Lord Teviot's eyes fixed on her
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COIPLE. 201 
 
 sometimes with sternness, sometimes with ad- 
 miration, she merely thought, in the one case, 
 that it was a pity he was so unlike everybody 
 else, and in the other, that it was unfortunate 
 she had not time to talk to him while he was 
 in good humour *, but in the meanwhile her 
 impulse was to turn to her brother or her 
 cousin for assistance in all her plans, and par- 
 ticipation in all her gaieties. 
 
 So young and so lovely a mistress of a 
 house was sure to attract ; and Lady Portmore 
 began to feel some frightful misgivings, not that 
 Helen would eventually rival her in general 
 admiration — no, she felt convinced that there 
 never had been, and never could be such an 
 universal favourite as herself, but she con- 
 sidered that she was at present in a false 
 position, and had brought the real, genuine, 
 w^ell-established Portmore article into com- 
 petition with a frivolous, tinselly girlish play- 
 thing which derived a momentary value from 
 peculiar circumstances. She began to think
 
 202 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 it time to assert herself, and to overthrow the 
 usurper. She once tried to look bored, and 
 apologized to the company for the dull even- 
 ing which would necessarily ensue. But she 
 found that it ended in her being left to nurse 
 by herself " the touch of headache " she had 
 announced, while the rest of the society were 
 dancing in another room, and Mrs. Douglas 
 took the opportunity of saying that she would 
 come and sit quietly with her while the young 
 people were amusing themselves. 
 
 So the next day she found it more expe- 
 dient to declare that she was going to make 
 the evening very amusing, and to arrange 
 some charades. 
 
 "Come, Teviot, Ernest, all of you, you 
 must each take a part." 
 
 " Who, I ?" said Colonel Beaufort, looking 
 at her with an air of astonishment from the 
 very depths of his arm-chair, where he was 
 sitting very contentedly by the side of Eliza. 
 " My dear lady, you may just as well ask me
 
 THE SE3II-ATTACHED COUPLE. 203 
 
 to go and break stones for Teviot's new road ; 
 it would be quite as much in my line, and 
 perhaps less trouble. I never shall forget 
 what I went through last year at Kir wood 
 Hall. I was asked there, and was foolishly 
 good natured enough to go. My mind mis- 
 gave me the first evening that there was a 
 screw loose, — that there was something sinister 
 in the designs of the party. There were two 
 or three abortive attempts at troublesome 
 games, questions and answers, which entailed 
 the bore of thinking ; and forfeits which gave 
 an infinity of trouble, as a penalty for having 
 thought wrong. Well, I put down these 
 atrocities by a contemptuous smile or tvro, 
 but the next evening I was overborne in my 
 turn ; and I give you my honour, that I, who 
 am by nature peaceable and inofiensive, and 
 who had never done any harm to any human 
 being in that house, was, during three hours, 
 persecuted into being Lucius Junius Brutus, 
 a village schoolmistress, the hind legs of a
 
 204 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 cameleopard, and a wooden clock saying, tick, 
 tick, tick. The next morning I made an 
 early transformation of myself into Colonel 
 Beaufort in his travelling carriage; but I 
 doubt whether my constitution has ever quite 
 recovered the trial of Kirwood Hall. JSTo, 
 no charades, for the love of mercy." 
 
 " Well," said Eliza, " I wish you did not 
 object to them ; I think they must be very 
 amusing, and then you would act so well ; I 
 wish Lady Porcmore would arrange one." 
 
 ''How odd that you should always be 
 ready to be amused ! I am quite sorry I have 
 destroyed your entertainment for the evening. 
 What is to be done ? Lady Portmore whisks 
 about so fast^ it would be vain for me to at- 
 tempt to catch her. Shall I write her a note, 
 and ask her to act for vour diversion ?" 
 
 " Oh, no ! besides, nothing diverts me more 
 than to hear you talk. Pray go on, and tell 
 me more about Kirwood Hall, and the cha- 
 rades there." And it was bv this naive and
 
 THP] SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 205 
 
 genuine attention to his conversation, and this 
 open delight in his society, that the unformed, 
 candid Eliza attracted the languid hlase 
 Colonel Beaufort. The simple and melan- 
 choly fact was, that she had fallen in love 
 with him, which was an undignified measure, 
 and if she had had only a year's knowledge 
 of the Vv^orld, she would carefully have con- 
 cealed the preference she felt ; but, as it was, 
 she thought only that he was very pleasant, 
 and that she was quite happy when he came 
 and sat down by her; and she showed this 
 without disguise. It was something so new, 
 that Ernest was flattered by it. He did not 
 care much about it at present ; but if the chair 
 that stood near her was as comfortable as any 
 other in the room, he let himself drop into 
 that by preference. He would, perhaps, even 
 have put up with a cushion less. 
 
 Lady Portmore did not quite like his 
 manner of passing his evenings; and when 
 her particular plan of charades failed, she
 
 206 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 had nothing for it but to try to disturb the 
 general corafort of the society. '' Come, 
 Miss Douglas," she said, moving her hands 
 about as if she were playing on the pianoforte, 
 " are we to have nO harmony this evening ? 
 I am in the mood for a little music." 
 
 "I do not think Lady Teviot wishes for 
 it," said Eliza, who joined to a strong desire 
 to contradict Lady Portmore, a great disincli- 
 nation to move. 
 
 '' Oh, Lady Teviot has made over her 
 powers to me this evening. I think, Teviot, 
 your little wife has abdicated, and has become 
 Helen Beaufort again. She and her brother 
 have been reading letters, and whispering to 
 each other for the last half hour. Are you 
 shut out of their councils ?" 
 
 " Lady Teviot has not had a very good 
 account of her sister," he said, coldly, " and 
 Beaufort was naturally anxious to see the 
 letters." 
 
 '' Dear, I am very sorry ; I wish they had
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 207 
 
 consulted nie — I am a great hoinoeopathist ; I 
 dare say Helen wishes us all away, that she 
 might go to the AValdegraves ; but really we 
 have collected such a large party, that it will 
 be difficult to disperse our forces. Pray who 
 is that foreigner playing at whist ?" 
 
 " Don't you know him ? M. de la Grange ; 
 he comes over to England every year, and 
 fancies himself a complete Englishman in 
 language, pursuits, and habits, but without the 
 slightest aptitude for either. He goes in the 
 winter to any country-house of any description 
 to which he can get himself invited, without 
 much discrimination as to the society he meets 
 there. ' It is all,' he says, * the charming life of 
 castle ;' and between that and Melton, where 
 he passes a miserable month of falls and 
 fright, he makes out an existence which he 
 thinks perfection. He is a good-natured 
 animal, and I never grudge him a fortnight's 
 shooting." 
 
 " You must introduce him to me ; I dare
 
 208 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 say he has heard of me at Paris, and in Lon- 
 don : all foreigners look to me as their pa- 
 troness, as a matter of course. But come, 
 Helen's colloquy is at an end. Beaufort, 
 come here, I am so sorry your sister is ill, 
 but I want you to sing. Miss Douglas is 
 obdurate, but Mary will accompany you." 
 
 " Pardon me, Lady Portmore, but I must 
 finish this bit of work to-night," said Miss 
 Forrester. 
 
 " Oh, nonsense, only one song ! Come, 
 Beaufort ;" but on looking round she dis- 
 covered that Lord Beaufort had disappeared ; 
 and so that attempt fell to the ground, and 
 Lady Port ra ore's gay evening w^as rather a 
 greater failure than her dull one.
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 209 
 
 CHAPTEE XXIII. 
 
 '* Mrs. D0UGLA.S," said Lady Portmore, "I 
 am going to take quite the privilege of an 
 old friend with you, but I feel as if I had 
 known you all my life, and I am going to say 
 something very impertinent." 
 
 Mrs. Douglas nodded. It was apparently 
 a nod of acquiescence in the latter propo- 
 sition. 
 
 "That dear little Eliza of yours, I am 
 charmed with her; I am indeed. I would 
 not sav so if I were not : but if vou will take 
 my advice, you will not allow Colonel Beau 
 fort to be so much with her." 
 
 "I think it would be difficult to prevent 
 
 VOL. T. p
 
 210 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 it/' said Mrs. Douglas, with an affectation of 
 carelessness. '' Colonel Beaufort seems to be, 
 like most men, very much in the habit of 
 taking his own way." 
 
 " Yes, but my dear Mrs. Douglas, I am so 
 afraid your gay, innocent Eliza, who is not 
 aware how encouraging her frank manner is, 
 should fancy that Ernest's attentions mean 
 more than they do : I know him so thorough- 
 ly. He is a dear, kind-hearted creature, but 
 rather a dangerous man. He means nothing 
 by it, but he always seems as if he were mak- 
 ing love to every woman he speaks to." 
 
 *' That may be rather tiresome, and is very 
 wrong," said Mrs. Douglas; "but it cannot 
 be very dangerous. Those seeming lovers 
 never take anybody in.'* 
 
 " Eliza is so young," continued Lady Port- 
 more, who was longing to bring the conver- 
 sation round to herself, ^' and very little at- 
 tention turns those young heads; and what 
 made me wish to put you on your guard,
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 211 
 
 Mrs. Douglas, is that I know — this is of 
 course entirely between ourselves, but I 
 happen to know that Ernest is much attached 
 to another person, quite a hopeless attach- 
 ment, but so it is; he is very much in love 
 with — a married woman." 
 
 " More shame for her. It is a pity she 
 does not see him now," answered Mrs. Douglas, 
 still preserving her coldness; *'she would be 
 thoroughly mortified, and it would do her a 
 great deal of good. I have no patience with 
 married women and their lovers." 
 
 " Oh ! but you mistake me, dear Mrs. 
 Douglas ; I would not have you suppose for 
 an instant, that because Ernest is in love with 
 
 , this person we are alluding to, that she 
 
 has ever thought of giving him the slightest 
 encouragement." 
 
 " But it is what I do suppose, and always 
 shall believe^ Lady Portmore. I am not 
 speaking of Colonel Beaufort individually. I 
 never met him befcre, and shall not very 
 
 p 2
 
 212 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 much care if I never meet him again ; but I 
 shall always suppose that when a man makes 
 love to a married woman it is entirely her 
 fault, and it gives me the worst possible 
 opinion of her." 
 
 *' My dear Mrs. Douglas," said Lady Port- 
 more, growing quite warm in the argument, 
 *' I do think you are a little too severe. I 
 am sure I know some instances of married 
 women, who are quite surrounded by admirers, 
 who yet have conducted themselves in the 
 most wonderful manner." 
 
 " I dare say they have," said Mrs. Douglas, 
 significantly. ** I know several instances 
 myself, and very wonderful women they are. 
 I cannot bear them." 
 
 *' Ay ! but I mean in the most exemplary 
 manner. Now, Mrs. Douglas, only last year 
 I knew a person, a married woman, very 
 much admired," sinking her voice modestly, 
 *'who had reason to know that a man whom 
 she met constantly in society was very much
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 213 
 
 in love with her. He was in her opera box 
 every evening, met her at every party she 
 went to, and passed half his mornings at her 
 house. She saw the folly of this, knew^ that 
 she was in danger of being talked of, and 
 without the least hesitation, without a thought 
 of the inconvenience and trouble, she set oft' 
 to Cornwall, and passed a whole week there 
 with the most tiresome old aunt in the world. 
 This at once proved to the man that he had 
 no chance, and he withdrew immediately, and 
 affected a passion for somebody else. Now, 
 what do you think of that ?" 
 
 " Why, that there never was anything half 
 so absurd. If your friend had given up her 
 opera box, sent excuses to her balls, and said, 
 ' Not at home,' for a w^eek, the gentleman's 
 passion would soon have come to an end ; 
 and if she had at first stayed at home with 
 her husband and children, it never would 
 have had a beginning. That grand action of 
 a sudden rush to Cornwall must have flattered
 
 214 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 him amazingly; it showed she was obliged to 
 go to the Land's End for safety. No, when- 
 ever I hear any of that cant about the difficult 
 position of a married woman with her lovers, 
 I know exactly what to think of her ; I think 
 her a good-for-nothing woman." 
 
 " Eeally, Mrs. Douglas, good-for-nothing 
 is rather a strong term. I must say I can- 
 not go so far as that ; good-for-nothing is an 
 odd expression applied to a well meaning 
 woman." 
 
 '' Why, what is she good for, Lady Port- 
 more ? She is not a good wife, nor probably 
 a good mother, and certainly not a good 
 Christian ; so I adhere to my expression, she 
 is good for nothing." 
 
 " But if you lived in London, you would 
 think differently, Mrs. Douglas; you would 
 see how difficult it is for a woman of ordinary 
 
 pretensions . However, we will not argue, 
 
 for, in fact, I am just like you, one of the 
 strictest people possible, excessively strait-
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. IJiO 
 
 laced in all matters of principle ; and, besides, 
 we have wandered from our original topic. I 
 merely wished to put you on your guard about 
 Ernest. He is just the sort of man to whose 
 attentions I should object, for a daughter of 
 my own." 
 
 "I forget whether you have any grown-up 
 daughters ?" asked Mrs. Douglas, with an 
 innocent air of doubt. 
 
 " My dear Mrs. Douglas, I have not been 
 married nine years — or ten at the very 
 utmost." 
 
 "/?2-deedr' There was an emphasis on 
 the first syllable, indicative of profound 
 astonishment. 
 
 " And I was quite a child at the time ; 
 married literally from the school -room, 
 before," with a half-sigh, '* I knew what I 
 was about." 
 
 " /n-deed !" said Mrs. Douglas, still in a 
 marked state of emphatic surprise. " Well, 
 I am much obliged to you. Lady Portmore,
 
 21 G THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 for putting me on my guard about Colonel 
 Beaufort, but these things must take their 
 chance. Perhaps he would not show such a 
 decided preference for Eliza's society if there 
 were anything else to amuse him ; but Miss 
 Forrester does not seem inclined to take any 
 notice of him ; and Lady Teviot is so sur- 
 rounded by all the other gentlemen, she has 
 no time to attend to her cousin. So there 
 are only you and I left, Lady Portmore, and 
 apparently he has not the shghtest taste for 
 our society." And so saying, Mrs. Douglas, 
 who had been rolling up her strips of canvas, 
 and winding off her ends of worsted, quietly 
 took her basket and walked away, leaving 
 Lady Portmore thoroughly discomfited by 
 the many offensive insinuations conveyed in 
 her closing speech. She was regularly out 
 of sorts, and in that soured state in which the 
 wish to do a little mischief is a consoling 
 idea. She was half inclined to leave St^ 
 Mary's, where her vanity felt half starved ;.
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 217 
 
 but her faith in her power over Lord 
 Teviot remained unshaken, and her wish to 
 try it had become stronger. Besides, she 
 could not go now, there was a great man 
 cominsr.
 
 218 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 Mr. G. really was what is commonly called a 
 great man. To the advantages of being a 
 Secretary of State and leader of the House of 
 Commons, he joined those of being a brilliant 
 orator and a very agreeable member of society. 
 He had offered himself as a visitor at St. 
 Mary's, which lay within reach of the large 
 commercial town which he represented, and 
 in which Lord Teviot possessed considerable 
 property. There was to be a public meeting, 
 and the opening of a new bridge, and a launch 
 of a large ship, and much good eating, and 
 still better speaking, at which Mr. G. and 
 Lord Teviot were to assist.
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 219 
 
 Mr. G. had been a youthful friend of the 
 late Lord Teviot's, and the kindness which 
 he received from the father he now repaid to 
 the son. He had a high opinion of Lord 
 Teviot's talents, founded more on the intimate 
 knowledge he had attained in private life of 
 the acuteness and straightforwardness of his 
 mind, than on the two or three successful 
 speeches he had made in the House of Lords ; 
 and Mr. G. was anxious to remove, by the 
 stir of official life, the shadow that Lord 
 Teviot's shyness or sensitiveness threw over 
 his higher qualities. 
 
 "Come, Teviot," said Lord Beaufort at 
 breakfast, '' I'll bet you what you like that 
 you are in office before this day three 
 months." 
 
 " What am I to be ? a clerk in the Foreign- 
 office ? I do not see any other opening." 
 
 " Oh, they will make an opening fast 
 enough, if you will go in at it. They can 
 shove off old Lisle to India, or make out an
 
 220 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 embassy for Chaffont. You will be in, some- 
 how, before Christmas." 
 
 ''Not before Christmas, if at all. Nobody 
 has time to be turned out during the holidays." 
 
 " How ver 'droll !" exclaimed La Grange v 
 " but it is a truth of the most striking. We in 
 England are so occupied with the chase and 
 the sport, and with the life of the castle in the 
 winter, that we forget entirely our politique. 
 I am ver much delight to think I wnll meet 
 Mr. G. in the ease of the country. He is 
 one hero of mine. Does he voyage alone, 
 my lord ?" 
 
 " Ah ! who comes with him, Teviot ?" 
 
 " Only his private secretary, the faithful 
 Fisherwick." 
 
 " Fisherwick !" repeated Colonel Stuart ; 
 " Heavens and earth ! I trust not." 
 
 ''Why, what harm do you know of him, 
 Colonel Stuart ?" said Lady Teviot. 
 
 *'The gods forefend that I should know 
 anything more, or anything worse of him than
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 221 
 
 his extraordinary cognomen ; but imagine tra- 
 velling with one of that curious species. Think 
 of being shut up alone in a carriage with a 
 live Fisherwick! It makes my blood run 
 cold." 
 
 "Fisherveke !" repeated La Grange. " It 
 is a difficult word, but I do know oder of that 
 name — at least, I know a Mrs. Fisher very 
 well, w^ho live at Hampton Yeke ; so I sup- 
 pose she is one relation. She is made to be 
 painted, and most charming. Does your lady- 
 ship know Mrs. Fisher?" addressing Lady 
 Portmore. 
 
 '*0h dear no ; never heard of her," said 
 Lady Portmore, tartly. She began to think 
 La Grange not worth a civil answer. " But, 
 Teviot, to return to this idea of your coming 
 into office. It is what I have always wished 
 for you ; and I shall insist on G.'s making 
 some arrangement that will bring you in. I 
 can promise you Lord Portmore's support; 
 he has a very high opinion of G."
 
 222 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 '^ Poor G. !" whispered Ernest to his 
 cousin. *' I hope she won't let that be gene- 
 rally known ; it might give him a shake in 
 public estimation." 
 
 *' And then, Helen," continued Lady Port- 
 more, " when Teviot is in office, you and I 
 must set about being popular, for the good of 
 our friends. We must keep open house for 
 the supporters of government. I will send 
 you my list, and with a little of my help, you 
 may make Teviot House of real importance 
 to our party." 
 
 '' I am sure," said Helen, laughing, " I 
 should be puzzled to say what my party is, for 
 at this moment I am very ignorant of all 
 political matters ; but if Lord Teviot comes 
 into office, I suppose I shall grow as eager as 
 most people are." 
 
 '' Would you like me to take office, dear ?" 
 said Lord Teviot, who was pleased with this 
 avowal. 
 
 " Yes, I think so ! and yet "
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 223 
 
 ** Oh yes, to be sure you would," inter- 
 rupted Lady Portmore ; " everybody likes 
 distinction ; and you as well as the rest^ 
 Helen : and then you could be of use to all 
 the Beauforts and Pelhams in creation, which 
 would delight you." 
 
 '* I need not begin to think of them yet. 
 Lord Teviot is still unprovided for." 
 
 " No, Helen ; and as you seem so well dis- 
 posed for a political life, I am sorry to say 
 that the whole thing is a vision of Lady 
 Portmore's, and that G. has no more 
 idea of giving me an office than I have of 
 asking for one." 
 
 "I am thinking," said Lady Portmore, 
 *' if nothing else is available, which of the 
 foreign embassies you could have ?" 
 
 " Oh no ! not an embassy," said Helen 
 eagerly ; " I could not bear to live abroad, — 
 and to leave papa and mamma," she was 
 about to add, but from some undefined feeling
 
 224 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 she stopped and said, '*and to leave England 
 and my own home." 
 
 *' Ko, I think I might ask you in vain to 
 do that," said Lord Teviot, coldly, for he 
 rightly interpreted the meaning of the pause 
 in her sentence. *^ I should not have a willing 
 companion in my exile." 
 
 '' Oh, you naughty girl !" said Lady Port- 
 more, affectedly, " to hesitate about following 
 your husband wherever he goes — to say no- 
 thing of such a husband ! I am shocked at 
 your hardheartedness." 
 
 ''I do not think Helen's hardheartedness to 
 be compared to yours, Lady Portmore," said 
 Mary Forrester. *' You have suddenly sent 
 Lord and Lady Teviot out of the country, 
 without the slightest warning. I have no 
 doubt Lord Teviot would be just as sorry to 
 leave his friends as Helen would be to leave 
 hers. Of course I say nothing of such 
 friends !" she added, laughing, as she looked
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 225 
 
 round the table. *' In common politeness, 
 neither he nor Helen can say that they could 
 quite console each other for the loss of us." 
 
 *^ Yery true," said Ernest, who saw Lady 
 Portmore's game; and ^^Very true," added 
 Lord Beaufort, who was struck vi'ith. Miss 
 Forrester's energy and warmth *, but at the 
 sound of his voice in approval, the colour that 
 came into Mary's cheek, and the slight curl of 
 her lip, reminded him that he was not privi- 
 leged to offer his opinion to her. Since the un- 
 lucky conversation in the library, not a word 
 had passed between them, not even a look ; 
 she never seemed to see him. Once or twice it 
 had nearly fallen to his lot to hand her in to 
 dinner, but without any apparent premedita- 
 tion, without a shadow of pique in her manner, 
 she had contrived either to put Eliza forward, 
 or by negligently continuing the conversation 
 in which she might be engaged, to make it 
 seem inevitable that Sir C. Smith, or Mr. 
 Douglas, or Colonel Beaufort, should offer her 
 
 VCL. T. Q
 
 226 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 an arm, and walk in before him. He did not 
 quite like it ; he would have preferred an 
 open war, an attempt at explanation, or a tart 
 retort — but she did not deign to show her dis- 
 like in w^ords.
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 227 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 Mr. G. arrived, of course too late for 
 dinner ; but as it was some years since he had 
 seen either soup or fish in their best and hottest 
 state of culinary excellence, he was quite 
 satisfied — made the slightest possible apology 
 for sitting down to dinner in his travelling 
 dress, and looked like a gentleman and a well 
 dressed man. 
 
 Fisherwick looked horrid : he was, from 
 his sedentary habits, averse to an open car- 
 riage, even in the dog-days ; and the afternoon 
 had been wet and foggy, so he was chilly to 
 the last degree ; and he always turned bright 
 
 q2
 
 228 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 yellow tipped with blue when the fresh country 
 air blew for any length of time on his worn- 
 out Downing-street frame. His hair contrived 
 to collect more dust than the usual laws of 
 capillary attraction warranted. His black 
 neckcloth turned browner, and hung looser than 
 common black cravats ; his coat was a dingy 
 brown — and, altogether, he had the air of an 
 exhausted ink-bottle. If he had been allowed 
 his luncheon on the road, and gallons of hot 
 soap and water on his arrival, he would have 
 been quite another Fisherwick ; but, as it was, 
 he looked like " a very unwashed artificer" in- 
 deed ; and till he arrived at his third glass of 
 champagne, he was as depressed and as un- 
 comfortable as it was possible for a cabinet 
 minister's private secretary, ne Fisherwick^ 
 to be. But then he revived, and resumed his 
 usual habits of official affability and courteous 
 incommunicativeness, and his little dry plea- 
 santries flowed forth, playfully cloaking his in- 
 flexible discretion.
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 229 
 
 " Any foreign news, Fisherwick ?" said Sir 
 Charles. " I don't half like your last Spanish 
 accounts." 
 
 " All, trust you country gentlemen for 
 croaking, and for finding out what is not to be 
 liked ; you are never satisfied." 
 
 *' The last published details are anything 
 but satisfactory. Have you any later ac- 
 counts ?" 
 
 " I do not know the date of the last you 
 
 55 
 
 sav*\ 
 
 '• They w^ere dated the 23rd ; you must 
 have heard later news than that.*' 
 
 ''We ought, certainly. For myself, I ask 
 nothing more from Spain than a glass of this 
 excellent sherry." 
 
 " Are you asking about the Spanish news ?" 
 said Mr. G. from the other end of the table. 
 "Xothing can be worse; our friends are in 
 nill retreat, and, in fact, the game is up." 
 
 " Now^ is not that so like him ?" exclaimed 
 Fisherwick in an ecstasy. " I always say
 
 230 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 there is nothing like his candour and courage. 
 I never saw such a man." 
 
 *' At what time did you start this morn- 
 ing?" 
 
 '' At seven ; he's always ready, you know." 
 
 " You must have found it coolish work, 
 starting in the rain and fog at that hour ?" 
 
 '' He never is cold," said the pinched and 
 suffering Fisherwick ; "he said it was as fine 
 a morning as we could expect. He has the 
 cheerfullest mind, and a power over it, that I 
 never saw equalled. What do you think he 
 did the last stage ? — slept like a top, though 
 I told him when w^e changed horses that 
 I was afraid we should be too late for 
 dinner. ' We always are, my dear Fish,' 
 he said, and went to sleep again with the 
 greatest composure. He has such equable 
 spirits."^ 
 
 "He looks well," said Lord Beaufort, 
 "considering what a bore of a session it has 
 been."
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 231 
 
 '' Does not he ?" said Fisherwick, triumph- 
 antly. *' I am excessively glad your lord- 
 ship has observed it ; it is quite remarkable. 
 I never saw him look better ;" and his dear 
 dusty eyes filled with tears, for his devotion 
 to his chief was as genuine as it was apparent, 
 and he always took to himself the comments, 
 whether complimentary or condemnatory, 
 that were made on Mr. G. It made him 
 feel w^ell himself to be told that Mr. G. 
 looked so. 
 
 Lady Portmore was not satisfied with her 
 position at the dining-table. She was seated 
 by Lord Teviot, and as the place next to 
 Helen had been reserved for Mr. G., she 
 was as far removed from the reigning great 
 man as was possible 5 and to her surprise she 
 saw Helen and Mr. G. talking and laughing 
 with all the ease of old acquaintance. Once 
 or twice she tried to enter into their conversa- 
 tion ; but the distance was too great, and her 
 sparkling remarks were lost in the steam of
 
 232 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 the entres before they reached the head of 
 the table. 
 
 *'What a clever countenance my friend 
 G. has," she said to Lord Teviot ; "such a 
 brow ! If I met him without knowing who 
 he was, I should say directly, That must be 
 a clever man !" 
 
 "It is very unlucky," said Mrs. Douglas, 
 who was seated on the other hand of Lord 
 Teviot; "but I cannot agree with you at 
 all. I never was more disappointed in my 
 life with anybody's looks ; he is so bald, and 
 nearly gray — at least ten years older looking- 
 than I had expected — and altogether very 
 much like other people. But that is always 
 the case. I never yet saw anybody who had 
 been much cried up, who did not seem to me 
 particularly commonplace." 
 
 "Wait till you hear him converse," said 
 Lord Teviot; "perhaps you will then own 
 that he is rather above the common herd." 
 
 " Yes," said Lady Portmore, " you will see
 
 how it will be this evening ; he is perhaps 
 more at his ease with me, than with anybody, 
 and I will lead him to talk on subjects that 
 interest him, and you will be amazingly 
 struck with his talent." 
 
 ^' At present I am more struck Tvith his 
 teeth. Pray, does he always laugh so much ? 
 amongst common characters that w^ould be 
 looked upon as a proof of folly." 
 
 " Perhaps G. will turn out to be a fool at 
 last," said Lord Teviot. 
 
 ''Oh, no!" interrupted Lady Portmore, 
 who had not the first principles of a joke in 
 her-, " you may believe me, G. is no fool. I 
 can answer for that ; I have known him for 
 ages, and can venture to say he is decidedly 
 above par." 
 
 '^ Well, then, his laughter is only a proof 
 that Lady Teviot amuses him ; they certainly 
 are very gay at that end of the table." 
 
 ^' Yes, absolutely noisy," said Lady Port- 
 more, spitefully. " Now, my dear Teviot,"
 
 234 THE SEMl-ATTACiIi:D COUPLE. 
 
 she added, lowering her voice, *' this shows 
 you how right I was, when I told you that 
 Helen requires mixed society to put her in 
 spirits. Only let your house be full, and she 
 will be happy ; and, perhaps, when she is a 
 little older and wiser she will be content with 
 a more domestic life/' And with this food 
 for meditation she left him, as she obeyed 
 Helen's si2:nal to retire.
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 235 
 
 CHAPTER XXYI. 
 
 '^ Don't you think Eeginald Stuart very 
 much out of spirits?" said Lady Portmore, 
 when she was lingering over the breakfast- 
 table, after the other ladies had withdrawn 
 and Lord Teviot and Stuart had gone out 
 shooting. 
 
 " Yes, I think he is," said Ernest, '^ rather 
 out of spirits, and very much out of cash, I 
 suspect ; the old story of cause and effect." 
 
 ^' Poor fellow !" continued Lady Portmore ; 
 *' it is a very deplorable case, for I don't be- 
 lieve that tiresome, poky brother of his. Lord 
 Wey bridge, will help him. In fact, between 
 ourselves, I don't like Lord Weybridge ; he is
 
 230 THE SEMi-ATTACUED COLTLE. 
 
 SO hypocritical, he always pretends to be on 
 good terms with our friend Keginald, and yet 
 he lets him go on, distressed to the last degree 
 for money." 
 
 '^He did pay his debts once, you know, 
 16,000/." 
 
 " Yes, but that was years ago ; when Stuart 
 
 was so yoiuig he hardly knew what he was 
 
 spending. I have heard him say twenty times 
 
 that he had no more idea how he spent all 
 
 If 
 that money, than the man in the moon. But 
 
 now that he is older and v/iser, I feel certain 
 
 that if Lord Weybridge were to pay off what 
 
 he owes, and give him something reasonable 
 
 to live on, he would be very steady." 
 
 'i Weybridge has six boys of his own, you 
 must remember," said Lord Beaufort. 
 
 " Now, my dear Beaufort, do not you join 
 to run down poor Stuart ; you can have no 
 idea of his position. There you are, an only 
 son, with a large allowance, and Lord Eskdale 
 ready to pay your debts at any moment."
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 26 i 
 
 '' Is he ? I am charmed to hear it, but I 
 beg to observe that he has not had to pay 
 16,000/. or even 1600/. for me. And my 
 run against Stuart consists simply in the ob- 
 servation that Lord Weybridge has six boys 
 to provide for." 
 
 " What ! those babies ? Why the eldest is 
 not eight years old ; they can cost him nothing 
 but a few yards of stuff for their frocks. Chil- 
 dren can be clothed and fed for nothing now ; 
 and I only want him to put Stuart straight 
 with the world, and then he may save for his 
 own children, and welcome." 
 
 '' I hope," said La Grange, " Colonel Stuart 
 is not so much indebted. He have a horse 
 which will run at Doncaster, and have taken 
 one house at Melton." 
 
 ^' Yes, quite a cottage. I know he has 
 given up the large house he had last year 
 without a murmur; and as for his horse at 
 Doncaster, he told me himself that he is sick 
 of the turf, but he thinks it his absolute duty
 
 238 THE SEMI -ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 to try if he cannot recover a little money at 
 Doncaster." 
 
 " Ah, then, he run that horse just for a 
 matter of trade, as a lawyer makes a speech 
 for fee." 
 
 " Exactly, that is his view of the case ; 
 and in all other respects I never saw a crea- 
 ture more unselfish. I know he came here 
 with only a pair of horses ; he has withdrawn 
 his name from one club, if not more, and, 
 except his riding-horses, he keeps nothing but 
 a cabriolet." 
 
 " Ah ! that cabriolet," said Mr. G. ; *' now 
 that is one of the mysteries I wish you would 
 solve for me, Lady Portmore. There are 
 about sixty clerks in my office, most of them 
 younger brothers of good family, with allow- 
 ances of two or three hundred a year ; and 
 by writing eight hours daily, they earn ano- 
 ther hundred. And yet two-thirds of these 
 youngsters keep a cab with a high-stepping 
 horse and a diminutive groom. I do not
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 239 
 
 know what it costs, as I never indulged in 
 such a luxury myself; but I presume that 
 above half of their income goes in this 
 foolery." 
 
 ''But what can they do? London is so 
 large." 
 
 ''Yes," said La Grange, " it is of such im- 
 mense grandeur ; and without a cab, how can 
 you bring yourself out of the affair ? Suppose 
 yourself with a visit to make in the high end 
 of Portland Place, how would you get there 
 from the Travellers' ?" 
 
 " By Eegent Street," said Mr. G., smiling. 
 
 " But how ? I beg a thousand pardons." 
 
 *' On foot." 
 
 " Oh, impossible," said Lady Portmore ; " it 
 would kill any of the young men of the pre- 
 sent day to attempt such a walk ; it must be 
 four miles at least, or two, or some immense 
 distance. No, I dare say a cab is rather an 
 extravagance ; but I own I think it an abso- 
 lute necessity."
 
 240 THE SEMI-ATTACIIED COUPLE. 
 
 **Yes/' said Lord Beaufort*, '* I do not 
 see what a man is to do in London without a 
 cab." 
 
 ''No," said Ernest, ''I quite agree with 
 you ; it is as indispensable as a coat." 
 
 '* Exactly so," said La Grange. 
 
 *' I am quite convinced of the fact by this 
 unanimity of opinion," answered Mr. G. " I 
 am only thankful I was born before this fatal 
 cabriolet obligation was invented, and that I 
 am able to walk every day from Grosvenor 
 Square to Downing Street, and back again." 
 
 " But if it rains ?" 
 
 "I put on my greatcoat, and put up my 
 umbrella ; and it is curious that I am gene- 
 rally accompanied by some man of my own 
 standing, and that at every crossing we are 
 either splashed or nearly run over by a tribe 
 of young boys going nodding along in one of 
 those puppet-shovrs on wheels. However, if 
 it is necessary, I say no more ; but I am not 
 surprised to hear of so many young men
 
 THE SEMI- ATT ACHED COUPLE. 241 
 
 deeply in debt ;" and so saying he walked off 
 to his red boxes and his Fisherwick. 
 
 " It is very sad, certainly, and G. may be 
 partly right," said Lady Portmore ; " but in 
 Stuart's case his cabriolet is an actual measure 
 of economy ; he sold those magnificent car- 
 riage horses when lie set it up. I must repeat 
 that I think he is in a very pitiable position. 
 He is willing to submit to every sort of priva- 
 tion ; but, as he says, what is the use of try- 
 ing, if liis family will not help him ?" 
 
 " I thought his mother was very liberal to 
 him." 
 
 " Yes, she makes him some sort of allow- 
 ance ; but she does not do all that he expected. 
 And that is where I think his family so much 
 to blame ; they help him only to a certain 
 extent. And that, as he says, puts him in a 
 false position ; he gets the reputation of having 
 his debts paid over and over again, and yet 
 he is never so entirely clear as to feel en- 
 couraged to live economically. No^ it really 
 
 YOL. I. R
 
 242 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 makes my heart bleed to think of all those 
 selfish Weybridges, and to see Stuart so unlike 
 himself." 
 
 " Has not your friend Miss Forrester," said 
 Lord Beaufort, "a great share of Stuart's 
 low spirits to answer for?" 
 
 " If you mean that he cares about her," 
 said Lady Portmore, '' that is what he never 
 did and never will, in my opinion ; but at one 
 time he had certainly a good right to expect 
 that she would marry him, and it is a great 
 pity she did not." 
 
 " She jilted him in the coolest manner 
 when she inherited that fortune, did not she?" 
 said Lord Beaufort. 
 
 " Had you not better look behind that 
 screen, Beaufort, before you proceed ?" whis- 
 pered Ernest. 
 
 " Pho ! nonsense," he said; but he started 
 from his chair as he spoke, for, leaning against 
 the door of the conservatory, where she and 
 Eliza had gone to gather flowers, stood Mary
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. Z4o 
 
 Forrester, and any faint hopes which he 
 might have entertained of not having been 
 overheard, were dissipated by the decided 
 measure she took of walking straight up to 
 the table and addressing him. 
 
 ^' This is the second time. Lord Beaufort, 
 in which I have by chance overheard you 
 accuse me of the most odious conduct to 
 Colonel Stuart." She stopped, apparently- 
 choked by the violence of her emotion ; her 
 face was pale, but hot tears of shame and 
 anger stood in her beaming eyes. After a 
 moment's pause, which no one dared to inter- 
 rupt except La Grange, who politely pushed 
 a chair half an inch nearer to her, she passed 
 her hands rapidly over her face, and said in a 
 more collected tone, " But this is foolish, 
 I am speaking as if I w^ere angry, and 
 perhaps I was so, for a minute. At all events, 
 it is evident that I am not calm enough ; not 
 enough at my ease to make a good defence 
 against your charges. But Lady Portmore 
 
 R 2
 
 244 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 has already borne witness that I never pos- 
 sessed the affections of Lord Beaufort's friend, 
 and if Lord Beaufort will take the trouble to 
 ask his sister how and when I became aware 
 of that fact, she has my free leave to tell him 
 all. I think she can exculpate me from the 
 crime of jilting Colonel Stuart." 
 
 *'I am sure," said Lord Beaufort — '' I am 
 certain — that is, I have no right to ask Helen." 
 
 '' Perhaps not," she said, dejectedly ; " but 
 I ask it as a favour. You have only heard 
 and repeated the statements of you7' friend. 
 Hear what my friend, and Helen is my 7'eal 
 and best friend, has to say for me. Perhaps you 
 will still think me to blame : but I think vour 
 persecution of me," and she half smiled, " will 
 not be so constant as it now seems to be." 
 Again, there was a short pause *, she leant 
 with both hands on the table to steady herself, 
 for she shook with timidity, as she added, " I 
 am ashamed to say so nnich about myself, 
 but the fortune that is supposed to have
 
 THE SEMI- ATTACHED COUPLE. 245 
 
 influenced me, does not exist ; I mean, that I 
 am not the heiress Lord Beaufort thinks I am. 
 The fortune is not mine now — I wish every 
 one to know that. Now, EHza, let us go ;" 
 and so swift was their retreat, that no one had 
 time to speak, before they were fairly housed 
 in the next room, and Eliza had thrown lier 
 arms round her friend's neck, and given way 
 to the burst of tears which had been gathering 
 during the whole scene, w^hile she said, " Never 
 mind them, dear Miss Forrester, it is all ill- 
 nature, and they had much the w^orst of it at 
 last." 
 
 And so they had : there never was a more 
 discomfited set of people, barring La Grange, 
 who considered himself in high luck at having 
 witnessed such a scene : it was an incident 
 quite unmatched in his English recollections, 
 and he was only longing to slip away, and 
 write it down before he lost " the idiom" of 
 Miss Forrester's expressions. Lord Beaufort 
 was completely overpowered •, even Lady
 
 246 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 Portmore was annoyed, for though she knew 
 she could never be in the wrong, she thought 
 she might have been more in the right if she 
 had taken Mary's part more decidedly : but 
 she was the first to speak. "Well, this is 
 very unlucky." 
 
 " Very," said Ernest. 
 
 " Deuced unlucky," said La Grange, who 
 was learned in vulgar English expletives. 
 
 '* I hate the sort of thing," said Lady 
 Portmore, '' because, though I said nothing, 
 Mary might think I did, and it will make 
 such a tracasserier 
 
 *' Come, Beaufort, speak up," said Ernest, 
 patting him on the shoulder. 
 
 " I cannot," said Lord Beaufort, rising and 
 leaning his head against the chimney-piece. 
 " It's a bad business." 
 
 " It certainly is," said Lady Portmore ; 
 " and those sort of scenes take away one's 
 presence of mind so, or else I would have 
 explained it all to Mary at once."
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 247 
 
 " It was very fine though: Miss Forster 
 resembled very much Pasta, in Medea, at that 
 grand moment when she says ' lo !' " added 
 La Grange. 
 
 " Can't you send him away ?" whispered 
 Lord Beaufort to Lady Portmore. 
 
 " M. la Grange, if you mean to go out 
 shooting to-day, there are all the keepers now 
 on the lawn." 
 
 " Ah ! I see, Lady Portmore, you do think 
 my chamber, I mean my room, better than 
 my company, as we say in England ; and 
 I dare say I will disturb you if I stay. My 
 lord, do not distress yourself; when Mees 
 Forster think it over, she shall think it all 
 fudge to be affronted just for so few words ;" 
 and with a hearty laugh at the excellence of 
 his English vulgarity, which harmonized ill 
 with the feelings of his hearers, La Grange 
 walked off. 
 
 " I am glad he is gone," said Lady 
 Portmore. " Do shut the door, Ernest, for
 
 248 THE SEMI-ATTACIIED COUPLE. 
 
 fear he should hear me say how detestable 
 he is; and now what are we all to do?" 
 
 " We have done enough for one morn- 
 ing," said Ernest. 
 
 " But what did Mary mean by the second 
 time?" Lady Portmore asked. 
 
 " Beaufort gave her the benefit of his 
 opinion once before, in the library, when she 
 was in the gallery." 
 
 " No, did he ? Keally that is being im- 
 prudent, my dear Beaufort; and what dis- 
 tresses me particularly is, that Mary came in 
 just when she did. If she had waited a 
 moment, I was going \o tell you that the 
 engagement or attachment, or whatever it 
 was, was at an end, a fortnight before Mary 
 ever heard of that fortune, and that she gave 
 Stuart up, on hearing of that unfortunate 
 Mrs. Neville. In fact, I think Mrs. Neville 
 sent her some of Stuart's letters, or wrote to 
 her, or something of that kind." 
 
 " You might have told me that sooner ,
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 249 
 
 Lady Portmore, and then I should not have 
 said what I did." 
 
 '^ How did I know, you were not aware of 
 it ? I really think, Beaufort, the scrape is 
 entirely your own, and you need not try to 
 draw nie into it. Besides, I am the last 
 person in the world likely to say anything 
 against Alary, who I am sure loves me better 
 than anybody upon earth, though she did call 
 Helen her best friend ; but then she was 
 angry. Why, I brought her here, you know, 
 in my own carriage." 
 
 ^' It is rather a pity you did," said Ernest, 
 *' as things have turned out." 
 
 '' Don't joke about it, Ernest," said Lord 
 Beaufort, "for I am heartily vexed, and that 
 is the truth. It does look like persecution, as 
 she said." 
 
 " She came forward very gallantly," said 
 Ernest. *'I did not suspect she had so much 
 spirit. We all looked remarkably small I 
 thought."
 
 250 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 ''As for that," said Lady Portmore, " I must 
 beg to say that I did not look the least put out.'* 
 
 " My dear lady, I wish you could have 
 seen yourself; such a look of guilt! I ex- 
 pected you to faint." 
 
 " Nonsense^ Ernest, why should I ? I 
 was taking Mary's part; at least, I should 
 have taken it, in another minute ; but for fear 
 of any mistake, I shall just go after her, and 
 explain to her that I was quite innocent 
 during the whole conversation." 
 
 " And I shall go to Helen," said Lord 
 Beaufort. 
 
 " And I shall go and look for my own par- 
 ticular little Miss Douglas/' said Ernest. 
 " She looked aghast at the sudden breeze. 
 The confidante's look of horror prevented me 
 from giving my undivided attention to the 
 principal performers. I shall like to hear 
 what she thought of it." 
 
 •' You really will persuade yourself that 
 you care about that little Douglas girl if you
 
 THE SEMI- ATTACHED COUPLE.. 251 
 
 carry on the joke much further," said Lady 
 Portmore in a vexed tone. " Beaufort, I would 
 advise you to wait a little, or you will find 
 Mary with your sister." 
 
 " I don't very much care if I do. The 
 meeting will be awkward, at any rate, and I 
 had rather have it over when I am in the 
 mood to say all that is humble ;" and he 
 walked off. 
 
 " It is rather unfair that he should see her 
 first," said Lady Portmore, ''so I shall go to 
 her room, and see if she is there." 
 
 "And when you have both exculpated 
 yourselves for saying too much," said Ernest, 
 '' will you add in a note, that I, according to 
 my praiseworthy custom, was saying nothing."
 
 252 THE SEMI -ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXYII. 
 
 Lord Beaufort waited some time in his 
 sister's room before she came to him. She 
 had been with Mary, and had heard the 
 history of the contretemps of the morning, 
 and was prepared to pacify, and explain, and 
 smooth, and conciHate, till all should be peace 
 again. Such is the daily toil of the mistress 
 of a large country-house. No laundress, 
 ironing away at an obstinate row of plaits ; 
 no carpenter planing the roughest plank of 
 wood ; no gardener raking the stoniest soil, 
 has half the trouble she has, to maintain a 
 smooth surface in the aspect of her mixed 
 society. Nothing more is asked. They may
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 253 
 
 all hate, all envy, all rival each other 5 they 
 may say everything that is ill-natured, and do 
 everything that is mischievous, hut the 
 "general eifect," as painters would call it, 
 must he harmony ; and this must be main- 
 tained by the tact of the hostess. 
 
 Such an outbreak as had occurred this 
 morning, was an unusual novelty ; and Helen 
 must quell that, before the parties at variance 
 met at dinner. She found Lord Beaufort 
 most willing to do all in his power to depre- 
 cate Miss Forrester's resentment : her appeal 
 to Helen had touched him, and as he hated 
 to see a woman in tears, her struggle for com- 
 posure had excited his admiration and grati- 
 tude. And when he heard her whole history, 
 he found further reason for regretting what he 
 had said. Mary had received Colonel Stuart's 
 attentions with pleasure during the time in 
 which she believed him to be attached to her, 
 and until she was surprised by a visit from a 
 Mrs. Neville, who had good reason to suppose
 
 254 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 herself the object of Colonel Stuart's prefer- 
 ence. Driven to desperation by the report of 
 his marriage to Miss Forrester, she adopted 
 the decisive expedient of making her rival 
 her confidante. She told her story, and pro- 
 duced her vouchers, in the shape of some of 
 Colonel Stuart's letters, and she cried over 
 them, and her own guilt, and his treachery, 
 and Mr. Neville's wrongs ; and in the madness 
 of her passion and her jealousy, threw away 
 her own character, her pride, her delicacy, 
 all, so that she could prove that the man she 
 loved was a villain. She succeeded so far as 
 thwarting Colonel Stuart, in his hope of 
 marrying Mary, could be called success. 
 Whether disappointing him in his dearest 
 hopes were a likely method to regain his 
 affections, she had not perhaps considered. 
 Miss Forrester declined a continuance of 
 Colonel Stuart's attentions, and when pressed 
 by him to assign a reason for her change of 
 manner, she frankly pleaded her knowledge of
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 255 
 
 his want of principle, his seduction of Mrs. Ne- 
 ville, and his heartlessness in deserting her. 
 He flew into a violent rage with Mrs. Neville, 
 and ended by being scarcely less furious with 
 Miss Forrester. A fortnight later, when she 
 became a rich heiress, his anger turned upon 
 himself for having quarrelled so completely 
 with her, and to save his own character he 
 changed the date of their disagreement, and 
 allowed his friends to suppose that her money 
 had been the root of his evil fortune. All 
 this Helen repeated to Lord Beaufort, and 
 his knowledge of all parties gave him instant 
 conviction of the truth of the story. 
 
 " But why does she say that the fortune is 
 not hers now ?" 
 
 " That is a point she would be unwilling to 
 explain, but that she is anxious it should be un- 
 derstood now that she is not an heiress ; and 
 she imagines that it is ignorance on this subject 
 which induced Colonel Stuart to follow her 
 here. It was always supposed that the for-
 
 256 THE SEMI- ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 tune which old Mrs. Forrester left to her 
 would have been divided between her and two 
 brothers : one is in the West Indies with his 
 wife, and the other at sea. From some 
 scruples about the will, not worth explaining, 
 Mary is convinced that her brothers' claims 
 are as good as her own ; at least, so she 
 chooses to say ; and as she came of age two 
 months ago, she has written to them, giving 
 each of them, a third of the property. I do not 
 know the exact sum, but I believe she will 
 have nearly 30,000^. herself, which she says 
 is quite enough for her." 
 
 "And does she really mean to give away 
 GO^OOO^. ? Well ! she is a noble creature ; I 
 am in the humour just now to give her credit 
 for every virtue under heaven ; but I would 
 rather not see her again. Can't you, dearest 
 Nell, make the humblest apologies for me, 
 and crown the whole by saying, that as I 
 am sure she must hate the sight of me, I have 
 taken myself ojff to London ?"
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 257 
 
 *' Oh, no ! dear Beaufort, you do not really 
 mean you are going ? that would be too ab- 
 surd." 
 
 " But the best thing I can do. I shall look 
 so foolish when I see her ; and there is that 
 blockhead, La Grange, to make his ungram- 
 matical remarks on us ; and, as I said before, 
 she must hate the sight of me." 
 
 " No, indeed, she does not ! perhaps she 
 does not like you much at this moment, but it 
 will all soon be forgotten. She is now wait- 
 ing for me in my garden, to which she went 
 that she might escape poor dear Lady Port- 
 more." 
 
 "Ah! it is more than half Lady Port- 
 more's fault. She will sit gossiping for an 
 hour over the breakfast-table; and somehow 
 people are always ill natured at that early time 
 of the day — bilious, I suppose; but those 
 empty egg-cups and dirty plates always hear 
 a great deal of scandal, and then Lady Port- 
 more likes to denigrer her dear friends." 
 
 VOL.1. S
 
 258 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 '^ Well, never mind now ; come with me to 
 the garden, and make your speech of re- 
 gret, &c." 
 
 " Oh, no, not with you, Nell ! I could not 
 say a word if you were standing by." 
 
 ''Well then, go without me." 
 
 '' That is a thousand times worse. No, 
 the whole thing is a mess, and past cure, and 
 the only resource is, for me to take myself 
 off." 
 
 *' Oh ! but that is so hard upon me," said 
 Helen, with tears in her eyes. " You must 
 stay, darling;" and she stooped down and 
 kissed his forehead. 
 
 At this moment Lord Teviot entered, but 
 seeing how eagerly they were conversing, he 
 drew back. " Oh, come in, Teviot, pray 
 come in !" 
 
 " I will come back presently, if you are 
 engaged." 
 
 " No, I am not engaged, but Beaufort will 
 insist on going away to-day ; and I cannot
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 259 
 
 possibly let him. Beaufort, may I tell Lord 
 Teviot the whole story ?" 
 
 ** Certainly, my dear, if you like to repeat 
 such a foolish business." 
 
 "If it is a family secret my curiosity is 
 not ungovernable ; I had no idea you were 
 closeted together, for a mysterious story, or I 
 would not have interrupted you." 
 
 '' But it is no secret," said Helen; and she 
 told him all that had passed, which threw him 
 into such fits of laughter, that Beaufort began 
 to think the matter was not so serious as he 
 had supposed. 
 
 " Then you advise him to stay ?" said 
 Helen. 
 
 " In his place I should go, but " 
 
 " There, Helen, you hear what Teviot says." 
 
 *'You did not let me finish my sen- 
 tence," said Lord Teviot. ''I was going to 
 add that you cannot possibly go to-day, be- 
 cause you promised to dine with the Mayor 
 of N to-morrow, and your going away
 
 260 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 would be an affront to him and to G. and to 
 nie," &c., &c. 
 
 "Yes, that is clear," said Helen. "Long 
 live the Mayor of JST ! and now, Beau- 
 fort, I will tell you how it shall all be. 
 Mary and I will go out riding with Ernest 
 only, and you shall join us accidentally, and 
 make your peace while Ernest and I are can- 
 tering on first; and then follow us directly. 
 You and Mary will, of course, hate each other 
 for the rest of your lives, but that does not 
 signify. So now it is all settled. You are 
 going to drive Lady Portmore, of course, 
 Teviot?" 
 
 *' Of course," he replied, though provoked 
 that Helen took it so coolly for granted. 
 
 "And the Douglases are going to pay a 
 visit in the neighbourhood. Mr. G. may ride 
 with us if he likes ; he will never discover any 
 little treaty of peace that is made under his 
 eyes, and without a red box. The rest are 
 out shooting I believe. But there is poor
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 261 
 
 Mr. Fisherwick, something really ought to be 
 done for him." 
 
 " He is quite happy ; there are despatches 
 both from Lisbon and Madrid ; quite enough 
 to keep him in perfect content till dinner." 
 
 *'Then we are all provided for," she said, 
 and ran off to Mary. Everything came to 
 pass as planned. The riding party set off. 
 Lord Beaufort surprised them by a clever 
 ambuscade from the stable wall; he told 
 Mary he had been quite mistaken and wrong 
 in what he had asserted, and was sorry that 
 she had overheard it. Mary agreed with 
 him in both these propositions, and said she 
 should think no more of it, which was a bold 
 assertion. He begged her to forgive him, for 
 Helen's sake, and hoped she would shake 
 hands to show they were friends. She sug- 
 gested that their shaking hands might have 
 an alarming effect on the nerves of the grooms 
 who were riding behind them, but she forgave 
 him with all her heart ; and then she contrived
 
 262 The semi-attached couple. 
 
 to give Selim a slight touch with her whip, 
 which brought him cleverly up to the rest of 
 the party ; and so the affair ended, with a little 
 additional dislike on the lady's side, and some 
 irksome recollections on the part of the gen- 
 tleman. 
 
 Lady Portmore had already seen Mary, and 
 proved to her that she had not such a friend 
 as herself; that when she had said Mary was 
 cold hearted, she meant quite the reverse, and 
 so on. La Grange gave one or two mal-a- 
 propos laughs when they met at dinner, which 
 were put down by acclamation, and the only 
 person who derived unmixed delight from the 
 occurrence was Mrs. Douglas. Eliza told the 
 story to her, and she was charmed, because it 
 enabled her to give a little hit at all parties. 
 She hoped it would cure Lady Portmore of 
 that excessively improper practice of sitting 
 gossiping half the morning with the gentle- 
 men. She knew it was the right thing to say 
 that Mary had not jilted Colonel Stuart, but
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 263 
 
 somehow she, Mrs. Douglas, should never get 
 rid of the impression that she had ; and she 
 had never been more surprised than she was 
 to hear that Mary was only just of age. She 
 looked six-and-twenty at least, and if Colonel 
 Stuart were her only lover, much could not 
 be said for her success in life. She only won- 
 dered that Lord Beaufort did not get into 
 more scrapes from his unguarded way of talk- 
 ing ; and she supposed that if Lady Teviot 
 ever could believe him to have a fault, she 
 could not be much pleased at finding he spent 
 his mornings in taking away the reputation of 
 her friends. Colonel Stuart §nd Fisherwick 
 were the only people not in the secret ; the 
 first, because Lady Portmore had not had an 
 opportunity of talking to him, and Fisherwick, 
 because he had been writing from ten in the 
 morning till the dressing-bell rang, when he 
 took a run in the dark, round the shrubbery, 
 and came down to dinner looking yellower 
 and more narrow-chested than ever ; but de-
 
 264 THE SEMI- ATTACHED COUPLE. 
 
 daring that nothing agreed so well with " us 
 official men " as plenty of fresh air and ex- 
 ercise. 
 
 " I am afraid you had not time for a ride 
 to-day, Mr. Fisherwick," said Lord Teviot, 
 civilly. 
 
 " No, my lord, though it was rather an idle 
 day with me ; but I indulged in a charming 
 walk, only the sun was rather low '* (it had 
 been gone down about an hour) ; *' but he had 
 a ride I was happy to hear. Exercise is so 
 good for him, that I was delighted to find our 
 despatches were not of a nature to keep him 
 at home all day." 
 
 '* Exemplary creature," murmured Ernest ; 
 '' why have we not each a Fisherwick ?" 
 
 Vain wish, unless each were a cabinet mi- 
 nister. There are hours in which the devoted 
 lover grudges the attendance on his mistress 
 which keeps him from Tattersall's ; the de- 
 voted husband expects his wife to attend solely 
 to him, and even the devoted parent has mo-
 
 THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE. 265 
 
 ments in which the impulse to give the idol- 
 ized child a good shake is almost irresistible. 
 All have their provocations and their fits of 
 doubt and impatience. But the private secre- 
 tary has none. He believes his chief to be 
 faultless, and his official plans to be unequalled. 
 He identifies himself with the man and the 
 system. The minister and the red boxes, the 
 treaties and the bills, the blue ribbon and 
 the red tape, the members and the messengers, 
 are all part and parcel of what he calls public 
 life ; they all stand on the same line ; he looks 
 upon them as the attributes of the individual 
 who has made him a private secretary ; and 
 he worships and writes. 
 
 " Eemember you are all up early for break- 
 fast to-morrow," said Lord Teviot as the 
 ladies withdrew at nis'ht : " we must be off in 
 good time ; there is the new bridge to open, 
 and the collation to eat, and G.'s speech to 
 hear, and we are six miles from the scene of 
 action. Above all things, I recommend an
 
 266 THE SEMI- ATT ACHED COUPLE. 
 
 elaborate toilette, for the sake of my friend 
 the mayor, who hoped I should bring a 
 * smart party.' " 
 
 " An awful prospect ! Will you tell my 
 servant to call me the day after to-morrow ?" 
 said Ernest, turning to the groom of the cham- 
 bers as he walked off to bed. 
 
 Mr. Phillips was too well educated to smile ; 
 but he thought it an excellent joke, and cut it 
 over again on his own account to the stew- 
 ard's-room boy, which made all the ladies' 
 maids nearly die of laughing. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON : PRINTED BT W. CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET
 
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