COMPTON AUDLEY. VOL. I. LONDON ! PRINTED BY SAMUEL BENTLEY, Bangor House, Shoe Lane. COMPTON AUDLEY; HANDS NOT HEARTS. BY LORD WILLIAM LENNOX. The hands of old gave hearts ; But our new heraldry is — hands not hearts. Shakspeare. Un tel hymen est l'enfer de ce monde. Voltaire. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON : RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET, 1841. N/. \ COMPTON AUDLEY. CHAPTER I. To Thee, to Thee, On this appointed day shall thanks ascend, That Thou hast brought our warfare to an end. Oh, 'tis a goodly Ordinance ! the sight, Though sprung from bleeding war, is one of pure delight. Bless thou the hour, or ere the hour arrive, When a whole people shall kneel down in prayer, And at one moment, in one spirit strive, With lip and heart, to tell their gratitude For thy protecting care, Their solemn joy, praising the Eternal Lord For tyranny subdued, And for the sway of equity renewed, For liberty confirmed, and peace restored, Wordsworth. The day appointed for the thanksgiving at St. Paul's for the restoration of the bless- VOL. I. B 2 COMPTON AUDLEY. ings of peace, opened with a bright summer morning, in the month of July, 1814. Al- ready the bells were loudly ringing from the numerous steeples of the city; various corps of military, with " olive branch and laurel crown," lined the streets, through which the expected procession was to pass, while the thunder of the cannon, reverberating at in- tervals, through the streets and squares of the mighty metropolis, announced its approach to the cathedral. At length the grand solemnity began. Every voice was, for the moment, si- lenced. The holy liturgy was chanted ; and to the throng of beating human hearts, with all their secret scrolls of buried grief, were given the treasures of immortal hope. " Hark ! how the flood Of the rich organ harmony bears up Their voice on its high waves." The inspired anthem of praise now echoed. COMPTON AUDLEY. 3 through the lofty aisles of the Christian tem- ple ; the full, deep, swelling tones of the organ went forth in murmured thunder; the hymns which Miriam sang and David tuned, the re- spondent chant and service, the inspiring, sa- cred hallelujahs filled the vast pile; and, as the concluding benediction was given, all eyes were turned upon one man ; — upon him, the hero of a hundred fields, who never advanced but to cover his arms with glory, and who never retreated but to eclipse the very glory of his advance : who, upon the banks of the Douro and the Tagus, of the Ebro and Ga- ronne, had won the hearts of nations; whose generous and lofty spirit inspired his troops with unbounded confidence, and taught them that the day of battle was ever the day of victory ! whose name will remain an imperish- able monument, exciting others to aim at like deeds of patriotism ; whose campaigns were sanctified by the cause, were sullied by no B 2 4 COMPTON AUDLEY. cruelties, no crimes; the chariot wheels of whose triumphs were followed by no curses, and who upon his death-bed might remember his vic- tories among his good works. The memory of the contests, the sight of those who had survived the destruction of the battle field, associated as all was with the du- ties of religious worship, was well calculated to inspire the purest feeling of veneration, and produce an influence on the mind, ap- proaching to sublimity. A spirit of holiness cast over every soul a glow of patriotism, and the service of* the nation's thanksgiving was, on this great occasion, performed with a oneness of sentiment and feeling, perhaps hitherto unparalleled. The ceremony was ren- dered still more intensely effective by the pre- sence of the conqueror of conquerors, who, at the distance of a hundred years, revived the glories of a Marlborough, and outwent the expectations of the people who confided in his strength. COMPTON AUDLEY. 5 The service ended, the gathered multitude again went forth, yet pressing, clinging and struggling still around the church; " for" to use the good language of Southey" the people would not be debarred from gazing till the last moment upon the Hero, the darling Hero of England." A temporary lull now prevailed ; the crowd drew simultaneously back, and the Duke of Wellington came forth to thrill the one heart of the people, whose battles he had fought. Meanwhile, the various bands of music struck up the inspiring air, " See the con- quering hero comes!' 1 handkerchiefs waved, and shouts, cries, and huzzas, burst upon the ear from all quarters. Screams and laughter were intermingled in the general melee, but the pulse of joy which throbbed in the great breast of a nation might be heard as it sometimes is in a single human breast. In the midst of this maddening confusion a young officer was endeavouring to thread his b COMPTON AUDLEY. way, when the words " Dudley; Mr. Ravens- worth !" pronounced by a voice he could not mistake, suddenly attracted his attention, and on looking round he perceived the beautiful Constance Graham separated from her party, and struggling amidst the crowd which thronged the space near to which the car- riages of the company were drawn up. It was their first meeting, it may be here observed, after a long separation ; and in a few moments her young lover, in spite of all the many obstacles that stood in his way, was at her side. He had much to say, and amongst other things, many enquiries to make respect- ing both her family and herself ; but at this moment, Lady Margaret Graham's carriage was announced, and by a very fortunate com- bination of circumstances exactly at the instant when Dudley Ravensworth, and the fair Con- stance happened to rejoin that lady and her friends. COMPTON AUDLEY. 7 " Constance ! " said Lady Margaret, ft where have you been ? I have been looking for you for the last quarter of an hour. Oh ! Mr. Ravensworth, how kind you are ! and now, since I have leisure to ask, pray where are you to be heard of?" " We shall meet to-morrow at White's ball," said Dudley ; who, probably, considered the present time too short for a more explicit explanation, with regard to his movements. " I regret," returned Lady Margaret, with a most gracious smile, and pausing before the steps of the carriage, " that we cannot obtain tickets ; our particular friend, Lady Mary Somerton, is at present out of town, and several others are so much dispersed at this time, that I fear we must be contented to be absentees." " How unfortunate !" said Dudley, address- ing the observation, however, more to himself than to Lady Margaret ; " but possibly Lady 8 COMPTON AUDLEY. Margaret might allow me to exert my influence in the matter ? — I know the committee well," he added in some confusion, for he knew not exactly how his offer might — for various causes afterwards to be explained — be received : Lady Margaret, however, very frankly accepted his proffered services, and it was agreed that he should call at Grosvenor Square next day, in order to report progress. " We dine in Portland Place at the Strath- connelsy said Lady Margaret, following her daughter into the carriage, M and in case you should receive the tickets late you will find us there;"" and having thus spoken, Lady Margaret and her fair charge were whirled off to that place, which no other place is said to be like — « Home." The morning came, — four, five, six o'clock, and Dudley did not, as he himself had pro- mised, appear. Constance, however, did not despair, though her mother vented her anger COMPTON AUDLEY. 9 in sundry apothegms and observations which went to prove that all young men, and Dudley Ravensworth amongst them, were flighty, idle, sincere only for the moment, and totally and irreclaimably forgetful of both duty and pro- mises. In fine, half-past seven arrived, and the carriage was at the door. As it stopped before the mansion of the Strathconnels 1 a gentle tap at the window attracted the attention of Con- stance, and on looking round she beheld Dudley by her side on horseback, with the tickets for White's ball in his hand. Con- stance's scarcely suppressed exclamation of thanks — her look of joyful surprise, the bril- liant smile of pleasure that beamed on her countenance, more than repaid Dudley for the trouble he had undergone. He had just time to put the much envied tickets into Constance's hands when another carriage drove up. " I dine with Spencer at the Albany, 1 ' said Dudley, addressing Lady Margaret ; " if I can B 5 10 COMPTON AUDLEY. be of any service in escorting you, command me." But to this arrangement, Lady Mar- garet, influenced it may be by her own prin- ciples of returning prudence, demurred. They should meet, at any rate, she merely observed, and Mr. Ravensworth must give himself no further trouble upon their account. This celebrated ball, the most brilliant, per- haps of any other assembly of the season, quite realised the expectations of Constance. She was herself in excellent spirits. The company, distinguished as it was, was numerous ; yet not too much so. Dudley Ravensworth was a partner in the dance very much to her mind ; nor need we add, that he had long since obtained that degree of interest in her heart which makes memory and hope sisters in joy. During the drive home, Lady Margaret took care to express how very much she disap- proved of the manner in which Constance wasted her time on a detrimental, as she called COMPTON AUDLEY. 11 all younger brothers. Mr. Ravensworth she allowed was very well to dance with, once or so during the evening; but to devote herself to him was, to say the least of it, very injudicious. It was unprofitable, fruitless; and had not Constance unconsciously dropped during the long mentorian harangue into a kind of slumber, the happy pleasures of the evening were likely to have ended in many painful and perplexing reflections. It is now time, however, to introduce more particularly to our readers the party who had thus accidentally encountered the young mill- taire on the day appointed for the general thanksgiving at St. Paul's. The family of Sir Alexander and Lady Margaret Graham con- sisted of an only child, Constance Graham. Lady Margaret herself, descended from a dyn- asty of antediluvian lords, which boasted itself uncontaminated by the mixture of plebeian blood, was the daughter of a Scotch Earl, poor 12 coMpton audley. and proud — a common alliance ; and having been disappointed in her first love, had con- descended to attach herself to the semi-nobility of a baronet. Imperious in manner, with a proud and commanding spirit, she possessed a pedigree mania to an alarming extent. Rigid and censorious in her judgment of others; wholly destitute of feeling, and exquisitely pre- cise in all the forms of life (never having herself swerved the millionth fraction of an inch from the rectilinear routine of exact propriety) ; selfish and narrow-minded, her charity was entirely passive, consisting of a few expressions of surprise and sympathy. She had contrived even from her childhood to have her own way ; in a word, she had governed her parents, her relations, her husband, and now exercised a strict and uncompromising discipline over her daughter. Her discourse was peremptory, her gait ungainly, and she drew out the thread of her verbosity finer than the staple of her COMPTON AUDLEY. 13 argument. Her ambition had been to reign as a star of fashion, and she had attained that eminence by banishing all traces of heart from her proceedings, and by keeping aloof from every one, whether bound by the ties of blood or gratitude, that was not admitted into the exclusive circle of fashionable life. Lady Margaret was a most expert chaperon ; her tactics in a ball-room were pre-eminently conspicuous. She had the art of walking the room so as to shun all bores and detrimentals, — only fit to call carriages, and get boas and shawls, and to encounter (by chance) all the eligibles. She was ever ready with excuses of " headaches," u uneven floors, 1 ' 44 heat of room s," 66 carriage called," " sprained ancle," or any other impromptu afflictions, when a younger son presumed to ask Constance to dance. Sir Alexander himself was one of those good kind of every-day men, of which genus we have more in the world than of any other. 14 COMPTON AUDLEY. He was good-tempered, till fretted — liberal, till forced to calculate his income with reference to his expenses ; good-hearted, open, and hos- pitable to those with whom he wished to be well ; and very cold — absolutely frigid towards those with whom, like Orlando, he desired to " be better strangers." In short, Sir Alexander Graham was one of the common lot; though for the honour of humanity, he had ever proved himself a most excellent husband, and a most affectionate, as well as at all times a very exemplary father. Graham castle was an old Norman fortress, occupying the summit of a gently rising ground in the middle of an extensive range of pasture ground or chace. The outward fortifications, together with a majestic river encircling it on the west and north, had made it, according to the mode of warfare then in use, an almost impregnable place of strength. It was en- compassed by a high wall, six feet in thick- COMPTON AUDLEY. 15 ness, and several hundred yards in length, embattled and strengthened at intervals with lofty square towers, defended by loop-holes, and by rows of machiolations for pouring down melted lead and scalding water on the heads of assailants. Within these walls was placed, after the Norman manner of building castles, the habi- tation of the owner and his warrior retainers ; the doors opening upon, and the windows looking into, the court. One side descended in a gradual slope to the river which ran beneath, and this side had formerly been doubly de- fended, not only by the outward walls, which now however no longer existed, but by those of the castle, strengthened in the centre by the keep, a large square tower of hewn stone- work, of immense and gigantic height, and which still remained to this our modern day in nearly its original state, though tenanted chiefly by the twilight bat and the ominous 16 COMPTON AUDLEY. owl. The stones of the old battlements which had withstood the assault of hosts, were now rent and rifted by the warfare of ages. " And there they stand, as stands a lofty mind, Worn, but unstooping to the baser crowd, All tenantless, save by the crannying wind, Or holding dark communion with the cloud. There was a day when they were young and proud, Banners on high, and battles passed below ; But they who fought are in a bloody shroud, And those which waved are shredless dust ere now ; And the bleak battlements shall bear no future blow. Considerable repairs, however, had been made to the other parts of the edifice, by the grandfather of Sir Alexander. The dila- pidated walls, and other decayed portions, were new-faced or rebuilt from the foundation ; and, amongst other improvements, a marble fountain had been erected in the centre of the quad- rangle, while the massive stone-mullioned casements, which scarcely admitted the light, COMPTON AUDLEY. 17 had been succeeded by sash windows of plate glass. Still, however, the castle, with its walls and towers, hoary with the lichens of age, and its elaborate case-work of sculptured free- stone, preserved much of its ancient appear- ance of stern magnificence and feudal gran- deur. The interior, too, still retained much of its original character. The large hall, some seventy feet long by about thirty feet broad, panelled with dark wainscot, was furnished with several rows of long oak tables and benches. Over the carved doors, surmounted with heavy entablatures, were displayed some spoils of the chase, or the battle of days gone by. Over some branched the stately antlers of the red deer, and over others grinned the wolf's head : the walls were hung round with suits of ancient armour, faded waving banners, shields, and lances, — the accoutrements of its former martial possessors. — Whichever way you 18 COMPTON AUDLEY. turned, helm, hauberk, and twisted-mail, spear, rapier, musket, pike, and morion, broad-sword, and target, frowned upon you. Some had seen goodly service : one sword bore witness to Palestine, by the inscription on its blade — "a cruce salus, 1196. Effingham Graham:" — for Sir Alexander's ancestors had fought side by side with their sovereigns, in the wars of the Crusades, — of the white and red roses, or led their vassals at Agincourt, Cressy, Poictiers, and Bosworth. Some had suffered with the martyred Charles in the battles of Edge- hill, Stratton, Lansdown, and Naseby. That kneeling figure, representing the sol- dier and the saint, whose blood had pur- pled the dark field of Marston Moor, brought back the patriot Hampden, and all the horrors of that unhappy war. Others had triumphed with the son of Charles, the merry Monarch. All testified that Gra- COMPTON AUDLEY. 19 ham Castle had borne the stern brunt of ruthless war ; that its " donjon keep " had heard the laments of many a solitary pri- soner ; that many an open deed of blood had been perpetrated in its halls. The dark tapestried apartments, with their mythological and scriptural histories, wrought by the fingers of high-born dames ; — their huge hearths, — the tall-backed, carved, oaken chairs, — antique ebony cabin- ets, set upon legs that resembled scrolls, and huge, mis-shapen, heavy chests, — rich velvet hangings, — fretted cornices, — cedar panellings, — old family portraits of ancient knights, and their ladye loves, primly dressed in starched ruff, jewelled stomacher, and high-heeled shoes, seemed starting from their canvass, and would make the gazer fancy himself in the courts of eld, taking him back to those days of love and chi- valry, of festivity and magnificence, to 20 COMPTON AUDLEY. the age of early minstrelsy and song, and feudal hospitality, when its courts and halls were thronged with gallant knights and their retainers, fair dames, merry minstrels, and sandalled pilgrims. All these helped to realise the idea, that the present occu- pants of the Castle still wandered over its apartments before their time, and kept their revels in its chambers at least some two or three centuries before their appointed hour. Dudley Ravens worth had passed much of his time at Graham Castle. He could not follow, with his eye, a long series of family portraits, — he could not hear recounted the history of the tapestry rooms, — where the warlike adventures of some of the earliest ancestors of the Grahams were wrought into action by the fair hands of their ladies, — nor listen to the traditions which explained the various symbols of their ar- COMPTON AUDLEY. 21 morial badges, nor view the antique weapons, with which they fought, nor the tattered banners which they had purchased with their blood, — without imbibing something like the spirit of those times. He felt sensa- tions amounting to enthusiasm, for a family of such antiquity ; and his imagination bore him, against the stream of time, back to the days of chivalry and song. The lofty oriels, with their florid fretwork, even yet decorated with curiously painted glass, quaintly fashioned, and their colours blending through age into a dim and dusky brown, represented legends, armorial bearings, and inscriptions ; while the figures of grim and rugged warriors frowned from the painted casements, which otherwise had presented to the view a fair expanse of lawn and shrubbery, opening upon wild tracts of rough forest land, overrun with fern, and broken into dell and valley; bright water glancing in the fore- 22 COMPTON AUDLEY. ground, mountains with their fantastic outlines bounding the distance, and an occasional faint- ly revealed, perspective-like " vista with a void seen through," glimmering at intervals as a chasm in the hills permitted the eye to rest upon the far obscurity of uninterrupted distance. The approach to the castle was by a superb avenue of full-grown beech trees, through a noble park interspersed with immense oaks and elms, skirted by clumps of wood, untrodden dingles, and sequestered groves, and adorned by a magnificent sheet of water that ran its estuaries into the dells and thickets of the tangled and sometimes impenetrable forest- ground. The trees, too, had grown into every possible shape of picturesque luxuriance, and threw their heavy shadows and solemn glooms over the brighter verdure of the pasture be- neath. COMPTON AUDLEY. 28 " And there soft sweeps in velvet green The plain, with many a glade between ; Where tangled alleys far invade The depths of the brown forest shade ; And the tall fern obscured the lawn, Sweet shelter for the sportive fawn." The sheep feeding in scattered flocks, and the fallow-deer grazing near them, and seen occa- sionally through the gaps of the forest, in- creased the beauty of the scene, and added still more to its character of almost boundless and endless variety. 24 COMPTON AUDLEY. CHAPTER II. CONSTANCES CHARACTER. A radiant vision in her joy, she moved More like a poet's dream, or form divine, Heaven's prototype of perfect womanhood ; So lovely was the presence. Southey's Roderick. She alone in the abstract of herself, that small but ravish- ing substance, comprehends whatever is or can be wished in the idea of woman. Massinger. Of Constance Graham, the heiress of the before-mentioned fair demesne, we have at length to speak. Her countenance, though perfectly beautiful, and full of brilliancy and COMPTON AUDLEY. 25 animation, was naturally capable of great variety of expression. There was on her brow a meditative tone, almost amounting to seri- ousness, which it was difficult to reconcile with her general buoyancy and elasticity of cha- racter. But in this air of pensive thoughtful- ness — a sort of shadow of joy — there was no- thing that approached the sombre or the sad ; on the contrary, it was relieved and almost banished by the smiles which rose in rapid succession, like handmaids, to her bidding, and " did their spiriting gently ." There was a play of feature that revealed the inmost emotion of the soul; the cheek now flushing with pleasure, now pallid with thought ; the brilliant eye now alive with light, now deep- ening into repose, or melting with tenderness and feeling. Radiant with beauty, and over- flowing with natural spirits, Constance Graham enjoyed an equanimity of temper a toute ipreuve. VOL. I. C 26 COMPTON AUDLEY. Constance possessed an animated vivacity of disposition, breathing life and grace into every object it neared or touched, — mingled, however, with a benevolence of feeling which served to retain that admiration which mere beauty so often fails to secure. Hers was that species of beauty which it is difficult to describe, and which sets at defiance the powers of the painter and the sculptor ; it was that beauty, the most powerful charm of which consisted in expression : and there was, moreover, in the fair possessor of so many charms the most perfect unconsciousness of their existence. Too lovely to dread the rivalry of any one, too sincere to descend to affectation, or to admit for a moment of disguise, she won all hearts without the assistance of either art or artifice. There was one, however, from out of the crowd of her admirers, for whom she her- self indulged a feeling that perhaps exceeded the gentler attachments of friendship, — the COMPTON AUDLEY. 21 same who had so unexpectedly encountered her on the day of the public rejoicing for the peace. Dudley Ravensworth was the second son of Sir Francis Ravensworth. Of Sir Francis himself we may pause to say, that he had been a courtier and diplomatist by profession since his earliest years. He was an imperfect specimen of Sir Henry Wotton's definition of an ambassador, that is as far as the virtue is concerned, " a virtuous man sent abroad to lie for the good of his country ;" and at the pre- sent period of our history occupied, through dint of unwearying perseverance, an important situation in the neighbouring kingdom of Ire- land. Towering ambition was the main spring of his life ; self- aggrandisement the object of his existence. He was very conceited, of voracious vanity, though by no means good-looking; but of this last circumstance he was profoundly and obdurately ignorant ; he was a bore of c 2 28 COMPTON AUDLEY. stupendous magnitude, — a ci-devant jeune homme, unconscious of the meaning of the term has been, — a man of decayed fortune and broken constitution, — and very aristocratic in his notions ; he had an utter horror of all new creations, — Lords and Baronets springing up every year like so many mushrooms. Filled with lofty ideas of the consequence and dignity of ancient families, Sir Francis looked down with the most ineffable contempt upon the many upstarts of the day ; persons, as he was pleased to call them, " without grandfathers." He tyrannised over the weak, and succumbed to the strong ; he piqued him- self also on admitting to his acquaintance none under the rank of himself; station and the peerage being points of importance of such weight in his mind as to outweigh every other circumstance connected with the ordinary af- fairs of human life. His manner corresponded with this meta- COMPTON AUDLEY. 29 physical conception of dignity in the abstract. He measured out his bows exactly according to the rank of the party, from the saccha- rine smile, familiar nod, and " Ha ! how are you ? " to the formal bend, and " Your servant, sir." To the great he was humble even to fawning, full of smiles, with a ser- vile manner and sycophantic demeanour. To the poor, his haughtiness bordered on con- tempt. He could bend, where it was profit- able to bend, without considering whether the homage were worthily or unworthily bestowed ; he could smile with most fascinating sweetness of expression, without the least internal sensa- tion of pleasure or delight. Ravensworth manor was in the vicinage of Graham Castle, but the owner had not visited it for many years. With Sir Alexander Graham, Sir Francis was scarcely acquainted. A cold distant bow was the only recognition that ever passed between them when they had 30 COMPTON AUDLEY. met by accident. This feud had been ascribed to many causes, — to the deadly hatred of the two houses in the wars of Lancaster and York, when the ancestor of Sir Francis Ravensworth, taken prisoner at the battle of Northampton, was cruelly slain, and his property confiscated in 1460. It had also been traced to an old political struggle. Now, undoubtedly, there had been hereditary feuds in ruder times ; but they could not have actuated the present heads of the houses to nourish a personal dislike. It was some offence and slight which Sir Francis fancied had been shown him by Sir Alexander, that influenced his conduct, and which was as deeply resented by the owner of Graham Castle. At a public meeting, in which the former Baronet had in- dulged, " as was his custom," in bold asser- tions, irrelevant digressions, illogical and con- tradictory inferences, Sir Alexander had, in reply, pointed out the impossibility of " fol- COMPTON AUDLEY. 31 lowing the flights of visionary speculatists into the regions of theory and absurd hypothesis ;" and, in reference to some political job in which Sir Francis was implicated, proceeded to " bare the mean heart that lurks beneath a star."" Sir Francis was one of those who have not the judgment to reflect that men may be vio- lent political opponents, and yet enjoy the social intercourse of private life. With him every quarrel was a personal one ; his haughty and overbearing temper magnified every tri- fling dispute into an act of undisguised hos- tility. Matters, however, had not proceeded with Sir Francis so smoothly as he could have wished, or perhaps as he himself, from his general system of conventional propriety, had exactly deserved at the hands of destiny. His eldest son, to begin with, the heir-apparent of all that lineage, hitherto unmixed and un- tainted, had lately formed a mesalliance in Italy, which event had so exasperated him, 32 COMPTON AUDLEY. that all intercourse had eventually ceased be- tween him and his father ; and on Dudley, his second, he had now begun to look with an uneasy and unsleeping sort of suspicion, as if he too would suddenly end in perpetrating what Sir Francis considered as highly morti- fying and derogatory to the family dig- nity. Such, then, was his present position ; nor can we say that it was, all things considered, a very enviable one. With his son Dudley, however, we have more to do, and to him, therefore, we again return. Dudley Ravensworth had just attained his ninth year when he was sent to Westminster School. He had now grown up a tall hand- some youth, with a profusion of dark brown hair, fine large dark eyes, and a frank, open, and ingenuous countenance. His disposition was affable, though not tame. If he perceived what he imagined to be an affront, his natural COMPTON AUDLEY. 33 courage would break forth impetuously. His independent spirit, his goodnature, his talents, and a certain unexplainable magnanimity about him, soon gained him the affections of his schoolfellows ; for the weak ever found in him a champion and a protector, and the strong and the tyrannous a ready and resolute op- ponent. Alfred Graham, the only brother of Con- stance, was then a year his junior, and the generous disposition of the boys had led them to forget the jealousy that had so long existed between the heads of the families. Young Graham gave early promise of abilities of no common order ; indeed the mark of genius was indelibly stamped upon his brow. But his frame was unfortunately enfeebled by long illness, while his languid and sickly-looking expression of countenance indicated that his sufferings were not yet wholly exhausted. The deep red hectic spot burned on his cheek, adding c5 34 COMPTON AUDLEY. the mockery of beauty to the slow ravages of an incurable and subtle disease. His disposi- tion was extremely gentle and confiding ; and he had found in Dudley Ravensworth a friend after his own heart. Full, therefore, and un- restricted was the confidence on either side; sincere and fervent was the friendship of the youths ; but, alas ! like all other mortal friend- ships, theirs was soon destined to be dissolved. A numerous party had assembled at Graham Castle during the winter holidays, and Dudley Ravensworth had been invited to accompany his school companion and friend, and he had wrung from his father an unwilling consent to his accepting the invitation ; when, in the midst of the festivities, young Graham fell ill, and, to the grief of his family, this last attack of his insatiate disease was pronounced to be fatal, Constance was vigilant and unremitting in her attentions ; she would scarcely for a moment quit her brother's side : she watched COMPTON AUDLEY. 35 the progress of his melancholy disorder; her hand smoothed the pillow of the sufferer ; her kind heart suggested every plan for affording relief; then she would kneel, and with pure devotion join in the prayer for the sick and dying ; but her petitions were unavailing. Alfred sank with rapidity. Day after day saw him become weaker and fainter ; and in a short period of time the heir of Sir Alexander and the ambitious Lady Margaret expired. On the morning of his death the sun rose with unusual splendour. Dudley had watched all night by his bedside. The beams fell upon his beautiful countenance pale as alabaster. " Constance," said the dying boy, as he fondly took her hand, " we must part." " Say not so, dear Alfred. There is yet hope. Yes, yes, I know — I feel there is hope." " No, dearest, no : " he gasped for breath ; then, in a faint tone, murmured "Dudley — Oh, Constance — why is he not here ?" 36 COMPTON AUDLEY. " Dearest Alfred, he is here." " Dudley — Constance" — there was a pause ; his breath came short and quick, his lips moved slightly but uttered nothing, one con- vulsive sigh escaped him, he sank lifeless in the arms of his friend. This melancholy event left not an untouched heart in the village, and reduced the inmates of the castle to a state bordering on distraction. "Notwithstanding the warnings of philoso- phers, and the daily examples of losses and misfortunes which life forces upon our obser- vation, such is the absorption of our thoughts in the business of the present day, such the resignation of our reason to empty hopes of future felicity, or such our unwillingness to foresee what we dread, that every calamity comes suddenly upon us, and not only presses us as a burden, but crushes as a blow." — So writes Samuel Johnson on the death of his mother ; and who of my readers does COMPTON AUDLEY. 37 not feel the weight and truth of this obser- vation ? Nothing is more evident than that the very cradle witnesses the departure of a great portion of the human species, and equally certain is it that the decays of age must termi- nate in death. We hear every hour of it arresting the progress of the young, by casu- alty, pestilence, or sickness — or consigning the more advanced in age to " that bourne from whence no traveller returns." It presents it- self to us under various forms. The grave still yawns for the victims of loathsome disease, abject penury, destructive wars, devouring ocean, desolating fires, raging storms and famine; and yet with all these instances of the shortness and uncertainty of life, it seldom or ever comes home to us ; the subject of death is seldom present to our thoughts. Sorrow that happens in the very midst of gladness and rejoicing is felt to be peculiarly 38 COMPTON AUDLEY. bitter in its effects, as sickness falls heaviest on those who are in the full enjoyment of health ; and death, as it were, amidst life, startles and affrights the more by the contrast. Sir Alex- ander, Lady Margaret, his sister Constance, and his companion, Dudley Ravensworth, felt, as Alfred expired, stunned ; so terrible and so appalling was the blow. A week before, all was gaiety and joy ; " troops of friends," young, like himself, were alive with spirit. He was happy in all the brightheartedness of sunny boyhood ; and now, how was the scene changed ! On this occasion Dudley experienced a sen- sation, never known to him before ; when he thought of his departed friend he found ex- cuses for every weakness, palliatives for every fault ; he recollected a thousand endearments unreturned, a thousand favours unrepaid, and which had, at the moment, glided insensibly from his memory. Sad, therefore, were the COMPTON AUDLEY. 39 hours in which Dudley, a martyr to his grief, sat by the side of his early companion. Lady Margaret was not a distracted mourner ; she supported her affliction with great fortitude. The world gave her credit for extraordinary patience and resignation ; little did they know her submission proceeded from constitutional apathy. Dudley, now called into action, struggled against his own sorrow ; he was with the mourners, mingling his tears with theirs, cheer- ing and supporting them in the hour of dis- tress. Nothing that could tend to alleviate their grief was neglected. Constance, too, re- turned, spirit-bowed and heart-stricken, from Alfred's grave ; her tears fell * like the dew- drop from Heaven" on a parched soil. But let us not linger on this dark page of her existence. Time, the comforter, wrought its miracle ; it had softened the poignancy of grief, the wound was cicatrised. Time did its 40 COMPTON AUDLEY. work ; and, deeply as Constance wept over the untimely fate of her poor brother, she derived consolation from the knowledge that he was prepared to die. Religion sent comfort to her desolate bosom, and repelled the outpourings of despair. Ever since her brother's death, Constance had known no companion but her own sombre thoughts. Amidst the intensity and anguish of her grief she had no one near her to whom she could reveal the inward emotions of her heart. There were none, in fact, from whom she could derive either sympathy or consola- tion, or with whom she could interchange her thoughts and feelings.' Her father had soon recovered from his grief, severe as it had been ; her mother had latterly begun to con- sole herself in planning new schemes of ambi- tion in favour of Constance herself. In Dud- ley, however, the latter had found one to whom she could impart her sorrows equally with her COMPTON AUDLEY. 41 joys ; and from him, while he still remained with them, she received the only consolation her heart was fitted to receive ; for, with him, she could still mourn over the remembrance of her brother, while he as tenderly lamented his friend. What can be more delightful than the ap- proving voice of one who appreciates every thought that springs in the young and guile- less heart ? Need we to add, that the, at first, merely giddy and youthful preference of Dud- ley and Constance Graham for each other, soon ripened into feelings of deep, fond, and irradi- cable love ? 42 COMPTON AUDLEY. CHAPTER III. INTERVIEW PREVIOUS TO DUDLEY'S LEAVING ENGLAND. Here is my hand for my true constancy, And when that hour o'er slips me in the day, Wherein I sigh not for thy sake, The next ensuing hour some foul mischance Torments me for my love's forgetfulness. Shakspeare. We must take our readers back to the period when Dudley and Constance were now enjoying all the agremens of Graham Castle. The pleasure of being alone together was indeed deep and intense. Through the rich and beautiful woods, over the sunny lawns, COMPTON AUDLEY. 43 Dudley and Constance wandered on. It would, however, be uninteresting to detail the pro- gress of a feeling which grew with their growth and strengthened with their strength. There was an undefined and strange intelligence which informed them that they were be- coming inexpressibly dear to each other. Their eyes met oftener than they were for- merly accustomed to do, and on meeting were withdrawn in confusion. Their similarities of taste, their mutual admiration and delight, soon ripened into passion; they loved with all the intenseness of a first love ; it was not strange that two young hearts thus brought together should become one. Their morn- ings were spent in a luxurious far niente, in wandering around the beautiful scenery of Graham Castle, climbing its wild mountains, loitering upon its lakes, listening to the sound " of the light dip of the suspended oar. r> Their evenings were passed in the interchange 44 COMPTON AUDLEY. of conversation and music. They sang to- gether the most touching duets of Rossini, in which Dudley's deep- toned voice mated so well with Constance's beautiful contr'alto. They read together those musical scenes of Metastasio, so replete with the finest touches of poetry, so abundant in all the varieties and transitions of passion. Happy were they, perfectly happy in one another's society ; theirs was the dream of unalloyed delight. In a word, they loved. Constance had ever evinced the greatest generosity and candour towards Dudley ; she had neither concealed nor disguised her sen- timents, — no cold-hearted prudence had re- strained her ; conscious of the purity of her thoughts, she had given him all her love. But as usual, " the course of true love" did not go out of its way " to run smooth : " ru- mours had reached Sir Francis Ravensworth of the intimacy that was springing up be- COMPTON AUDLEY. 45 tween his son and the youthful Constance, and his diplomatic eye, being accustomed to penetrate into futurity, aroused his fears with regard to the important result, to which this at present all but childish attachment might lead ; he, therefore, issued a protocol desiring Dudley instantly to quit England, and proceed to travel on the Continent for at least a year. Three days were alone allowed him to pre- pare for his journey. As with all persons of enthusiastic temper- ament, Dudley called up those dreams the young are wont to form in the brighter period of their existence. He imagined it was easy to love on with unshaken affection, however distant the fulfilment of his hopes might be. He was not aware of the numberless influences which, during a prolonged separation, tend effectually to weaken, if not entirely to dis- engage a youthful attachment. As the day approached which was to wit- 46 COMPTON AUDLEY. ness his departure from England and Con- stance, his mind became dejected. Constance exerted all the powers of her heart to banish from him the sorrowing thoughts of that part- ing, which, though she betrayed it not, de- pressed her as deeply as her lover. It was on the evening preceding the day on which Dudley was to depart, that he wandered through a shrubbery bordering the river. Every tree was hallowed by a remembrance of the playmate of his infancy, the companion of his boyhood ; he sought a retired path to pursue undisturbed the train of his reflections, but was suddenly roused from his reverie by the sound of a footstep ; he looked round, and with the utmost surprise beheld her who had awakened the conflicting feelings he had been endeavouring to lull into repose. In a mo- ment he was at her side. They sat down together upon a rock that overhung the river; the stream, stealing calmly and silently COMPTON AUDLEY. 47 on at their feet, seemed as if unwilling to interrupt the quiet stillness of the evening, or the pensive disposition of the lovers"' thoughts, " So calm, the waters scarcely seem to stray, And yet they glide like happiness away." Dudley pressed Constance's hand gently, so gently, she could not be offended; he next prayed fervently for her happiness. " You will not forget me, Constance, when I am absent ? " he said, " you will sometimes think kindly of me/' "Forget you — never, Dudley!" was her energetic and promptly uttered reply, " my brother's best and dearest friend : " here re- membrance choked her voice, and, with a quivering lip, she faintly added in a tone that came directly from the heart, and went to it, " Never T Dudley, as he held her trembling hand in his, entreated her that she would wear a ring 48 COMPTON AUDLEY. which he now placed upon her finger; under the initials D. R. these words were engraved, u Amore e Costanza ! " " Yes, Dudley," she replied, " for your sake will I retain it even to my death hour. May heaven bless you !" then smiling through her tears, she added, " take this flower, this perishing trifle, 'tis all I have to give, keep it even when it is dead, for the sake of one who will never forget you." " Farewell, then, my dearest Constance ! I go happy ; if I return not, there is one true heart that will grieve for me." Their conversation, we need not say, was long and sad ; tears more than once attested their tenderness and their grief, but they vowed everlasting fidelity ; they promised frequent communication, and, at length, silently they proceeded in their return to the Castle. The next day was the last in which they were destined to share the bliss of each other's COMPTON AUDLEY. 4>y society. Few words were spoken by any of the party during dinner; Sir Alexander en- grossed Dudley's attention during the evening. At rather an early hour, too, Lady Margaret rose to retire, and with a chilly manner wished her departing guest " good night." At these words, Constance turned pale, her eyes met Dudley's, and, as he bade her a last adieu, he contrived to whisper to her, " Re- member ! " " Dudley, I will ! I will ! " was responded in the same stifled voice. She then turned away, lest her mother should witness her emotion. For some months Constance's mind was absorbed in the most melancholy thoughts, at the loss of the much prized presence of one to whom she had been united by ties the strongest and dearest. She looked in vain for the smile that was wont to greet her, and for the kind words that soothed her : the solitude VOL. I. D 50 COMPTON AUDLEY. that succeeded to grief made her experience all the misery of — " the dreary void, The leafless desert of the mind, The waste of feelings unemployed." But her tears were not the tears of unmixed bitterness ; he was gone, it was true, but she placed implicit faith in his love and fealty ; for, if there were truth in man, it must, she felt, dwell in the ingenuous breast of Dudley. Honour and he were in one brotherhood ; he had left her with the certainty of being be- loved ; that certainty cast a momentary bright- ness over the dark decree of fate, and helped to sustain her fortitude under circumstances of a nature more than commonly depressing to a young and sensitive being. Two years had now elapsed since Dudley's departure from England, during which period he had been cherishing his passion and pur- suing his studies at Gottingen ; and he had COMPTON AUDLEY. 51 only just returned from Germany, having been appointed ensign in the Regiment, when he had met Constance for the first time after his long absence, in the manner already de- scribed — at St. Paul's. d2 52 COMPTON AUDLEY. CHAPTER IV. LADY M. GRAHAM AND LORD ATHERLEY's CHARACTER. " Love should seek its match ; and that is love Or nothing ! Station — fortune find their match In things resembling them. They are not love ! Comes love (that subtle essence, without which Life were but leaden dulness — weariness ! A plodding trudger on a heavy road ! ) Comes it of title deeds which fools may boast? Or coffers vilest hands may hold the keys of? Or that ethereal lamp that lights the eyes To shed their sparkling lustre o'er the face, Gives to the velvet skin its blushing glow, And burns as bright beneath the peasant's roof As roof of palaced prince ? Yes ! Love should seek Its match ; then give my love its match in thine, Its match which in thy gentle breast doth lodge So rich, so earthly, heavenly, fair, and rich, As monarchs have no thought of on their thrones, Which kingdoms do bear up." Sheridan Knowles. COMPTON AUDLEY. 53 Dudley and Constance had loved before the death of Alfred, but they were then too young, too timid, and too little tutored in the skilful ways of life to arrange any plan for the fur- therance of their future correspondence ; still it could live upon its own resources ; and the very death of the friend and brother gave to it a charmed life. " The love where death hath set his seal, Nor age can chill, nor rival steal, Nor falsehood disavow." The young are bound to the will and the authority of their elders by many invisible ties ; but these same ties are, nevertheless, found to be fastened irrevocably around their victims. Dudley had, therefore, retired from the presence of his beloved Constance because fate and necessity had, as it were, compelled him from her ; and Constance had suffered him to depart, because she felt that she must still yield to the inclinations of those whom it had 54 COMPTON AUDLEY. hitherto been a dictate of her nature, as well as an obligation of duty, never to disoblige, contradict, or disobey. The lovers had, there- fore, been enforced to submit to the seemingly interminable separation of two years and four months, when the unexpected meeting at St. Paul's revived, in the hearts of both, that crouching but not dormant passion which, though it had been subdued for a while, had not by any means lost its energy. To return to the narrative : the ball at White's was succeeded by other fetes and festivities ; for of these there was scarcely any cessation so long as the first capital in the world saw within its lines a crowd of kings, princes, and potentates, assembled from all quarters of the world, from the frozen shores of the northern Baltic, to the sultry plains of the Portuguese Brazils. Thrown together in the gorgeous throng, and partakers, in part, of this general scene of na- tional festivity, Constance and Dudley rested COMPTON AUDLEY. 55 happily content in the secure affections of each other. Occasionally, too, they met ; and per- haps the secret unexplained confession, that each was subject to the control of a hostile power, added an interest to the circumstance of their meeting. — Love's natural atmosphere is danger. In the meanwhile, Dudley had called at Lady Margaret Graham's more than once : the first time he called she was refused, though he knew she was at home ; the next time, he had had the fortune or misfortune to find her in the drawing-room, alone ; and, on the third occasion, he had surprised her in com- pany with a large party of leading fashionables who had been convened together for the pur- pose of patronising, or, as it may be termed, getting up, a rival concert. Amongst the younger ladies was Constance. As Dudley's name was announced, Lady Margaret's vivacity of spirit suddenly left her, 56 COMPTON AUDLEY. for the barometer of her attention rose and fell as her visitors were considered worthy of her attention or not; and, instead of persevering in her arguments as an authoritative leader, she suddenly broke from the subject under dis- cussion, or agreed, at random, to whatever the coterie chose of themselves to propose. We live in a jealous state, since we live, for the most part, under the suspicious surveil- lance of those who take a watchful interest in all the details of our ordinary opinions, con- duct, and pursuits ; and Lady Margaret ac- cordingly watched, with lynx eyes and hasty glances, the manner of Dudley and her daughter as they met. In the mean time, the conversa- tion diverged into general topics ; and whether it was now continued upon trifles or not, Lady Margaret was called upon from time to time to perform her part. Dudley and Constance drew instinctively to- gether ; there was a crowd of troublesome COMPTON AUDLEY. 57 sofas, chairs, knick-knack tables, trifles affect- ing to be furniture, in their way, not to men- tion certain formidable groups of lay-figure visitors : yet they still contrived, nevertheless, to meet. The reminiscences of the past, a fluttering yet fond all-breathing hope of the future, a sympathy, in short, which it is im- possible to attempt to explain, affected their hearts, and threw an earnest life into their looks which made them poetry in a room full of prose. Dudley had drawn to a window from one side of the apartment ; Constance had ap- proached the same spot from another ; they both, doubtless, intended to enter the recess, yet, at the same time, nursed the hope that their mutual intention might appear to be sim- ply the result of accident. But Lady Mar- garet, who might have proved a match for Argus, here, though with much gentleness, and without apparent premeditation, interfered. »5 58 COMPTON AUDLEY. " Constance," she said, but Constance heard not. " Hera ! Constance, do love, go talk to Lady Heavy side for a few minutes — she is going away presently, and it looks so odd to see her seated by herself. " " But she is so tiresome, mamma, " said the unwilling Constance; " and I have seen so little of her, — compared, mamma, with your experience of her." " Well, well, Constance, as you please." This as you please^ was a formidable sound to Constance's ear, since it rather signified, from Lady Margaret's manner of pronouncing it, to be " as I please.' 1 '' " I will go, mamma," said Constance, timidly ; and, fearing lest the weight of her mother's resentment might eventually fall upon her friend and favourite Dudley Ra- vensworth, added, " which is the Dowager Lady Heavyside?" she was now preparing, and at once to obey, but Lady Margaret, like COMPTON AUDLEY. 59 another wily Lady Ashton over her modern but not less devoted Lucy, thought proper, at this juncture, to abandon the temporising system, and to resort to one more summary and explicit. " Mr. Ravensworth," she was now therefore pleased to say, " my daughter has so many duties to attend to, that I trust, you will in future excuse her absence, and " — mine also — were the words that were implied to follow ; but Lady Margaret spoke them not. " However, pray don't leave us," she added more kindly, seeing that Dudley was preparing to depart. *' At any rate, we shall see you at Almack's on Wednesday night. Lady Hazzleton has promised us tickets;" and in this vague style, partly courteous, partly serenely vin- dictive, was Dudley dismissed. Dudley felt satisfied with Constance, and not at all so with her mother. He feared too, at times, lest Constance might be gradually 60 COMPTON AUDLEY. induced to sever from him. That, however, was impossible with Constance; but we must allow something for a lover's fears, since these very fears are but so many proofs of the intensity of love. Fears are the mulberry leaves on which that idle silk-worm, love, feeds. Indeed, Dudley had no small reason to feel himself any thing but safe, when op- posed in a warfare of interests, with so deter- mined a she-diplomatist as Lady Margaret. In truth, that lady, but half an hour before the appointed levee of visitors, had summoned Sir Alexander to a tete-a-tete, which had for its object the future destiny of their daughter and heiress, Constance. "It occurs to me," observed Lady Mar- garet, after making a few desultory intro- ductory observations, ' too tedious to mention in this advertisement,' " that Constance is unhappy. She seems dissatisfied with home, and I much fear, entertains an idle hankering COMPTON AUDLEY. 61 after that good-natured creature, Dudley Ra- vensworth. Were her thoughts but diverted into a new channel, we might then have hopes of her. Lord Atherley seemed rather to ad- mire her the day he dined here, and he has called I dare say more than three times since, and has sighed twice. One visit we may take to ourselves ; but the others were meant, I have little doubt, for somebody else. Indeed, he told me, half confidentially, that he hoped for the happiness of a still more intimate ac- quaintance. A better title, a Marquisate or Dukedom, would have suited me (Lady Mar- garet seemed here to take no account of Con- stance,) as well ; but we cannot fashion every thing to our wishes. I think I should accept his offer ; besides the fortune is unexception- able. Now, pray, Sir Alexander, let me have your advice in all this." " Why, I really do not exactly know," replied Sir Alexander, in some embarrassment ; 62 COMPTON AUDLEY. ' I have no objection however, to be guided, by your judgment in the matter; — you know best." " Yes, very true : but you must think for yourself," returned Lady Margaret, who knew that she should have her own way, only she desired her husband's name and authority in any affair to which there could be attached anything like responsibility. " Now, to save all troublesome discussions, pray take care to discourage young Ravensworth, and have Lord Atherley about you as much as you possibly can, without appearing to act from any other motive than what mere chance might dictate. We must have him at Almack's ; and, to-mor- row, too, I think I may venture to take him to Lady Montgomery's. I '11 write this in- stant." On the following evening Portman Square rattled with carriages. Thither the high-born, the thoughtless, the gay, glided in the circling COMPTON AUDLEY. 63 throng. The spacious rooms of one of its largest houses were crowded almost to suffoca- tion, dazzling with bright lamps, bright jewels, and still brighter eyes. The drawing-rooms began to blaze " With lights by clear reflection multiplied From many a mirror." There was within a lively uproar of music, dancing, and conversation. Among the many beautiful and admired women present one sat retired — Constance Graham, — evidently anxious to avoid observa- tion. The simplicity and tone (if the word may be used) of her dress were in perfect ac- cordance with the innocence of her air and the thoughtfulness of her countenance. Two persons were close to her, one engaged in con- versation with her mother, Lady Margaret, while the other, Lord Atherley, was idling in the net in which he was enmeshed. In a few minutes they were joined by young Ravens- 64 COMPTON AUDLEY. worth, who, with a look of suppressed excite- ment, bowed, and stammered out an apology for his intrusion. He coloured, and asked Con- stance to dance with him. She too blushing, slightly assented. During the next quarter of an hour the fol- lowing broken conversation passed between them, interrupted often by the figure of the dance, and the nearness of Lady Margaret Graham and Lord Atherley, who had placed themselves close to the devoted pair. " Miss Graham — for you will not allow me to call you Constance, I hope you do not regret that I withdrew you from Lord Atherley, his conversation seemed deeply interesting ? " " Indeed, no J He never interests me much. He was discussing the merits of Rossini's new opera, which for once he admitted was worth the sacrifice of a hurried dinner: this led to one of his gastronomic rhapsodies; but, with all his faults he is very good-natured, and COMPTON AUDLEY. 65 I never can forget his kindness to poor Alfred." " Why not add, — and very rich ? " " His riches have no charm for me, as you, Mr. Ravensworth, must know." " There was a time when I thought so ; but one is apt to be deceived in everything." "You are unjust, nor will I answer your cruel remarks." " And yet, if you enter into the gaieties of London, and daily meet the rich and rare, is it not possible that I may some day " Constance's cheek now flushed; she turned slightly away from her partner, and was silent. In a few minutes she said, " I will forgive you, and all your error, if you will promise never to say more to me on the subject." The dance now ended, and Ravensworth, dis- satisfied and unhappy, led her to her mother. They were now obliged to separate ; Miss Gra- 66 COMPTON AUDLEY. ham occupied her former seat, and, when asked by Lord Atherley to dance, declined on the plea of fatigue. Shortly after the party retired, Dudley came forward and handed Constance to the carriage. Lady Margaret coldly wished him good night, and then, turning to her daughter, said with a degree of earnestness,— i( Constance, an end must be put to this. Mr. Ravensworth must find some one else to amuse himself with." " Mr. Ravensworth !" " Yes, Mr. Ravensworth ! I will not suffer my daughter to be made a fool of by this vain young man, and so I shall give him clearly to understand, if ever he shows the slightest in- dication of repeating his conduct of this evening." Constance sighed deeply, but replied not. " Well," continued Lady Margaret, " if you allow Mr. Ravensworth to dangle after COMPTON AUDLEY. 67 you, you will get the name of a flirt, or be looked upon as a forsaken one ; and re- member, Constance, there can be no greater disadvantage to a girl than to have it supposed her affections have been trifled with." COMPTON AUDLEY. CHAPTER V. almack's. " Parents have flinty hearts ! No tears can move them." Otway. Fortunately for Lady Margaret and her schemes, she found a willing helpmate in all her undertakings in her husband. Sir Alex- ander, who was kind whenever he was sincere, returned Lord Atherley's last three calls all at once, found him from home, and repeated the visit within a week. A family dinner was the next thing which Lady Margaret got up, and then she opened her preciously arranged game of chances. COMPTON AUDLEY. 69 To remedy any obscurity that may attach to this expression, let us explain : — Lady Mar- garet, then, chanced to be going to the Opera on the night that succeeded to her family dinner ; she could accommodate Lord Atherley with a seat in her box if he chose, and she resolved to take her daughter that she might have the benefit of a musical lesson. Lady Margaret next chanced to promise to patronise a concert, and Lord Atherley had a ticket placed at his disposal. Her next chance was to take a bad cold which confined her to her apartments, and left her daughter to do the honors of the table, and maintain the conver- sation with Lord Atherley, who came to dinner upon a chance invitation from Sir Alexander after a visit to the exhibition, and a few turns upon horseback in the park. Lady Margaret's concluding chance was to get suddenly quite well again, and to venture to take an airing in a new curricle which Lord Atherley had built, 70 COMPTON AUDLEY. and, with Lord Atherley himself for her cha- rioteer ; and, as a finish to her doctrine of chances, she had Constance set in her place towards the termination of the drive, having chanced to forget an appointment with the re- doubtable Lady Heavy side, which appointment had had no previous existence. To one and all of these chance manoeuvres Lord Atherley had fallen a prey, and the result was, he became their appointed esquire to the forthcoming Almacks. The fact was, he admired Constance Graham. Indeed, he was in indolent love with her, and he followed for her sake in the wake of her mother. More- over, though there were richer heiresses than Constance Graham, there were few who pos- sessed a long descended family estate. One other motive for Lord Atherley's attachment remained ; he thought he had rivals, and it was his desire that he and he alone should carry off the prize. Lady Margaret, too, ever appeared COMPTON AUDLEY. 71 to him a good-natured, obliging, simple minded, woman, and Sir Alexander a man of good honest principles, only a little too generous, at least such were his lordship's impressions of the parties. He now became a frequent visitor in Grosvenor-square, where he dined almost daily. Constance was annoyed at seeing so much of him, and provoked to find herself the object of his attention. But to the Earl of Atherley, who, according to Boyle, was described as " Earl of Atherley, Grosvenor-square ; Compton Audley, Warwick- shire; Wingfield Manor House, Hampshire :" — he was a nobleman of very large property and of very limited understanding. He had also the good fortune to be a bachelor of forty; having let that amount of time slip through his fingers, — neither he, nor any one about him could very well tell how. He was, accord- ing to the account his friends gave of him, " the most good-natured easy man in the world." 72 COMPTON AUDLEY. He wished to marry Constance Graham, as has been intimated, partly for love, or what he called love, and partly from interest, being de- sirous of becoming the possessor of the old baronial territory, Graham Castle. He had been a comely youth in his seventeenth year, and had, as the military phrase is, carried his colours through ; that is, he retained an unde- throned rosy countenance, under grey hair tending to white : of course there was the usual romantic story, that for love unrequited his hair had undergone a Protean change in one night. Alas ! the only grief that had ever be- fallen Lord Atherley, was the loss of a horse or dinner, and the failure of a plan, entirely of his own invention, for propelling balloons by the not very aerial means of a steam- engine. He was one of those bizarres mentioned by Madame de Stael, " a. Fegard des femmes, qu'il leur pardonne plutot de manquer a leurs devoirs, COMPTON AUDLEY. 73 que d'attirer Tattention par des talens distin- gues." He studied only, to use a phrase of Dr. Johnson's, t( one of the arts that aggran- dise life;" viz. Cookery. His precept was " In solo vivendi causa palato est ;" his practice, to devote his best energies to his masticatorial duties. This oracle of culinary love piqued himself in fact upon being a bon vivant ; a gourmet of taste and sentiment, he possessed " une erudition gastronomique tout a fait effrayante. , ' " Nothing like good eating and drinking to bring out the humanities." " La table est mon seul amour ; Manger, chanter, rire et boire, Voila mon ordre du jour — " were his constant themes, and he acted upon the maxim they implied. The way to his heart, to use a vulgar truism, was through his mouth. He was a ventripotent Apicius, a real epicure ; one who boasted that he never wasted his appetite on a joint. His vol. I. e 74 COMPTON AUDLEY. life was a confused melee, being as it were unfixed and without a motive, save in his meals, and there he was rigidly and inflexibly punctual. w The tocsin of the soul, the dinner bell," would at all times rouse him to action. We have now only to sum up this brief ac- count of Lord Atherley by saying, that among the loves of the great — as Alexander loved his horse Bucephalus ; Numa a lap-dog; Augustus a parrot ; Caligula a horse ; Virgil a butterfly ; Nero a starling ; Commodus an ape ; Helioga- balus a sparrow ; Honorius a chicken ; Baron Trenck a spider — so did Lord Atherley love gastronomy ; he discoursed of the science de gueirfe with as much gravity as if he was speaking of theology ; he reversed the saying of Moliere's miser, " II faut manger pour vivre et non pas vivre pour manger ;" and with some slight variation realised the line which the Roman epigrammatist has so pithily de- scribed — COMPTON AUDLEY. 75 f< Prandeo, poto, cano, ludo, (not much of the lego) Coeno, quiesco." " The noblest study of mankind is man." Lord Atherley studied man, and that man was him- self. Dudley in the mean time forebore to pay Lady Margaret any more morning calls ; his reception had been upon the last occasion, according to her ladyship's own phraseology, " the north side of friendly ;" and he therefore determined to await either Sir Alexander's return call, or some invitation to join Lady Margaret's evening circle. But he waited in vain ; no card from that quarter came to relieve the dull monotony of his present life ; and it would seem that both Sir Alexander and Lady Margaret, despite their personal good inclination towards himself, had made up their minds to forget and to forsake him. Their desertion was mortifying at any time ; but as it closed the path by which he could E 2 76 COMPTON AUDLEY. still hope to see and to converse with Con- stance, his solitude was distressed by impatient and vexatious reflections. At Almack's, how- ever, he should meet the party ; Constance might dance with him — he might again talk to her — he might again look upon her. In the course of the night he might be able to learn something of her mother's real disposition towards him. At all events he should pass the evening in the happy wealth of present bliss. The mother of Constance had said something, which he had heard but indistinctly, about her daughter's duties ; but at a ball, where people meet to dance, there could be no more real or feigned apologies. Alas, poor Dudley ! he knew not what the activity of Lady Margaret had within ten short days of Almack's ball brought about. He knew not what a hungry lion wandered in the path, in the shape of good comfortable eating and feasting, Lord Atherley. He knew not that COMPTON AUDLEY. 77 Constance, somewhat unexpectedly brought into every-day contact with a man whom her father and mother invariably and actively flat- tered and caressed, found herself entangled by invisible strings, from which in vain could she shake herself free. To Almack's, however, he went ; it was his forlorn hope, and all his happiness was ventured upon the success or disappointment of the wished-for night. Al- mack's ! what magic is in thy name ! what a sway and importance does it exercise over the fashionable world ! its origin is incidentally noticed by Horace Walpole, " There is a new institution which begins to make, and if it proceeds will make a considerable noise. It is a club of both sexes, to be erected at Almack's, on the mode of that of the men at White's. Mrs. Fitzroy, Lady Pembroke, Mrs. Leynall, and Miss Lloyd are the pa- tronesses." 68 What's in a name?" With what power- 78 COMPTON AUDLEY. ful emotion does many a fair bosom beat at the mention of Almack's ? In what clime can be seen a more radiant assemblage of rank, of beauty, and of fashion than grace these rooms ? No one ever yet stood " amidst the glittering throng," and saw the galaxy of fair women shine around, — the beautiful faces and noble forms of England's sons and daughters, without feeling assured that more beauty met the gaze at once than could be found together in any other part of the globe. It has been the fate of the ladies patronesses to be attacked from many quarters, and abuse has been heaped upon the institution. These attacks are natural enough, emanating, as they do, from disappointed parties. Though the power which the administration possess is absolute, and without appeal, it is seldom exercised in a capricious manner. Much has been said of the " despotism of the auto- COMPTON AUDLEY. 79 cratesses," of their personal dislikes, political biases, individual prejudices and partialities. But how can these influence their decision, unless, indeed, under a coalition cabinet ? Their office is no sinecure; the trouble of opening, reading, and replying to, a host of applications is enough to try the patience of less irritable beings than lady patronesses. And what has made " Almack's ? " Fashion ! Fashion ! — a varnish which is much used for the purpose of imparting a false gloss. It is like most other varnishes, — of a poisonous nature ; and produces the strangest effects upon the unhappy persons who use it. It causes "their tapers to burn to bed wise " when the sun rises. It occasions them to come to town for the winter at the sweet season when spring smiles in all her charms, and to go into the country for the summer just as the fall of the sallow leaf gives notice of the approach of winter. It makes them do many things that are ex- 80 COMPTON AUDLEY. tremely painful to them, and deters them from the pursuit of quiet, heartfelt enjoy- ment, from a dread of its petrifying dulness. Yes! the fascination of fashion is irresistible. Whether in patronising lectures on chemistry, animal magnetism, opera singers or dancers, fancy fairs, popular preachers, or industrious fleas ; it deprives them of the power of seeing, hearing, tasting, feeling, reasoning, or de- ciding for themselves, and compels them to see, hear, taste, feel, reason, and decide as - others do. But to return to Dudley. By some mis- chance he found that he had set out too soon for Almack's, and in order to avoid the tedium of waiting till others should arrive, he drove round by one of the principal theatres, into which he looked. The consequence was, that where he wished to touch time to the mo- ment, he arrived too late ; at any rate he was amongst the very latest. When he entered COMPTON AUDLEY. 81 the larger room, Constance, Miss Cressingham, Lady Margaret, and Lord Atherley were to- gether in a group, looking on upon the dancers. Constance was simply yet superbly dressed, and Lady Margaret appeared in a sort of tiara of diamonds of the larger size, admirably fashioned. The party too were evidently in high spirits ; and, to the consternation of Dudley, Constance laughed and talked, while she depended on the arm of Lord Atherley, who, if he had not, according to his own phraseology, " discussed claret enough to float a man of war," had discussed that which seemingly inspired him with spirits alive enough to affect love. Dudley advanced towards the party, uncer- tain for the first time what might be his parti- cular reception. The eyes of Lady Margaret wandered in every direction save towards him ; though she had watched him from the first. Lord Atherley had seen him, but he thought it E 5 82 COMPTON AUDLEY. better to keep Constance herself engaged till Dudley should absent himself. Constance's glance retained its usual kindly feeling, and, re-assured by her look, Dudley made direct for the party. Lady Margaret recognised him frankly enough, though she suffered him to approach almost close to her before she con- descended to acknowledge him; fortunately, at that moment her attention was called away by a young French count, who was bowing and smiling, and uttering mille graces, and who, mistaking Lord Atherley for a relation, begged to be presented to my Lord Atherley. Dudley approached Constance. He at- tempted to converse with his customary ease. She answered with embarrassment. " Give me that bouquet you wear," said Ra- vensworth in a low voice, "in return for the one I presented to you last week." With some hesitation she complied ; yet she looked around that her mother's vigilant eye COMPTON AUDLEY. 83 might not observe her, and, taking it from her bosom, she gave it tremblingly into his hands. Lady Margaret now turned, and motioned Lord Atherley away, who immediately led.Constance a promenade of the rooms. At this moment the approach of several per- sons caused Dudley to give way, and he drew back, — leaving Lady Margaret to her newly-ac- quired friend. In the mean time several sets of dances had been performed, and the ball " rolled on ;" but all seemed heat and glare, pain and oppression to Dudley ; who felt his spirits broken, his hopes disheartened, except at times when they rose in the agony of positive despe- ration to something like the heedless reckless resolution of the madman. His tortures were destined however to be still further increased, when he saw Constance herself stand up to a quadrille, having by her side Lord Atherley. " She is dancing to-night then," said Dudley 84 COMPTON AUDLEY. almost aloud, for he knew not at first what rules Lady Margaret had laid down for her daughter's conduct on the occasion. " Now then," he said, " * if heart be heart,' she will dance with me;" and just as the dance termi- nated he advanced directly to her, and made the request. Lord Atherley compressed his under lip, a visible sign with him of more than ordi- nary impatience. But the fears of Lord Ather- ley were unnecessary ; Constance had already received her lesson. " I am engaged, Mr. Ravensworth," she said, looking down. il And to whom ?" said Dudley, in a voice now subdued by excitement, driven as it were out of all the etiquette of society by the tortures he had endured. '* I mean," returned Constance, " that I shall not dance in the next set, — indeed, Mr. Ravens- worth, to-night you must excuse me." She would have added more, — but Lord COMPTON AUDLEY. 85 Atherley, with a scarcely suppressed sneer, here interfered, and led her, seemingly not un- willing, away from the spot. M Am I upon the earth ? " was the exclama- tion that involuntarily broke from Dudley, as the fond idol of his thoughts retreated without explanation, and even without apology, from his sight. " By heavens, some one must answer for this!" But the paroxysm of rage ended with the exclamation, and he remained pale and trembling, motionless as a statue, amidst the happy groups who neared and then dis- appeared from time to time before him. "Had Sir Alexander ordered all this ? Was he here ? or was it the false fair one Lady Margaret with whom he had just exchanged the compliments of the evening, with all the apparent candour of a faithful well-wisher ? or did Lord Atherley take upon himself to order that he should be repulsed ? " It may be supposed that his wrath against Constance for 86 COMPTON AUDLEY. trifling with his feelings was unappeased and unappeasable. The more he dwelt upon the difference of her behaviour in their preceding meetings, the more angry as well as amazed he became at the change. No explanation of her conduct had been attempted. The multitude of his suspicions tended however to confuse his judgment, and he could only abandon himself to the misery of his present emotions, without endeavouring to do anything that might re- lieve him from the distractions that oppressed him. There is nothing so uncongenial to the sor- rowing heart as boisterous gaiety and mirth ; yet for a whole hour he remained gazing upon the figures of the dancers, as if they had been the phantasmagoria sometimes described in a magic lantern ; the music, beautiful as it was, sounded more like a dirge for departed hap- piness than as a symbol of pleasure and re- joicing. Whether Constance danced or did COMPTON AUDLEW 87 not dance, was now of no moment to Dudley ; his eyes seemed immovable in his head, and burned with a heat which was almost excru- ciatingly painful. The ball had now, however, begun to thin, the musicians' notes became faint and languid ; the wearied smile of the few remaining dancers showed evident signs of the lateness of the hour; and Dudley, seeing all hope of favour at an end, turned with a stupified sensation of mingled sickness and grief to depart. He was passing onwards to the head of the stairs, the intoxicating strains of Weippert's inspir- ing harp had just ceased, when a soft voice whispered " Mr. Ravens worth !" In an instant the tempest ceased; he looked up and be- held Constance, who, under the pretext of getting her handkerchief, which she had dropped, had separated herself from her mo- ther. Overpowered by a thousand feelings, it was some little time before she could attempt 88 CO^MPTON AUDLEY. to speak. She looked round, as if to see that no one was near her, and then said, or rather stammered, " I cannot now attempt to explain. You know what feelings I always have with you, but " " Why so you say, Miss Graham ? " said Dudley peevishly ; " but really I begin to doubt your assertion. For you have always some excuse for not dancing with me." " Now this reproach is unkind." " Yet, nevertheless, it is true. There was a time, and not very distant either, when you gave me to understand you did not care about Lord Atherley ; but wealth " " Do not — oh, do not be unjust!" replied Constance in an agitated manner ; " I cannot bear it ! I must go away, — you mistrust me." While they talked, Lady Margaret and Lord Atherley approached. There was no time for further remark or explanation. " Say you forgive me," said Dudley, the COMPTON AUDLEY. 89 deep low tone of his voice almost sinking to a whisper, as he drew back to let her pass. The carriage was announced. " Constance, my love, take Lord Atherley's arm ; get into the carriage, or they will drive off. We can take you home, Lord Atherley. Not the least crowded. We must set Mary down first in Palace Yard. My dear Mr. Ravensworth, I entreat you to come to my assistance. My cloak and shawl, No. 134. How very kind of you r Dudley, at that moment, was meditating how he could approach Constance. Lady Mar- garet's quick eye marked his discomfiture. To leave her and Miss Cressingham was out of the question ; he was forced to offer his arm. Lord Atherley and Constance were at the bottom of the stairs, as the remainder of the party advanced. " Lady Margaret Graham's carriage stops the way !"" echoed through foot- men, constables, and link-boys. The carriage 90 COMPTON AUDLEY. being ready, Lord Atherley handed Constance in. It was impossible for her to hazard a re- mark without the certainty of being overheard by her mother or Lord Atherley. A low mur- mur of " how unkind !" reached her ears, but it was drowned by the impatient coachman ma- king his horses'* feet paw the ground to be gone. Dudley, agitated, mortified, and grieved at having parted without one word of explanation or kindness, remained for a moment at the door. Constance, — her face averted and tongue motion- less, — had sunk back in a corner of the carriage for a moment overcome ; then, reproaching her- self for her apparent sullenness in having thus parted without taking leave, looked out anxious to recall her self-imagined unkind conduct, but it was too late. Dudley had turned away, and the horses were in motion. Constance continued to look — but in vain. She felt angry at heart, at* having exposed herself to the harsh opinion COMPTON AUDLEY. 91 of one she valued, and the depressed Lady Margaret gave a loose current to her thoughts. A stillness of some minutes ensued, during which Constance saw Lady Margaret's counte- nance assume a severe aspect ; at last in a voice of suppressed passion she said, " some different understanding with Mr. Ravensworth must be adopted to that you have pursued to-night ; to-morrow in my dressing-room I will speak to you on the subject."" 92 COMPTON AUDLEY. CHAPTER VI. -GAMING HOUSE. And if angels, trumpet-tongued, had told you I was false, you should not have believed it. Evadne. On Ravensworth's return from Almack's, it was already broad daylight, though nothing was to be heard but the hoarse tone of a stray, half-sleeping watchman, and the occasional rattle of a carriage, or rumble of a coach, whose jaded horses were lazily dragging some drowsy senator from the oft- repeated, nocturnal wrangle of St. Stephen's, COMPTON AUDLEY. 93 to his whist club, through the now dreary and almost deserted streets, a solitary, bare-legged, half-naked chimney-sweep was crawling along, with brush in hand and soot bags on his back, emitting u S-w-e-e-p," with a melancholy tone that struck the heart, — now a train of market-carts might be seen wending their way towards that great congress of the vege- table world, Covent Garden. Dudley, who felt too much excited to seek the solitude of his wakeful pillow, rambled through the park, musing on the brilliant scene he had just left, now cal- culating the hours that must elaspe before the next opera night or French play, when he should have a chance of seeing his " ladye love." On reaching Piccadilly, his attention was unexpectedly, and somewhat forcibly arrested, by a miserable, half-starved looking creature, who, making a sudden halt directly before him, snatched the bouquet 94 COMPTON AUDLEY. from his breast, ere he had time to prevent her. "It's a pretty flower, and still fresh, 1 ' she said, holding it aside from the reach of Dudley : " but it will soon fade, like all the rest ! but, here it "s for you, Dudley Ravens- worth, if you '11 bid money for it ; " and she looked the "excellent wretch" which love but too often makes of its infatuated de- votees. Dudley, though somewhat startled at his own name thus openly pronounced, and by one " so whistled down the wind to prey at fortune" by some despoiler, — attempted to move on, when the wretched girl, uttering a shrill and most agonising scream, exclaimed — " Ay ! but the time was when you would not have passed Jane Ashford, like a thing forsaken. But then it was where trees grew, and streams ran, and not in the stony-hearted streets ! " COMPTON AUDLEY. 95 On hearing a name once sufficiently fami- liar to him, (for the Ashfords were tenants of Sir Alexander Graham,) Dudley made a dead halt, and, in the haggard figure before him, bedizened, as it was, with scanty and faded finery, which ill concealed the misery of her condition, — he recognised Isaac Ash- ford's daughter, Jane. Her face, indeed, de- spite its hollow eye, shrunken cheek, and shrivelled lips, showed that it had once pos- sessed great beauty ; but her scanty and tawdry apparel, already dripping in the drizzle of a rain which now began to fall, gave token of her present degradation, aban- donment, and wretchedness. Ashamed to be seen in company with one who, in addition to the squalid character of her appearance, seemed also to be labour- ing under the effects of recent inebriation, Dudley pulled out his purse and tablets, and, having given her some silver, was in 96 COMPTON AUDLET. the act of taking down her address, — having, already, promised to call or send to her, — when, to his utter horror and dis- may, the carriage of Lady Margaret Graham drove close to the spot where he and his disreputable acquaintance stood. It was in vain, therefore, for him to have attempted to make his escape from the prying, and, it must be confessed, somewhat astonished eyes of the party the carriage contained, however fervently he might have, on the instant, prayed for such a deliverance. Already, and even before he could recog- nise whose carriage it was, Lady Margaret's quick eye had detected him in close converse with the outcast being we have just described, — and had let down the glass; and Constance's face, paler than usual, was next to be seen, looking at him with an expression of counte- nance which betrayed the agitation into which his appearance had thrown her. As the COMPTON AUDLEY. 97 carriage passed, she first looked anxiously to see if it was really him, and then fell back suddenly in her seat, apparently senseless. Lady Mar- garet, however, determined to keep her Vantage ground ; she hastily pulled the string, and the horses were stopped. Dudley rushed forward to the carriage, just as Constance was gradually beginning to revive. But his services, whether in time or not, were not, it seems, to be accepted; for Lady Margaret, with a voice almost unnaturally wild with anger, now requested Mr. Ravensworth not to insult them by calling the attention of all that was depraved to them. Dudley tried to stammer out an apology ; but, at this very moment, his attention was called to a knot of hackney-coachmen, who, hustling round Jane, were in the act of endeavouring to deprive her of the money he had given her. Lady Margaret, there- fore, desired the coachman to drive on ; and, vol. i. f 98 COMPTON AUDLEY. as they once more set forward, Constance gave a look, sad and reproachful, at Dudley, who, reckless of the consequences, had sprung to save Jane from the licensed depredators surrounding her. After giving her over to the care of a watchman, Dudley, half- frantic at the pos- sible consequences of the nights adventure, and bewildered with the thoughts of his own seeming depravity in the eyes of one who was the dearest and purest, turned away, and carried a distracted heart to a solitary home. Shame, terror, and dismay, by turns, occupied Dudley's, mind, as, pale, haggard, and exhausted, he strolled down St. James's Street, his eyes fixed despondingly on the pavement. He had not courage to enter his house; all disturbed, he could make up his mind to no resolution. He thought over the scene he had lately witnessed, recalling COMPTON AUDLEY. 99 to his mind, with fearful perspicuity, every circumstance connected with its mortifying and disagreeable details. While thus mus- ing, he came in personal contact with a young man, muffled up in a military cloak, who, rushing out of a club-house, nearly threw down the abstracted lover. i( Sir !" cried Ravensworth, " do you mean to insult me ? " " A thousand pardons," said the stranger meekly, — who was in fact the aggressor — and dropping his cloak. " What, Harry Percival, my dear fellow ! " exclaimed Dudley, holding out his hand to him. " I did not know that you were in London. When came you here ? " " I only arrived last night — ordered to join ; but how fares it, Dudley ? I thought we should never meet again. How very melancholy you look ! in love or in debt ? — F 2 100 COMPTON AUDLEY. a Jew or a girl ? — which is the harder- hearted ? " " A truce to your railleries ; this is no time for them. Dine with me to-morrow, at seven, at the Clarendon, 1 "' said Dudley. " Agreed," replied Harry Percival : " but where do you lodge ? — let us walk part of the way together ? " They walked together some moments in silence. Harry Percival laughed and jested with Dudley on his gravity ; declared he was the dullest companion he had ever met, and vowed that there could be nothing more tiresome than a man in love. Dudley assured him that such was not the case; a thousand things tended to make him low-spirited. " Why what can depress you?" continued Harry, in a tone of raillery ; " you with fair prospects : I, on the other hand, with no in- COMPTON AUDLEV. 101 come at all, but with debts, thick as the leaves that strew Mr. Milton's celebrated vale of Valambrosa. Talking of debts, I want your assistance, you will be an admirable witness: your sedate manner will just do. Do you know, Dudley, a rascally keeper of the infer- nal regions gave me a bad bill last night ? Come in while I change it. Here 's the house," he added, stopping at a door, over which a brilliant light, reflecting a No. 6, as big as a racket, " whose oily rays, shot from the cry- stal lamp," contrasted strongly with the dim appearance of the ill-lighted streets, for, in those days, oil had not succumbed to the supremacy of gas. People were then content to be but moderately enlightened At length they neared the interior of this second hall of Eblis, this infamous nocturnal receptacle for the most abandoned iniquity, where the arch fiend holds his horrid rites, 102 COMPTON AUDLEY. and feasteth on the destruction of his votaries. "Nodes atque dies pat et atrijanua Ditis" But we will not attempt to describe the mysteries of this iniquitous sink of pollution, where every angry and selfish passion is fed ; where all that is useful, honourable, honest, and gene- rous is extinguished ; where every principle of active and disinterested kindness is violated ; for its progress commences in idleness or ava- rice, proceeds in injustice, and terminates in inextricable despair. Who can pourtray the various implements of ruin, or paint the ministers of vengeance glaring destruction at each other ? What lan- guage can speak the deformity of nature, whilst every passion of the soul is upon the rack; the trembling anxiety of hope, the chilling damp of fear, fluctuating between the despe- rate alternative of impending affluence or of helpless beggary? — the wild and savage ex- ultation, the ill-concealed triumph of the sue- COMPTON AUDLEY. 103 cessful ; the deep dismay, the curses, not loud, but deep, the half-suppressed oath, the cheek of livid paleness of the fallen ; some, like raging waters, foaming out their own shame in frantic oaths and execrations, others riveted to earth in the deep silence of unutterable despair ! Now is the wretched victim creeping homeward, reluctantly to pour into the ears of his wife the agonising tale of ruin. Mark his angry glance, his distorted countenance, his phren- zied agony ! How he starts ! His thought is the one that stings to madness. Then comes the cruel spoiler, flushed with the gain and glory of conquest. But envy him not: the bitter reflection that the misery of others has wrought his greatness " will put rancour in the vessel of his peace," and soon " commend the ingredients of the poisoned chalice to his own lips. 1 ' The room in which Dudley found himself was ill-lighted, for, in those days, Vice had 104 COMPTON AUDLEY. not become so illustrious, and required not a palace for her residence. The dingy walls and barred windows formed a locale well adapt- ed to the things of crime and wretchedness with which it was filled. His blood ran cold, as he listened to the execrations that fell from the profane lips of those who, hardened by reckless vice, were staking all on " the hazard of the die." Dudley, disgusted at finding himself in this dismal den of depravity, was about to depart, when a sudden and vehement uproar at the door announced to him the arrival of the Bow Street officers. In an instant the candles were extinguished, and the infatuated crew made a general rush for escape : but the attempt was fruitless ; Dudley, with his companions in dis- grace, was carried off by the invaders, and passed the remainder of the night, or rather morning, in the watch-house. Dudley's appear- ance, his evening's dress somewhat disarranged, COMPTON AUDLEY. 105 was sufficiently forlorn : when brought up be- fore the magistrate, those who were considered as players were dismissed with a caution : the owners were held to bail. Dudley and Harry Percival, we may here explain, were acquaintances of some standing : they had entered Westminster at the same time, and having afterwards been thrown toge- ther at the houses of mutual friends and ac- quaintances, their boyish correspondence had been still permitted to continue. It has been said that people often love those who are in everything opposed to themselves, and this was true with respect to Percival and Dudley. Dudley was of a domestic disposition, and in the society of those whom he esteemed he found his happiness complete ; while Percival, as the gaming transaction may have already intimated, was of a reckless and hardy nature — careless of consequences, and one who ran neck or nothing into at least a few of the dissipations F 5 106 COMPTON AUDLEY. of the day. Such as he was, however, he some- how or another held a place in Dudley's good graces ; and, indeed, he partly deserved this preference, since, whatever might be his faults, he was ever ready to stand fast in every ex- tremity for a friend. He was, however, on the occasion of their present meeting half inclined to reform, having just entered the Guards ; but his intended reformation from his follies, — of which a visit to the gaming table had been the chief, was too late to be of any use to his friend. Dudley, while still smarting from the pain occasioned by Lady Margaret's contempt, and Constance's still more afflicting dismay at seeing him with Jane Ashford, — had the satis- faction of reading the next day, the following appalling paragraph : — COMPTON AUDLEY. 107 " Gambling in High Life." " In consequence of private information being laid before Mr. Birnie at the public office, Bow Street, that gambling was carried on at a house in Pall Mall, his worship issued warrants for searching it. At a late hour on Wednesday night last, a large party of constables, and a number of the patrole, went to the house, and contrived to gain admittance by a back door. A company of about twenty gentlemen, assem- bled for the purpose of gambling, were taken by the officers to St. James's watch-house. Yesterday the parties attended before Mr. Birnie the sitting magistrate, when some were discharged, and the rest admitted to bail; among the former were Dudley Ravensworth Esq., son of Sir Francis Ravensworth, Bart., and H. Percival, Esq., Gds." 108 COMPTON AUDLEY. Dudley threw himself on his couch ; his long and tedious morning gave him ample time u to chew the cud of bitter fancies.'* At length, he determined to present himself at Lady Mar- garet's as early as possible in the day, and, one o'clock having arrived, he sprang into his Tilbury, and drove there with the utmost speed. On reaching the square, fear of ills to come made him reluctant to approach the door. At last, with a strong effort, he raised the knocker, the feeble irresolute rap was in unison with the doubtful uncertainty of his mind ; it was tardily obeyed by the porter, who dis- turbed at his dinner was some time before he answered a knock of so unimportant a cha- racter. "Is Lady Margaret at home? ,, inquired Ravensworth, in a low voice. " My lady is at home, sir, but not well enough to receive any visitors. There was a note, sir, for you, which Miss Graham's maid desired COMPTON AUDLEY. 109 might be sent early. " John !" addressing a half yawning footman, who from his appearance seemed to have emulated his prototype Sir Harry of " High life below stairs " celebrity in a " devil of a debauch " the evening before ; " John ! was Miss Graham's note left at Mr. Ravens worth's ?" " I really can't say, it's William's business ; I only attend to her ladyship," replied the powder-headed, insolent knight of the shoulder knot. This led to a skirmish of words between the two domestics. Dudley was too much engrossed by his own thoughts to pay any attention to the above dialogue. His hopes seemed crushed ; he threw down a card, and hastily quitted the door : to wait with patience for the following morning, which was the earliest period he could again present himself, was a resolve more easily made than performed. 110 COMPTON AUDLEY. Dudley returned home. For hours did he pace his apartment, discolouring his thoughts with the mischances of the previous night, and trying in vain to hope that fortune, under whose caprices he had suffered, would afford him an early opportunity of *' explaining."" At three o'clock his servant entered with a salver bearing a scented satin-paper note, sealed with a delicate seal. The handwriting was not unknown to him. He looked at the note, first at the seal, then at the direction, surmising and apprehending what might be the contents, and with a painful fear to know them. At length he broke the little dot of wax, and read these few brief words addressed to him- self:— " After what occurred last Wednesday night, you will not be surprised that I am impelled to return your presents, which I am painfully sensible I ought never to COMPTON AUDLEY. Ill have accepted. I feel that a disregard of a dear mother's advice brings its own just punishment. Henceforth, we must be what the world calls i friends/ That you may be happy will ever be the wish of " Constance Graham." 112 COMPTON AUDLEY. CHAPTER VII. VISIT AND DEATH OF JANE ASHFORD. Sure scenes like these no troubles e'er annoy ! Sure these denote one universal joy ! Are these thy serious thoughts ? Ah ! turn thine eyes Where the poor houseless shiv'ring female lies. She once, perhaps, in village plenty blest, Has wept at tales of innocence distrest ; Her modest looks the cottage might adorn, Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn ; Now lost to all, her friends, her virtue fled, Near her betrayer's door she lays her head, And pinch'd with cold, and shrinking from the shower, With heavy heart deplores the luckless hour, When, idly, first ambitious of the town, She left her wheel, and- robes of country brown. Goldsmith. Jane Ashford was the daughter of respect- able parents. Her father, Isaac Ashford, had COMPTON AUDLEY. 113 been for many years gamekeeper to Sir Alex- ander Graham. She had been tenderly reared and educated in the family of the Grahams, who, shortly after her mother's death, pro- vided her with a situation in the establishment of a respectable milliner. Ashford was doubt- less fond of his daughter; but he was by na- ture a stern man, and Jane lived more in awe than love of him. She was unhappy enough to attract the attention of an officer quartered in the neighbourhood. It is a grateful theme to speak of woman in her purity, diffusing happiness, tempering the rude nature of man ; but it is lamentable to think of her as the crushed flower on the path of innocence. Yet such was Jane's fate. She was a confiding, credulous being, and too soon forgot the precepts of her mother, and the kindness of her benefactress, Constance. The pair had met in secret ; and these clan- destine meetings, which began in mere gaiety 114 COMPTON AUDLEY. on her part, ended in bringing her to shame and disgrace. Under a promise of marriage, and confiding implicitly in the man who had appeared the most generous and disinterested of her friends, she had at first listened, and at last yielded to his base seductions ; and she fled, lost and distracted, from her father's house to the care of her reckless betrayer. The consequence of her fatal love became but too soon apparent; and the affection and at- tention of him to whom she had sacrificed purity and peace diminished in proportion to the advanced claim which her hapless situation made upon them. Hers was but one of the many cases of unescaped perils of women, the result of which Crabbe with all his truth and pathos so well describes : — " Then came the day of shame, the grievous night, The varying look, the wandering appetite, The joy assumed while sorrow dimm'd the eyes, The forced sad smiles that follow'd sudden sighs ; And every art long used, but used in vain, To hide thy progress, Nature, and thy pain." COMPTON AUDLEY. 115 Isaac Ashford, with a heart broken in its pride, demanded justice of the spoiler, who basely denied his guilt, and, hinting suspicions of another lover, recommended him to urge his daughter to espouse one who ought to save her character by making her a wife. The demand of reparation by such a mar- riage was scornfully disdained. In the mean time the beguiler, who was a handsome young man, talked to Jane of love and marriage, pro- fessed the most ardent devotion, vowed con- stancy and fidelity, and promised to marry her at the death of his father. The lover, — if such a title may be abused, — the creature that had betrayed this poor girl, departed, imploring her to be patient, and pledged himself speedily to return, and fulfil his word — a word, broken when it was given. Days, weeks, and months stole on. She became a mother without a mother's honoured name. She lived upon hope, that the next 116 COMPTON AUDLEY. and the next day would bring her her heart's restoration; but it came not; and when does Time persuade Happiness not to use its wings ? " Where time has ploughed, there misery loves to sow." Jane awoke from the long delirium, and contemplated with horror the prospect of her future life ; she twice wrote imploringly to her seducer, but never received an answer ; her importunities had made him angry. She applied in person to his father, but was driven from the house with brutal coldness ; when she reached her father's roof, it was a roof for her no longer ; she was refused admit- tance — her good name gone ! her care an Ossa pile upon her heart ! Without home, without friends, the wretched girl wandered forth upon a wide world, with poverty for her companion — misery for her guide, — and death for her only friend at the end of travel ! COMPTON AUDLEY. 117 " Throughout the lanes she glides at evening's close, And softly lulls her infant to repose ; Then sits and gazes, but with viewless look, As gilds the moon, the rippling of the brook ; And sings her vespers, but in voice so low, She hears their murmurs as the waters flow ; And she too murmurs, and begins to find The solemn wanderings of a wounded mind : Visions of terror, views of woe succeed The mind's impatience to the body's need ; By turns to that, by turns to this, a prey, She knows what reason yields, and dreads what madness may." Shortly after this period, Ashford quitted the neighbourhood, and took a small farm on the borders of Essex ; part of the property that had been Lady Margaret Graham's mar- riage portion. Here he broke out into every species of dissipation. Fairs, bull-baits, the cock-pit, race-courses, gaming-booths, pot- houses became his constant haunts; in a few months he was nearly penniless. The farm- house fell into a dilapidated state, — the win- dows became broken, and stopped with old 118 COMPTON AUDLEY. rags and paper; and it was clear that the " palsied hand of ruin was upon the house." The farm-house was neglected ; great crops of thistles and weeds were its produce. Barn- doors broken off, fences pulled down, met the eye at every turn. Fortunately for Ashford, there resided in his parish a pastor, a faithful pastor, one of the most kind-hearted and pious individuals of whom the church of England had cause to boast; the Reverend Mr. Palmeter. He was not only on the sabbath-day a clergyman, but was the minister of God seven days in the week; daily and hourly was he employed in his Christian duties, visiting the sick and dis- tressed. He had been made acquainted with the cause of AshforcPs misery, and had done all in his power to alleviate it. He had in a great measure reclaimed the wretched man, now suffering under illness brought on by his intemperate habits. Upon Dudley's discovery COMPTON AUDLEY. 119 of Ashford's daughter, he had addressed the clergyman, who lost no time in urging the miserable father to accompany him to Lon- don. It was on the evening of a dirty, drizzling, rainy day, when the dusk was just closing in, that Ravensworth, accompanied by Isaac Ash- ford, left his cabriolet in Long Acre, and pro- ceeded on foot through a maze of dark and winding courts, lanes, and alleys, to within a very short distance of Drury Lane. They went on in profound silence. Nothing could exceed the filth and misery of the alley they had now entered. The houses were a closely- packed double row of miserable dwellings, crowded to excess by a population chiefly com- posed of the lowest class of Irish. The windows were broken, dismal, and patched. The gutter, impure and choked up, filled the jaded atmo- sphere with noisome odours. Poles, with lines for drying clothes, projected across the court, 120 COMPTON AUDLEY. on which were hanging the ragged garments of the impoverished inhabitants. One solitary lamp, cased round with wire-work to prevent its constant breakage, cast a dim light upon the narrow pavement. Here some half-naked children and famished cats and curs were grovel- ling in dirt and play ; there, on the cold, damp door- step, might be seen some wild and house- less women, in the last stage of human misery, premature victims of vice and profligacy ; tor- rents of vituperation poured from their lips, and a shout of drunken mirth ever and anon issued from more than one den of depravity. A low, half-stifled moan of some famished mother, and her sickly infant clamouring for bread, was now caught, and the curses of the husband and father broke forth with the fever- lust of drink raging in his brain and red en- circled eye, as he staggered out to spend his wife's hard earnings at the gin-shop. Shriek- ing, roaring, swearing, and sounds of quarrel- COMPTON AUDLEY. 121 ling, in the madness of outrageous drunken- ness, issued from every quarter. " The house should be somewhere here," said Dudley, consulting his tablets, and rap- ping loudly at a crazy door. There was no answer. He repeated the knocking, and began to imagine the house to be totally uninhabited, when he perceived the glimmering of a light through the crevice of a window. 66 Holloa ! Who 's there ? " cried a voice from above. " Don't stand knocking ! Come in." Ravensworth, now perceiving that the door stood ajar, pushed it open, and, followed by Ashford, proceeded to grope the way down a broken stair to a back out-house on the ground floor, and from which a small flicker- ing light glimmered through the crannies. They were within a step or two of the door, when a miserable and emaciated girl came forth. VOL. I. G 122 COMPTON AUDLEY. " Are you- the gentlemen that were ex- pected ? " said the girl. " Yes — yes ! " replied Ravensworth. " This way, please sir." " Mary ! " cried a voice gruffly, and which Dudley recognised as the one that had ad- dressed him from the window, " go in. Give me the candle. I '11 go and talk to the gentle- men" A glance sufficed to convince Ravensworth that the expression of vulgar defiance, the dog- ged look, the air of obstinate determination, marked him as the " superior " of this mo- nastery of misery. " My good man, we wish to see your lodger, Mrs. Richards," said Dudley, in a tone of con- ciliation. " See heri first pay her lodging — two weeks' rent due," replied the man. "Here," said Ravensworth, taking out his purse ; " what 's your demand ? " COMPTON AUDLEY. 123 " Why," replied the man, " rent, board, firing, medicine — a pound will do it." " There, then, take it, and let us see her." " Well, walk on ; but you may as well pay for her funeral at once, for she "s as good as dead," replied the unfeeling villain, still eyeing Ravensworth , s purse. Disgusted with the ruffian's brutal de- meanour, he hastily entered the cellar, when a scene of wretchedness presented itself that baffles description. The cutting easterly wind knifed its way through the dilapidated walls (which were here and there darkened with spots of damp) of a bare and miserable room, desti- tute of furniture ; the rain beat through the broken casement, while a woful fire of two damp logs, portions of an old water-tub, gave no warmth to the decay. A rushlight stuck in a bottle threw a faint flicker over the cham- ber, adding to, rather than diminishing, its air of desolation. A woman, the owner of the G 2 124 COMPTON AUDLEY. house, who seemed completely soured by poverty, was warming some gruel, while her two squalid children were quarrelling for a piece of most ancient bread. In one corner, extended upon a miserable pallet, covered with a blanket of unspeakable hue, Ashford beheld his daughter, pale and emaciated ! Death was plainly at " her side ! " The melancholy change which illness had oc- casioned had scarcely left a trace of her former beauty ; and those charms, which had been so strikingly and fatally attractive, were no longer visible to human eyes. Disease and want were graven on her countenance, and she was cold, white, and inanimate as a statue. There was a silence of some minutes, and at length a partial consciousness came faintly over her. She knew the presence of her parent. "Oh, my injured father!" feebly exclaimed the dying Jane, " can you forgive the wretch who has occasioned you all this? — all — all COMPTON AUDLEY. 125 this ? and look with kindness on your aban- doned child ? Yes, 1 ' continued she, gasping as she faintly uttered those words, — " I see that I am pardoned ; but tell me, father, what may I hope for from that awful tribunal to which I am hastening ? Is there mercy for a late peni- tent?" The afflicted man attempted to compose and soothe her. Her eyes rekindled for a moment ; she seized his hand, and pressed it fervently against her bosom ; her breathing became more difficult, her hands more cold ; the poor thing gradually relaxed her hold, and falling back, seemed with one low sad long breath, to sigh herself from a world which had been so long deaf to her. Dudley, leaving Ashford with his dead child, had just reached the end of the alley, when a gust of wind, carrying with it a mass of dust and rubbish, induced him suddenly to turn round to avoid the nuisance. While thus 126 COMPTON AUDLEY. standing, he fancied he perceived the figures of two men, who, to all appearance were dodging his steps. Recommencing his walk with a sensation somewhat of alarm, and anxious to ascertain the fact, Ravensworth every now and then turned his head to see if he was followed, when to his great annoyance he perceived that his undesirable companions still maintained the same distance from him, as when he first ob- served them. Passing on with speed, he made towards the spot where he had left his cabrio- let ; but with difficulty he unwound the tangled alleys and passages which led to it. Now and then a solitary lamp shewed him his followers, in whom vice and ruffianism were written in characters not to be misunderstood or mis- taken. They approached him, and before he could call for assistance, or prepare for defence of himself, he found that he was encircled by a pair of athletic arms, and that other hands COMPTON AUDLEY. 127 were busy about his pockets. So sudden and effectual was the attack, that even had Ravens- worth been prepared, it would have been im- possible to have resisted. Iu a moment his . watch and purse were seized. At that instant two officers of the night approached and se- cured one of the assailants, but not until after a severe struggle. The following afternoon, the newspapers, after giving the police report, indulged in remarks upon the aristocratic pursuits of Dudley Ravensworth, Esq., in Giblet Alley : — hinting that a certain frail fair one was the Circe that attracted him there, and winding up the coloured details with the usual moral re- flections on the dangers attendant upon the but too prevalent habits of depravity, amongst those whose education and station in life should lead to better and purer pursuits. This, his second appearance under disgraceful circum- stances in a public newspaper, completed Dud- 128 COMPTON AUDLEY. ley's apparent • disgrace. He had intended to give Lady Margaret, and, in particular, he had intended to offer Constance an explanation of his meeting with Jane Ashford ; and he had hoped to have modified the indignation of the one, as well as re-assured the shattered con- fidence of the other, by an honest detail of the circumstances. But Constance's note, and the publicity of the gambling events, overturned all his resolutions ; he appeared to himself to be too far lost in the estimation of the Grahams to hope to effect an impression upon them, feeling that they must consider him both aban- doned and degraded. What, therefore, was left to him ? He could not rest in England. In other scenes he felt that he must seek relief from the aspersions tfhich had been cast upon his character ; and though he yielded to the conviction, that happiness was not to be con- nected with his fate, — he could better bear the land and the society of strangers, than to COMPTON AUDLEY. 129 remain where he might encounter only those who would avoid and despise him. Having got through the necessary preparations for a lengthened tour, of which he had chosen Vi- enna for its object, Dudley very shortly set out with a weary heart on his course of self- enforced exile. GO 130 COMPTON AUDLEY. CHAPTER VIII. MARY CRESSINGHAM's CHARACTER. Ah, me ! for aught that ever I could read, Could ever hear, by tale or history, The course of true love never did run smooth. Midsummer Night's Dream. It had been Harry PercivaPs fortune, in early life, to save the life of Mary Cressing- ham. Walking one day near Kensington Gardens, his solitary reflections were broken in upon by the sound of a carriage which approached at a furious rate, and, turning round, he beheld a lady and a gentleman COMPTON AUDLEY. 131 seated in a curricle, with which the horses were running away with ungovernable fury. At a short distance, following it, were two grooms, who unthinkingly pursued the vehicle at full gallop, and, by urging the horses, has- tened the very catastrophe which they wished to avert. Percival sprang forward, and, seiz- ing the furious animals, succeeded in stop- ping them, just as they were making for the river, from which a very brief space separated them. Mary Cressingham was the only daughter of Colonel Cressingham, a soldier of fortune, or, rather, of no fortune, for he inherited no patri- mony : he had served many years in the army, and possessed only a small income, derived from his pay, and a trifling pension. Her mother, a sister of Sir Alexander Graham, had died while Mary was but an infant ; and Lady Margaret, the aunt of Mary, had contrived that she should be educated with her own daughter. The cou- 132 COMPTON AUDLEY. sins, therefore,, grew up together till Mary had attained an age at which it was thought pro- per to recall her to preside over her father's household. A correspondence was, however, maintained between the cousins, which tended to keep alive their early feelings of affection. In some respects, a great similarity existed be- tween them ; for both were young, both hand- some, both accomplished. In conversation Mary was charming; there was no effort, save that of accommodating herself upon all occasions to the capacity of those with whom she happened to converse. In order to induce others to en- tertain an imaginary confidence in their own superiority, she frequently affected utter igno- rance upon subjects of which she was much better informed than -those whom she lured into a belief of superiority. Listening with patience and apparent interest to remarks the most com- mon-place and prosaic, she never allowed a sar- casm or a sneer to escape her lips or looks. She COMPTON AUDLEY. 133 was all ease and sprightliness of manner when she must have been worn out in spirit. One would have said that there was a certain de- gree of espieglerie visible in the tact with which the unsuspecting were drawn into the network prepared for their vanity. But if Mary did enjoy an inward pleasure in inveig- ling into her toils the unwary and the vain, she carefully concealed her triumph from the victims of her skill. She allowed them to indulge in all the pleasure of an innocent delusion, and rather fostered than disturbed the flattering slumber of sense into which she had lulled them. Of what consequence was it, then, that the self-complacent had been vanquished, if the chains which bound them were, to their eyes, en wreathed with laurels ? The meshes in which they were entangled, the prison-bars within which they were enclosed, were, in their eyes, garlands of roses, and aure- oles of fame. Who, then, could chide the am- 134 COMPTON AUDLEY. bition of that gentle conqueror, so skilful in war, so clement in victory ? Miss Cressingham also assumed to speak with humility of the attain- ments of her sex, when she must have felt that, in intellectual power, she was vastly superior to nine-tenths of the men with whom she conversed. This arose, not from affectation, but from sincere simplicity of character. She shrank from making others sensible of her mental superiority ; she loved to stoop her wing, and to live, for a time, in a less elevated region of the mind; to delight and gladden those who were unable to visit the heights to which her own intellect could raise her : there was about her an air of mysterious uncertainty, a mixture of reality and ideality which render- ed it difficult to determine her precise character : there was much truth, but also much fancy ; much that was sincere, much that was imagi- native ; there was always talent, and often brilliancy, but it was not easy on every occa- COMPTON AUDLEY. 135 sion to decide between that which was literal and that which was playful. In entering the lists with an adversary so gifted, and occasionally so wayward, every one felt a degree of insecurity as to the nature of the warfare in which he was about to engage : it was not possible to know whether the lances were fashioned for pastime or conflict; whether it was to be a harmless joust, or one a Vou- trance. We should have been apt to distrust our own opinions and impressions on this subject, were it not that we have heard others express a similar opinion. " Mary would be delightful," say some, " if we could but tell when she was in jest and when in earnest.' , Those who felt disposed to quarrel with her on this score should have recollected, that what they imputed to the caprice of a gallant and wayward spirit, might find a home in the quiet recesses of their own dulness. If dull men will converse with 136 COMPTON AUDLEY. talented women, they must make up their minds to be generally victimised. If people will attempt Icarus flights, they will find out the weakness of the wing, and must endure an Icarus fate. It was impossible to look on Mary's counte- nance without feeling, or rather fearing, that she was not so happy as she deserved to have been. At times she walked under a shadow. If, however, she had sorrows, she treasured them up in her own bosom ; and you saw but faint traces of their shades pass over her features. She gave to others the happiness which was not always unalloyed in her own breast ; and, whenever she felt a depression herself, she was more generous and pro- fuse of kindness to ojhers. To be a friend to her parent was a passport to her good regards. Though agreeing in several points of resem- blance, the cousins were still in many respects COMPTON AUDLEY. 137 essentially different. Constance was a blonde ; Mary, though far from a brunette, was perhaps equally far from the character of a blonde: Constance's form was slender and sylph- like ; Mary's, with equal grace, had more volume. As compared with her cousin, one might observe that the temperature of Constance's mind was more easily constant. The range of the mental thermometer was not so great ; its variations were not so violent ; her mind was more even in its course, her feelings more under command, her temper more equable than that of Mary. Mary had all the fire of genius, with somewhat of its inconstancy ; its spirit mingled with the life-blood that flowed in her veins, and quickened and dis- turbed the pulsations of her heart. Constance, with scarcely less of talent, had less activity of mind; was more tranquil, though she was not less energetic of purpose. Mary possessed 138 COMPTON AUDLEY. a quick and delicate perception, an exquisite sensibility, and a deep insight into all the lights and shadows of human life ; she could at once appreciate the precise value to be at- tached to the pretensions of others. Her feel- ings were more acute than those of Constance. And yet, what was lost in composure of mind was perhaps gained in warmth of heart. Con- stance was less the creature of impulse than her cousin ; in. her whole conduct of life she was more influenced by judgment than fancy ; her actions were the result of deliberation rather than the offspring of instant creation ; she seemed ever under the sway of a strict moral discipline. There may have been in- ward struggle and commotion, but strife (if strife there were,) never reached the sur- face. This digression upon the two cousins is already too long, but enough has been said to account for a young man of Harry PercivaPs COMPTON AUDLEY. 139 age falling desperately in love with so amiable a being as Mary Cressingham. If gratitude and esteem are good foundations of affection, Mary's feelings will be neither im- probable nor faulty. She loved — deeply, hope- lessly loved. In the privacy of her chamber she in vain tried to school her heart to conquer this feeling ; but still each day increased the admiration for him, and it required a constant effort on the part of the unhappy girl to con- ceal the love which had become rooted in her pure and fresh feelings. Despite of all her caution, her father had remarked that for some time there had evidently been a weight upon her spirits, — some hidden care seemed to prey upon her mind, — some deep-rooted grief had plunged her in a state of despondency. With the greatest kindness Colonel Cressingham spoke to his daughter upon the subject, en- tered fully into her feelings, and deplored the poverty that must place an inseparable bar 140 COMPTON AUDLEY. against her union with Percival ; and, feeling that change of scene would be of material ser- vice in dispelling her gloom, finally arranged that they should leave England for the Con- tinent. COMPTON AUDLEY. 141 CHAPTER IX. MARRIAGE SETTLED. LORD ATHERLEY. Marriage is a matter of more worth Than to be dealt in by attorneyship ; For what is wedlock forced but a hell, An age of discord and continual strife ? Shakspeare — Henry VI. The intelligence of Dudley's departure for the Continent reached Graham Castle through the common vehicle of similar occurrences, the newspapers. As Lady Margaret thought she might now venture to indulge in the utmost effort of her malice towards Dudley, without any fear of danger, she did not fail to propa- 142 COMPTON AUDLEY. gate the scandalous reports that he had been detected in an affair with Jane Ashford, the gamekeeper's daughter ; that he had been the means of sending her affianced, Mark Luton, abroad, to avoid the obloquy that the exposure of so base a design would subject him to ; his affair, too, with Harry Percival at the gaming- house was greatly exaggerated, — as was his visit to the dying Jane. These rumours, blown by surmises, jea- lousies, conjectures, came to the ears of Con- stance. Day followed day, week followed week, months passed away, and no letters arrived to gladden her spirits. She sank, and deeply she felt the misery of that hope deferred, which is truly said to make the heart sick. Lady Margaret had witnessed the childish attachment with Dudley ; but for some time had not the remotest idea that Constance had any influence over the mind of her youthful admirer. To make use of a commonplace ex- COMPTON AUDLEY. 143 pression, Lady Margaret had set her mind upon a match to which we have before alluded, and had done everything in her power to for- ward it. She had fully weighed the matter, — she had summoned up all her pros and cons. Lord Atherley was, first and foremost, a peer of the realm, and moreover was a man of high moral character, and was enormously rich ; — Dudley Ravensworth was but a younger son, a detrimental, only fit to hold shawls and call carriages. In the event of his elder brother's death without issue, he would eventually be a baronet. But had the balance been even, self- ishness and self-aggrandisement would have turned the scale. Lady Margaret felt that she herself would receive much more consideration from, and have greater influence over, a man of Lord Atherley's easy temper and quiet character, than over one of Ravensworth's fashionable habits. When the thought once entered her 144 COMPTON AUDLEY. head, she was not slow to act upon it. Every effort was resorted to ; the angry manner, the resigned, the sneering, the coaxing, — all were tried. As a last resort, she applied to Sir Alexander, who was immediately summoned to her presence. " Do you, Sir Alexander, approve of a daughter's flying in the face of her parents?" " Certainly not, my dear," was the natural reply of the timid Baronet. " Well, then, Sir Alexander, circumstances have lately been, and are daily forced upon my attention, which, from my feelings as a wife and parent, I think it right to communicate to you. If no attachment has ripened at pre- sent between Constance and Mr. Ravensvvorth, there is every appearance of one existing and growing up." 44 Indeed, my dear ? " replied the husband, in a most silvery tone. " It is true, Mr. Ravensworth has left Eng- COMPTON AUDLEY. 145 land, but he may shortly return and we are bound to be cautious." " Certainly, my dear." " This idle fancy, 1 ' continued Lady Mar- garet, " is really quite ridiculous. Constance is so fastidious, that it is impossible to please her." " I never imagined she liked Mr. Ravens- worth," said Sir Alexander, without raising his eyes from the table; "but as it seems I am mistaken, why " " Exactly, Sir Alexander," interrupted Lady Margaret. " You will of course see her upon the subject, and point out the imprudence of encouraging such an attachment ; — that al- though it is not our wish that she should sacrifice her inclinations, it is a duty she owes to us and to herself to put an end to an affair that must be highly detrimental to her, and painful to our feelings. You understand, Sir Alexander ? " VOL. i. h 146 COMPTON AUDLEY. Sir Alexander did understand. Constance was summoned to the presence of her father, who sat in banco, with all the dignity of a full court of one. As she entered, he said, — " My dear Constance, I have a matter of much importance to communicate to you, and it is one in which your interests are deeply involved/' To this opening harangue Constance si- lently listened, without understanding its real purport. " I have been thinking, my dear child, with- out wishing to control your affections, that Lord Atherley, who seeks to unite himself,'" Sir Alexander stammered, " with an amiable, — virtuous, — and intelligent companion, — and — and friend." Here Sir Alexander gained courage, as he laid before his trembling daugh- ter the letter which Lord Atherley had ad- dressed to Lady Margaret, and which Con- stance now hastily perused. "We think," re- COMPTON AUDLEY. 147 newed the Baronet, " Lord Atherley is in every way calculated to enlarge the scene of your, indeed, I may add, of our happiness, by a befitting marriage. 1 ' Constance sighed, and but thought of Dud- ley. Her colour changed, as she replied, " You have a right, I presume, to decide, in all things, over my destiny. 1 '' Sir Alexander then proceeded. " Neither he nor Lady Margaret wished to compel ; they had no desire to exercise parental authority ; they only wished to guide her inexperienced inclinations and resolves. 11 Constance looked anxiously at her father. " You have always been an indulgent parent, I do not doubt ; but — " here she faltered. Sir Alexander continued. " Lord Atherley is in every respect calculated to make you an unobjectionable, nay, desirable husband. He proposes presenting himself here immedi- ately.' 1 H 2 148 COMPTON AUDLEY. " Immediately, father ! " cried Constance. " You could not wish me to take such a step, without a just, a right deliberation/' She paused in deep emotion and thought. On the one hand were the bonds of filial duty, those bonds which feeling and religion require of the daughter to her parents ; on the other, was the consideration of her own happiness, and what was due to her own feelings. Con- stance was very pale, and her eyes were full of tears ; her father let them flow on for a moment, with a sort of judicial repose. " Listen to me, Constance," he said, after a pause, in a softened manner, and in a tone of the greatest kindness. " It pains me to see your distress. The first wish of Lady Margaret and myself is to see you happy ; great has been our joy at the thought that the son of your father's oldest friend would become his support in his old age. Had Alfred lived — * Constance burst into tears. " But," COMPTON AUDLEY. 149 continued Sir Alexander, "all our bright vi- sions are destroyed. We must submit. You refuse Lord Atherley ; — you seal our misery for ever. I am too well aware of the cause of your refusal. I will not, however, harass your feelings by alluding to it." Constance was deeply affected by her father's air of kindness ; she retired to the solitude of her chamber, and gave way to reflections far from consolatory. The recollections of the friend of her youth, and the happy days pass- ed in his society traversed her mind. Then the thought of his inconstancy, of his worth- lessness, astounded her reason, and weakened her powers of action. A parent's love, the thought of her whose watchful care had pro- tected her in the helpless hours of infancy, who in childhood had mourned over her little griefs, had rejoiced in her innocent delights, had administered the healing balm in sickness, and had instilled into her mind the love of 150 COMPTON AUDLEY. truth, of virtue, and of wisdom ; when she traced the weary sleepless nights, the anxious watchings and incessant care, the love and tenderness of a parent's fondness, which knew no bounds; she felt that cold and callous must be that heart that did not cherish every feel- ing of respect, gratitude, and veneration to her to whom she owed her existence, and all that protected and enlightened it. Yet she shuddered, as she thought of Lord Atherley ! Unaccustomed herself to deceive, she did not dream of suspecting others, particularly those she loved, of deceiving her. She believed all to be, like herself, actuated by noble impulses, scorning to attain the object of their most cherished wishes by -base or sinister means. She walked about the room ; deliberated, de- termined ; wavered and deliberated again. Her mind was at war with itself. "Oh, that my mortal course were ended !" exclaimed Con- stance, in all the bitterness of her anguish ; COMPTON AUDLEY. 151 and then, after a short abandonment to in- tense grief, her better reason triumphed. But it is useless to dwell upon her train of sad thoughts. The repeated attempts to move her to a determination, which was held out to her as an honourable sacrifice to duty, were not long unattended with an approach to suc- cess. Urged on every side, and worked upon by those she loved, her scruples gave way (though not without a severe struggle) before the arguments and expostulations of her pa- rents, and she at last consented to bestow her hand, though her heart was far away. Thus the matrimonial scheme, so zealously advo- cated by Lady Margaret, had been successful. And had the mother no pang of remorse, no misgivings in crushing her offspring's young affections in their early bud ; in interfering in that upon which the whole happiness of a life depends ; in, perhaps, entailing regret and misery, from which there is no absolution but 152 COMPTON AUDLEY. death, and thus adding her to the victims sacrificed to what the world calls parental 'pru- dence ? No ; she reasoned with the common sophistry. " That it was her duty to esta- blish her child, that it was for her real wel- fare, that she would soon forget her first preference ; and that she was wholly and solely actuated by a due and motherly regard for her daughter's interest." Constance was ill at ease during the usual preparations, so generally interesting to the sex. She had obeyed an impulse, but her conscience, that self-approving, or self-condemning judge, — whispered " I do not love him ! " Hap- py would it have been, had she but possessed one friend to tell her r that endless sorrow and untold regrets would be her portion, — if, with a true attachment for one man, she approached the altar to proclaim her fealty to another. She had yielded to the wishes, the almost arbitrary mandates of her mistaken parents. Yet she COMPTON AUDLEY. 158 felt that she had been unfaithful to one whom she had discouraged rather than discarded — a pang of self-upbraiding wrung her, as the hour approached that placed a bar of eternal separation between Dudley and herself. Lady Margaret's mansion inGrosvenor-square had now begun to assume that busy joyous aspect which precedes a fashionable marriage. Lawyers, milliners, jewellers, coachmakers, con- fectioners, trustees, &c. &c, crowded the house. The tables were covered with drafts of settle- ments, plans for new carriages, sketches of new settings for the union of the Graham and Atherley diamonds. Nothing that could dazzle her imagination, awaken her ambition, or gratify her vanity by the most splendid pre- sents was left undone ; and the affair proceeded, as is customary in the beau monde, rather by the agency of parents and friends than by any advances on the part of the bridegroom elect. The law's delay is proverbial, and there can be h 5 154 COMPTON AUDLEY. no doubt, that the legal profession are all looked upon as an extremely tedious race by persons placed in Lord Atherley's situation. He de- voted his days to law and Lincoln's Inn. Constance (dragged by her mother) lived but with modistes and couturieres. At length the settlements were completed, the equipages finished, and the wedding paraphernalia sent home. It was Constance's wedding day. All the connections of both families were invited, and carriages were rolling rapidly in the direction of St, James's church. Constance stood before the glass, arrayed in her bridal attire. Mary Cressingham, (who had returned to England for her cousin^s wedding,) had placed the wreath of orange flowers upon Tier head, and arranged the rich point veil which was to hide the blushes and tremors of the bride. Constance remained like a statue, though strong emotions were ga- thering within her. Her eyes were fixed COMPTON AUDLEY. 155 upon her mother. Recollections of former years came over her. Her heart sank within her. Perhaps she should never again return to that house, as a dweller therein ; she looked round the room in which she had experienced all her young fresh feelings of sorrow and joy, — she felt as if she should be stifled. " It is time for us to move," said her mother. Constance rose and walked to the window — she checked her rising tears. We will not stop to describe the trousseau — blonde, — bridesmaids, — corbeilles, — flowers, — wedding favors which are too often typical of the bridegroom's smiles ; bright but transient, — worn in public for a few days, then thrown aside to be seen no more. All were selon les regies^ and merited the panegyrics in which the Morning Post ex- ceeded its usual eloquence. It may be best to say the hour arrived, never had a brighter morning shone. " Happy is the bride the sun shines upon," is an adage. 156 COMPTON AUDLEY. Adorned for . the sacrifice, the envied victim proceeded to St. James's Church to be married with the pomp of a special license and a bishop. Lady Margaret was in the vestry with her daughter, attended by her bridesmaids and friends, leaning on Sir Alexander's arm. Con- stance was led up the aisle to the altar. His countenance was beaming with pride and exulta- tion, he felt the tremor of her arm, but she looked composed — " A soil on her rich veil appears Unsuiting here, — and it is tears/' The awful words were spoken " in sickness and in health to love cherish and obey till death do us part." " At each response the sacred rite requires From her full bosom bursts the unbidden sigh ; A strange mysterious awe the scene inspires, And on her lips the trembling accents die." Constance had surrendered her happiness to COMPTON AUDLEY. 157 the earnest persuasions of her ambitious mother. The merry chimes announced that the cere- mony was over. She had received her father's last embrace and parting blessing ; friendly congratulations had passed ; kind wishes were breathed; the breakfast went off as well as such fetes usually do, where society is brought together from necessity, not choice; nothing was talked of but the beauty and grace of the young bride, and, Constance having changed her bridal dress for a more suitable travelling attire, the " happy pair " left in a travelling chariot and four for Compton Audley. 158 COMPTON AUDLEY. CHAPTER X. VIENNA. Oh ! for some fairy talisman to conjure Up to those longing eyes the form they pine for ! And yet in love there's no such word as absence ; The loved one, like our guardian spirit, walks Beside us ever — shines upon the beam — Perfumes the flower, and sighs in every breeze! Its presence gave such beauty to the world That all things beautiful its likeness are ; And aught in sound most sweet, to sight most fair, Breathes with its voice, or like its aspect smiles. BULWER. Strange sight this Congress ! destined to unite All that's incongruous, "all that's opposite. I speak not of the Sovereigns — they're alike, A common coin as ever mint could strike : But those who sway the puppets, pull the strings, Have more of motley than their heavy kings ; Jews, authors, generals, charlatans combine, While Europe wonders at the vast design. — Byron. COMPTON AUDLEY. 159 Dudley was now progressing slowly towards the Austrian capital, for unlike the generality of British tourists on the Continent, who get over the most ground in the smallest time imaginable, Ravensworth, more for the sake of his companion than himself, stopped to see every place worthy of note. The excitement of travelling is only excitement to the idle and unoccupied ; but to those whose thoughts are filled with one anxious and importunate subject, all that the traveller can recognise is but the changing objects of an enlarged and peopled panorama. Life, indeed, is in it; but it is life that has no sympathies in common with those of the gazer. The present was filled with the pangs of parting, for an unlimited time, with her he loved best. The effort of travelling, therefore, though it forced Dudley into active exertion, and interrupted the melan- choly reflections, which, like clouds driven before the winds in a tempest, chased one 60 COMPTON AUDLEY. another in succession through his mind, pro- duced, however, but a trifling lull of relief — one thought, one soul-absorbing thought, per- petually haunted his remembrance. At Brussels neither the gaiety nor interest there felt at the return of the family of the Prince of Orange, could in the least beguile him. In vain his companion tried to rouse him by fight- ing over again the battle of Eergen op Zoom — that fatal enterprise, wherein Skerret, the intrepid defender of Tariffa, led the attack and fell; where Gore, Mercer, Garleton, M'Donald fell ; where three hundred were killed and eighteen hundred wounded ; and which attack, though it promised at the onset complete success, — failed in the end, from the loss of the principal officers of the right column, which occasioned it to fall into disorder, and from the left column being weakened by the loss of a detachment of guards, cut off by the enemy. In vain his COMPTON AUDLEY. 161 present chronicler gave a fresh recital of the siege of Pampeluna, where he had figured in a corps de reserve stationed at some three and a half leagues distant. Dudley listened indeed, and in some degree felt grateful for the good intentions of his friend, since he probably imagined that those hours which are occupied — however trifling may be the nature of the occupation — pass easier by, than those in which the mind is left unrelieved from the pressure of its own imme- diate recollections. Fortunately, however, his military spirit was not dead, and perhaps at no period of time was the profession of arms so honourable. The war, at first originating in the sanguinary strife of the revolutionary mob of Paris, carried on with almost uninterrupted succession for nearly a quarter of a century, had gradually involved the whole of Europe in its whirlpools. Napoleon had arisen in the midst of it, and kingdoms and principalities 162 COMPTON AUDLEY. had changed masters through his instrument- ality. But the tide of success had been felt to turn at Moscow ; and now the prostrate nations, no longer separated by his policy or broken by his power, were arising and revenging their many wrongs, and the terrible battle of Leipsic had been followed by the dethronement of the revolutionary Emperor, and the Con- gress of crowned heads was now assembled at Vienna. Vienna is that concentrating point where Greeks, Turks, Jews, and Italians meet, for the arrangement of their mercantile affairs throughout the Continent of Europe. There you are constantly struck with the number and varieties of characters which you daily meet. The Greek and Albanian, with their short cloak edged with sable and ermine, delicately-trim- med mustachio, and exposed throat. Long robes trimmed with tarnished gold or silver, with thickly-folded girdles and turbans, and COMPTON AUDLEY. 163 beards of unrestrained growth, point out the majestic Turk. The olive- tinted visage, with a full, keen, dark eye, and a costume half Greek and half Turkish, distinguish the citizen of Venice or Verona. , Ravensworth soon found himself a welcome guest in the imperial circle, and in the brilliant coteries of the Esterhazys and Schwartzenbergs. The days were passed in morning drives to the Prater and Aungarten, in the promenade of the Rempart and Belvedere Gardens; in evening assemblies, select dinners, splendid balls, petits soupers, theatrical representations. The gay and busy appearance of Vienna, peopled with sovereigns, ambassadors, minis- ters, and generals ; its bustling activity ; the streets crowded with people, groups of military parading the city ; the balconies filled with fair spectators ; beating of drums, firing of cannons, ringing of bells ; — all were vivid and brilliant. Much interesting matter was acces- 164 COMPTON AUDLEY. sible to a lover of the nne arts ; the gallery of the Duke Albert of Saxe-Teschen, the im- perial collection of paintings at the Belvedere, the private cabinets of Prince Esterhazy, Liechtenstein, Schonborn, and Count Lam- berg. Dudley visited the two arsenals, the city and the imperial one ; in the former is preserved the head of Kara Mustapha, who conducted the siege of 1683, and was strangled the year after at Belgrade by the Sultan's order ; and in the latter are to be seen memorials of many great men, the armour of the celebrated crusader, Godfrey of Bouillon, the servant of the Holy Temple ; of Frederic Barbarossa, and the Emperor Charles the Fifth ; the leathern jacket and the hat worn by the great Gustavus Adolphus when he was killed at the battle of Liitzen ; the helmet of Prince Eugene of Savoy, the brother warrior of Marlborough ; the bal- loon used by the French at the battle of COMPTON AUDLEY. 165 Fleurus in 1793 ; — all were here ! Dudley for- got the present in the past. His mind pre- sented to his imagination the enthusiastic mul- titude, governed by a pious though mistaken zeal, devoting their lives and their fortunes to the recovery of the sacred city from the hands of the Paynim. He heard the voice of the venerable hermit, Walter the Moneyless. The Counts Toulouse, Fermandoise, and Blois, the careless and gallant Robert of Normandy, were before him. He saw in his mind's eye the siege of Nice ; the re-capture and re-taking of Jerusalem ; the crusade of the Emperor Conrade and Lewis the Seventh. He shudder- ed at the assassination of the brave Marquis of Montserrat ; despised the weak Austria and the envious Philip ; and his heart swelled at the noble daring and gallant exploits of Coeur de Lion and the Soldan Saladin. And yet amidst the gaieties which courtesy sometimes compelled him to be a party to, he was dull 166 COMPTON AUDLEY. and abstracted: his thoughts were far away. The once deep-rooted passion, strong and in- tense as life itself, left not one fond fancy free for any other than her, his first, young, early, only love ! His imagination reverted to Con- stance, and he fervently prayed that she would follow his example of devotion, and hold in in- difference all the homage offered to her. It was ever a happiness to him to fly from the coldly-brilliant, heartless society into which he was thrown, to dwell rapturously on "England and the English " and in his mental \\3i0n to follow her through scenes where her steps had paced with his own. Hope whispered that his probation would soon be happily ended, and he looked forward with sanguine delight to the moment which would restore him to his beloved Constance. Anxious, however, to witness some of the sights of the renowned Congress, it was with no small degree of interest and en- COMPTON AUDLEY. 167 thusiasm that he attended the fete given in honour of the victory of Leipsic, which took place on the second morning of his arrival in the Austrian capital. On this occasion twenty thousand men were assembled in the Prater. At eleven o'clock in the forenoon the Emperors, the Kings and Allied Sove- reigns, the Empress and Queens, came upon the ground with a very numerous and brilliant suite. The troops having formed an immense square, the Te Deum was chanted by innu- merable warrior voices ; after which the troops defiled in presence of their majesties ; the Archduke Constan tine being at the head of his regiment of Cuirassiers. Dinner was then served up to the Sovereigns, the officers, and the troops. The Sovereigns dined in the villa at one end of the Prater, and the troops on the field. Nothing could exceed the grand gaiety of the city. Multitudes collected to see the Sovereigns, and were coming and 168 COMPTON AUDLEY. going every moment ; the drums were beating ; the men under arms ; the people were en masse on foot, on horseback, and in carriages, jostling each other in every direction ; four royal guards of grenadiers were mounted on the Grand Square. The wache heraus — " Guard turn out," — was uttered every five minutes. Amongst other entertainments which had been provided for the amusement of royalty, nothing could surpass the splendour of a tournament which took place at the Imperial riding- school. The sides were filled with a dense mass of well- dressed spectators. At each end, galleries had been erected, decorated with party-coloured fes- toons and draperies of silk ; the pillars that sup- ported them, were covered with floating pennons, bearing gallant mottoes ; and these galleries were now filled with all the distinguished re- presentatives of the most noble families. One was reserved for the reception of the court ; COMPTON AUDLEY. 169 the train who attended the imperial cortige on this occasion, were of the bravest and the fairest, the wisest counsellors, the highest born nobles. The arrival of the Empress, who was to ap- propriate the rewards, escorted by the noble Hungarian guard in their uniforms of green and silver, with their leopard skin accoutre- ments, all mounted on grey chargers, was an- nounced by a clamorous blast of war-like music, playing the national anthem, " God preserve the Emperor." Several thousands of male voices joining in the choral chaunt ; the scene was singularly imposing. A flourish of trumpets announced the arrival of those who meant to take part in the tournament. The massive gates were then thrown open, and the knights, preceded by heralds and pur- suivants at arms, entered in long procession, forming up in line of double file in front of the imperial tent, the leader of each party vol. I. I 170 COMPTON AUDLEY. being in the centre of the foremost rank, their swords drawn, and their lances upright, their bright points glancing " Their armour as it caught the rays, Flash'd back again the general blaze In lines of dazzling light." There they remained until the " crowned heads" had inspected the ranks. To describe all the " bravely mounted " and the