The Daltons; Or, Three Roads In Life. Volume I. Lever Charles James
standing to take the lead and give a tone to the society; some one who would unite indispensable rank and wealth with personal graces, and thus, as it were, by prescriptive right, assume the first place. Then, I say, Florence would be second to no city of Italy. Would that your Ladyship would condescend to accept the vacant throne!”
“I!” said she, affecting astonishment; and then laughingly added: “Oh no! I detest mock sovereignty. I actually shudder at the idea of the lady-patroness part; besides, whom should one have to reign over? Not the Browns and Smiths and Perkinses; not the full-pensioned East Indians, the half-pay colonels, and the no-pay Irish gentilities, that form the staple of small city society. You surely would not recommend me to such a sad pre-eminence.”
The colonel smiled flatteringly at her Ladyship’s smartness, and hastened to assure her that such heresy was far from his thoughts; and then with a practised readiness ran over a list of foreign celebrities French, Russian, and German whose names, at least, clinked like the true metal.
This looked promisingly; it was very like cutting all English society, and had the appearance of something very exclusive, very impertinent, and very ungenerous; and now she lent a willing ear as Haggerstone revealed a plan of operations for a whole winter campaign. According to his account, it was a perfect terra incognita, where the territorial limits and laws might be laid down at will; it was a state which called for a great dictatorship, and the sway of unlimited authority.
Now, Lady Hester had never at least since her marriage, and very rarely even before it been more than on the periphery of fashionable society. When she did obtain a footing within the charmed circle, it was by no prescriptive right, but rather on some ground of patronage, or some accidental political crisis, which made Sir Stafford’s influence a matter of moment. There was, therefore, a flattery in the thought of thus becoming a leader in society; and she shrewdly remembered, that though there might be little real power, there would be all the tyranny of a larger sovereignty.
It is true she suffered no symptom of this satisfaction to escape her; on the contrary, she compassionated the “poor dear things,” that thought themselves “the world,” in such a place, and smiled with angelic pity at their sweet simplicity; but Haggerstone saw through all these disguises, and read her real sentiments, as a practised toadeater never fails to do, where only affectation is the pretence. Adroitly avoiding to press the question, he adverted to Baden and its dreary weather; offered his books, his newspapers, his horses, his phaeton, and everything that was his, even his companionship as a guide to the best riding or walking roads, and, like a clever actor, made his exit at the very moment when his presence became most desirable.
Lady Hester looked out of the window, and saw, in the street beneath, the saddle-horses of the colonel, which were led up and down by a groom in the most accurate of costumes. The nags themselves, too, were handsome and in top condition. It was a little gleam of civilization, in the midst of universal barrenness, that brought up memories, some of which at least were not devoid of pain, so far as the expression of her features might be trusted. “I wonder who he can be?” said she, musing. “It’s a shocking name! Haggerstone. Perhaps Sir Stafford may remember him. It’s very sad to think that one should be reduced to such people.” So, with a slight sigh, she sat down to indulge in a mood of deep and sincere commiseration for herself and her sorrows.
From these reveries she was aroused by the arrival of a package of books and papers from the colonel. They included some of the latest things of the day, both French and English, and were exactly the kind of reading she cared for, that half-gossipry that revolves around a certain set, and busies itself about the people and incidents of one very small world. There were books of travel by noble authors, and novels by titled authoresses; the one as tamely well bred and tiresome as the others were warm and impassioned, no bad corroborative evidence, by the way, of the French maxim, that the “safety of the Lady Georginas has an immense relation to the coldness of the Lord Georges.” There were books of beauty, wherein loveliness was most aristocratic; and annuals where nobility condescended to write twaddle. There were analyses of new operas, wherein the list of the spectators was the only matter of interest, and better than these were the last fashions of “Longchamps,” the newest bulletins of that great campaign which began in Adam’s garden, and will endure to the “very crack of doom.”
Lady Hester’s spirits rallied at once from these well-timed stimulants; and when the party gathered together before dinner, George and his sister were amazed at the happy change in her manner.
“I have had a visitor,” said she, after a short mystification; “a certain colonel, who assumes to be known to your father, but I fancy will scarcely be remembered by him, he calls himself Haggerstone.”
“Haggerstone!” said George, repeating the name twice or thrice. “Is not that the name of the man who was always with Arlington, and of whom all the stories are told?”
“As I never heard of Arlington’s companion, nor the stories in question, I can’t say. Pray enlighten us,” said Lady Hester, tartly.
“Haggerstone sounds so like the name,” repeated George to himself.
“So like what name? Do be good enough to explain.”
“I am unwilling to tell a story which, if not justly attributable to the man, will certainly attach unpleasantly to his name hereafter.”
“And in your excessive caution for yourself, you are pleased to forget me, Mr. Onslow. Pray remember that if I admit him to acquaintance – ”
“But surely you don’t mean to do so?”
“And why not?”
“In the first place, you know nothing about him.”
“Which is your fault.”
“Be it so. I have at least told you enough to inspire reserve and caution.”
“Quite enough to suggest curiosity and give a degree of interest to a very commonplace character.”
“Is he young, may I ask?” said George, with a half smile.
“No, far from it.”
“Good-looking?”
“Just as little.”
“Very agreeable and well-mannered?”
“Rather prosy, and too military in tone for my taste.”
“Does he come under the recommendatory ‘firman’ of any dear friend or acquaintance?”
“Nothing of the kind. There is his passport,” said she, pointing to his visiting ticket.
“Your Ladyship used to be more difficult of access,” said George, dryly.
“Very true; and so I may possibly become again. To make selections from the world of one’s acquaintance is a very necessary duty; but, as my father used to say, no one thinks of using a sieve for chaff.”
“This gentleman is, then, fortunate in his obscurity.”
“Here comes Miss Onslow,” said Lady Hester, “who will probably be more grateful to me when she learns that our solitude is to be enlivened by the gallant colonel.”
Sydney scanned over the books and journals on the table, and then quietly remarked, “If a man is to be judged of by his associates, these do not augur very favorably for the gentleman’s taste.”
“I see that you are both bent on making him a favorite of mine,” said Lady Hester, pettishly; “and if Dr. Grounsell will only discover some atrocious circumstance in his history or character, I shall be prepared to call him ‘charming.’”
The announcement of dinner fortunately broke up a discussion that already promised unfavorably; nor were any of the party sorry at the interruption.
CHAPTER VII. A LESSON IN PISTOL-SHOOTING
THERE are two great currents which divide public opinion in the whole world, and all mankind may be classed into one or other of these wide categories, “the people who praise, and the people who abuse everything.” In certain sets, all is as it ought to be, in this life. Everybody is good, dear, and amiable.