CHAPTER XV.
_Arundel's Warning_
IN THE morning of the young Duke's departure for Twickenham, as MissDacre and Lady Caroline St. Maurice were sitting together at the houseof the former, and moralising over the last night's ball, Mr. ArundelDacre was announced.
'You have just arrived in time to offer your congratulations, Arundel,on an agreeable event,' said Miss Dacre. 'Lord St. Maurice is about tolead to the hymeneal altar----'
'Lady Sophy Wrekin; I know it.'
'How extremely diplomatic! The _attache_ in your very air. I thought,of course, I was to surprise you; but future ambassadors have suchextraordinary sources of information.'
'Mine is a simple one. The Duchess, imagining, I suppose, that myattentions were directed to the wrong lady, warned me some weeks past.However, my congratulations shall be duly paid. Lady Caroline St.Maurice, allow me to express----'
'All that you ought to feel,' said Miss Dacre. 'But men at the presentday pride themselves on insensibility.'
'Do you think I am insensible, Lady Caroline?' asked Arundel.
'I must protest against unfair questions,' said her Ladyship.
'But it is not unfair. You are a person who have now seen me more thanonce, and therefore, according to May, you ought to have a perfectknowledge of my character. Moreover, you do not share the prejudices ofmy family. I ask you, then, do you think I am so heartless as May wouldinsinuate?'
'Does she insinuate so much?'
'Does she not call me insensible, because I am not in raptures that yourbrother is about to marry a young lady, who, for aught she knows, may bethe object of my secret adoration?'
'Arundel, you are perverse,' said Miss Dacre.
'No, May; I am logical.'
'I have always heard that logic is much worse than wilfulness,' saidLady Caroline.
'But Arundel always was both,' said Miss Dacre. 'He is not onlyunreasonable, but he will always prove that he is right. Here is yourpurse, sir!' she added with a smile, presenting him with the result ofher week's labour.
'This is the way she always bribes me, Lady Caroline. Do you approve ofthis corruption?'
'I must confess, I have a slight though secret kindness for a littlebribery. Mamma is now on her way to Mortimer's, on a corrupt embassy.The _nouvelle mariee_, you know, must be reconciled to her change of lotby quite a new set of playthings. I can give you no idea of the necklacethat our magnificent cousin, in spite of his wound, has sent Sophy.'
'But then, such a cousin!' said Miss Dacre. 'A young Duke, like theyoung lady in the fairy tale, should scarcely ever speak withoutproducing brilliants.'
'Sophy is highly sensible of the attention. As she amusingly observed,except himself marrying her, he could scarcely do more. I hear thecarriage. Adieu, love! Good morning, Mr. Dacre.'
'Allow me to see you to your carriage. I am to dine at Fitz-pompey Houseto-day, I believe.'
Arundel Dacre returned to his cousin, and, seating himself at the table,took up a book, and began reading it the wrong side upwards; then hethrew down a ball of silk, then he cracked a knitting-needle, and thenwith a husky sort of voice and a half blush, and altogether an air ofinfinite confusion, he said, 'This has been an odd affair, May, of theDuke of St. James and Sir Lucius Grafton?'
'A very distressing affair, Arundel.'
'How singular that I should have been his second, May?'
'Could he have found anyone more fit for that office, Arundel?'
'I think he might. I must say this: that, had I known at the time thecause of the fray, I should have refused to accompany him.'
She was silent, and he resumed:
'An opera singer, at the best! Sir Lucius Grafton showed morediscrimination. Peacock Piggott was just the character for his place,and I think my principal, too, might have found a more congenial spirit.What do you think, May?'
'Really, Arundel, this is a subject of which I know nothing.'
'Indeed! Well, it is odd, May; but do you know I have a queer suspicionthat you know more about it than anybody else.'
'I! Arundel?' she exclaimed, with marked confusion.
'Yes, you, May,' he repeated with firmness, and looked her in the facewith a glance which would read her soul. 'Ay! I am sure you do.'
'Who says so?'
'Oh! do not fear that you have been betrayed. No one says it; but I knowit. We future ambassadors, you know, have such extraordinary sources ofinformation.'
'You jest, Arundel, on a grave subject.'
'Grave! yes, it is grave, May Dacre. It is grave that there shouldbe secrets between us; it is grave that our house should have beeninsulted; it is grave that you, of all others, should have beenoutraged; but oh! it is much more grave, it is bitter, that any otherarm than this should have avenged the wrong.' He rose from his chair,he paced the room in agitation, and gnashed his teeth with a vindictiveexpression that he tried not to suppress.
'O! my cousin, my dear, dear cousin! spare me!' She hid her face in herhands, yet she continued speaking in a broken voice: 'I did it forthe best. It was to suppress strife, to prevent bloodshed. I knew yourtemper, and I feared for your life; yet I told my father; I told himall: and it was by his advice that I have maintained throughout thesilence which I, perhaps too hastily, at first adopted.'
'My own dear May! spare me! I cannot mark a tear from you without apang. How I came to know this you wonder. It was the delirium of thatperson who should not have played so proud a part in this affair, andwho is yet our friend; it was his delirium that betrayed all. In themadness of his excited brain he reacted the frightful scene, declaredthe outrage, and again avenged it. Yet, believe me, I am not tempted byany petty feeling of showing I am not ignorant of what is considereda secret to declare all this. I know, I feel your silence was for thebest; that it was prompted by sweet and holy feelings for my sake.Believe me, my dear cousin, if anything could increase the infiniteaffection with which I love you, it would be the consciousness that atall times, whenever my image crosses your mind, it is to muse for mybenefit, or to extenuate my errors.
'Dear May, you, who know me better than the world, know well my heart isnot a mass of ice; and you, who are ever so ready to find a good reasoneven for my most wilful conduct, and an excuse for my most irrational,will easily credit that, in interfering in an affair in which youare concerned, I am not influenced by an unworthy, an officious, or ameddling spirit. No, dear May! it is because I think it better for youthat we should speak upon this subject that I have ventured to treatupon it. Perhaps I broke it in a crude, but, credit me, not in anunkind, spirit. I am well conscious I have a somewhat ungracious manner;but you, who have pardoned it so often, will excuse it now. To be brief,it is of your companion to that accursed fete that I would speak.'
'Mrs. Dallington?'
'Surely she. Avoid her, May. I do not like that woman. You know I seldomspeak at hazard; if I do not speak more distinctly now, it is because Iwill never magnify suspicions into certainties, which we must do even ifwe mention them. But I suspect, greatly suspect. An open rupture wouldbe disagreeable, would be unwarrantable, would be impolitic. The seasondraws to a close. Quit town somewhat earlier than usual, and, in themeantime, receive her, if necessary; but, if possible, never alone. Youhave many friends; and, if no other, Lady Caroline St. Maurice is worthyof your society.'
He bent down his head and kissed her forehead: she pressed his faithfulhand.
'And now, dear May, let me speak of a less important object, of myself.I find this borough a mere delusion. Every day new difficulties arise;and every day my chance seems weaker. I am wasting precious time for onewho should be in action. I think, then, of returning to Vienna, and atonce. I have some chance of being appointed Secretary of Embassy, andI then shall have achieved what was the great object of my life,independence.'
'This is always a sorrowful subject to me, Arundel. You have cherishedsuch strange, do not be offended if I say such erroneous, ideas on thesubject of what you call independence, that I feel tha
t upon it wecan consult neither with profit to you nor satisfaction to myself.Independence! Who is independent, if the heir of Dacre bow to anyone?Independence! Who can be independent, if the future head of one ofthe first families in this great country, will condescend to be thesecretary even of a king?'
'We have often talked of this, May, and perhaps I have carried a morbidfeeling to some excess; but my paternal blood flows in these veins, andit is too late to change. I know not how it is, but I seem misplaced inlife. My existence is a long blunder.'
'Too late to change, dearest Arundel! Oh! thank you for those words. Canit, can it ever be too late to acknowledge error? Particularly if, bythat very acknowledgment, we not only secure our own happiness, but thatof those we love and those who love us?'
'Dear May! when I talk with you, I talk with my good genius; but I amin closer and more constant converse with another mind, and of that I amthe slave. It is my own. I will not conceal from you, from whom I haveconcealed nothing, that doubts and dark misgivings of the truth andwisdom of my past feelings and my past career will ever and anon flitacross my fancy, and obtrude themselves upon my consciousness. Yourfather--yes! I feel that I have not been to him what nature intended,and what he deserved.'
'O Arundel!' she said, with streaming eyes, 'he loves you like a son.Yet, yet be one!'
He seated himself on the sofa by her side, and took her small hand andbathed it with his kisses.
'My sweet and faithful friend, my very sister! I am overpowered withfeelings to which I have hitherto been a stranger. There is a cause forall this contest of my passions. It must out. My being has changed. Thescales have fallen from my sealed eyes, and the fountain of my hearto'erflows. Life seems to have a new purpose, and existence a new cause.Listen to me, listen; and if you can, May, comfort me!'