Henrietta Temple: A Love Story. Benjamin Disraeli
proved to them very satisfactorily must be the nearest way. He even asked permission to accompany them; and while his groom was saddling his horse he led them to the old Place and the flower-garden.
‘You must be very fatigued, Miss Temple. I wish that I could persuade you to enter and rest yourself.’
‘Indeed, no: I love flowers too much to leave them.’
‘Here is one that has the recommendation of novelty as well as beauty,’ said Ferdinand, plucking a strange rose, and presenting it to her. ‘I sent it to my mother from Barbary.’
‘You live amidst beauty.’
‘I think that I never remember Armine looking so well as to-day.’
‘A sylvan scene requires sunshine,’ replied Miss Temple. ‘We have been most fortunate in our visit.’
‘It is something brighter than the sunshine that makes it so fair,’ replied Ferdinand; but at this moment the horses appeared.
CHAPTER V
In Which Captain Armine Is Very Absent during Dinner.
YOU are well mounted,’ said Mr. Temple to Ferdinand.
‘’Tis a barb. I brought it over with me.’
‘’Tis a beautiful creature,’ said Miss Temple.
‘Hear that, Selim,’ said Ferdinand; ‘prick up thine ears, my steed. I perceive that you are an accomplished horsewoman, Miss Temple. You know our country, I dare say, well?’
‘I wish to know it better. This is only the second summer that we have passed at Ducie.’
‘By-the-bye, I suppose you know my landlord, Captain Armine?’ said Mr. Temple.
‘No,’ said Ferdinand; ‘I do not know a single person in the county. I have myself scarcely been at Armine for these five years, and my father and mother do not visit anyone.’
‘What a beautiful oak!’ exclaimed Miss Temple, desirous of turning the conversation.
‘It has the reputation of being planted by Sir Francis Walsingham,’ said Ferdinand. ‘An ancestor of mine married his daughter. He was the father of Sir Walsingham, the portrait in the gallery with the white stick. You remember it?’
‘Perfectly: that beautiful portrait! It must be, at all events, a very old tree.’
‘There are few things more pleasing to me than an ancient place,’ said Mr. Temple.
‘Doubly pleasing when in the possession of an ancient family,’ added his daughter.
‘I fear such feelings are fast wearing away,’ said Ferdinand.
‘There will be a reaction,’ said Mr. Temple.
‘They cannot destroy the poetry of time,’ said the lady.
‘I hope I have no very inveterate prejudices,’ said Ferdinand; ‘but I should be sorry to see Armine in any other hands than our own, I confess.’
‘I never would enter the park again,’ said Miss Temple.
‘So far as worldly considerations are concerned,’ continued Ferdinand, ‘it would perhaps be much better for us if we were to part with it.’
‘It must, indeed, be a costly place to keep up,’ said Mr. Temple.
‘Why, as for that,’ said Ferdinand, ‘we let the kine rove and the sheep browse where our fathers hunted the stag and flew their falcons. I think if they were to rise from their graves they would be ashamed of us.’
‘Nay!’ said Miss Temple, ‘I think yonder cattle are very picturesque. But the truth is, anything would look well in such a park as this. There is such a variety of prospect.’
The park of Armine indeed differed materially from those vamped-up sheep-walks and ambitious paddocks which are now honoured with the title. It was, in truth, the old chase, and little shorn of its original proportions. It was many miles in circumference, abounding in hill and dale, and offering much variety of appearance. Sometimes it was studded with ancient timber, single trees of extraordinary growth, and rich clumps that seemed coeval with the foundation of the family. Tracts of wild champaign succeeded these, covered with gorse and fern. Then came stately avenues of sycamore or Spanish chestnut, fragments of stately woods, that in old days doubtless reached the vicinity of the mansion house; and these were in turn succeeded by modern coverts.
At length our party reached the gate whence Ferdinand had calculated that they should quit the park. He would willingly have accompanied them. He bade them farewell with regret, which was softened by the hope expressed by all of a speedy meeting.
‘I wish, Captain Armine,’ said Miss Temple, ‘we had your turf to canter home upon.’
‘By-the-bye, Captain Armine,’ said Mr. Temple, ‘ceremony should scarcely subsist between country neighbours, and certainly we have given you no cause to complain of our reserve. As you are alone at Armine, perhaps you would come over and dine with us to-morrow. If you can manage to come early, we will see whether we may not contrive to kill a bird together; and pray remember we can give you a bed, which I think, all things considered, it would be but wise to accept.’
‘I accept everything,’ said Ferdinand, smiling; ‘all your offers. Good morning, my dearest sir; good morning, Miss Temple.’
‘Miss Temple, indeed!’ exclaimed Ferdinand, when he had watched them out of sight. ‘Exquisite, enchanting, adored being! Without thee what is existence? How dull, how blank does everything even now seem! It is as if the sun had just set! Oh! that form! that radiant countenance! that musical and thrilling voice! Those tones still vibrate on my ear, or I should deem it all a vision! Will to-morrow ever come? Oh! that I could express to you my love, my overwhelming, my absorbing, my burning passion! Beautiful Henrietta! Thou hast a name, methinks, I ever loved. Where am I? what do I say? what wild, what maddening words are these? Am I not Ferdinand Armine, the betrothed, the victim? Even now, methinks, I hear the chariot-wheels of my bride. God! if she be there; if she indeed be at Armine on my return: I’ll not see her; I’ll not speak to them; I’ll fly. I’ll cast to the winds all ties and duties; I will not be dragged to the altar, a miserable sacrifice, to redeem, by my forfeited felicity, the worldly fortunes of my race. O Armine, Armine! she would not enter thy walls again if other blood but mine swayed thy fair demesne: and I, shall I give thee another mistress, Armine? It would indeed be treason! Without her I cannot live. Without her form bounds over this turf and glances in these arbours I never wish to view them. All the inducements to make the wretched sacrifice once meditated then vanish; for Armine, without her, is a desert, a tomb, a hell. I am free, then. Excellent logician! But this woman: I am bound to her. Bound? The word makes me tremble. I shiver: I hear the clank of my fetters. Am I indeed bound? Ay! in honour. Honour and love! A contest! Pah! The Idol must yield to the Divinity!’
With these wild words and wilder thoughts bursting from his lips and dashing through his mind; his course as irregular and as reckless as his fancies; now fiercely galloping, now pulling up into a sudden halt, Ferdinand at length arrived home; and his quick eye perceived in a moment that the dreaded arrival had not taken place. Glastonbury was in the flower-garden on one knee before a vase, over which he was training a creeper. He looked up as he heard the approach of Ferdinand. His presence and benignant smile in some degree stilled the fierce emotions of his pupil. Ferdinand felt that the system of dissimulation must now commence; besides, he was always careful to be most kind to Glastonbury. He would not allow that any attack of spleen, or even illness, could ever justify a careless look or expression to that dear friend.
‘I hope, my dear father,’ said Ferdinand, ‘I am punctual to our hour?’
‘The sun-dial tells me,’ said Glastonbury, ‘that you have arrived to the moment; and I rather think that yonder approaches a summons to our repast. I hope you have passed your morning agreeably?’
‘If all days would pass as sweet, my father, I should indeed be blessed.’
‘I, too, have had a fine morning of it. You must come to-morrow and see my grand emblazonry