Ernest Maltravers — Complete

“Very seldom.”

“It is, indeed, too warm for riding at present.”

“I did not say so.”

“Hem—I thought you did.”

Another pause.

“Did you speak, Lady Florence?”

“No.”

“Oh, I beg pardon—Lord Saxingham is looking very well.”

“I am glad you think so.”

“Your picture in the exhibition scarcely does you justice, Lady Florence; yet Lawrence is usually happy.”

“You are very flattering,” said Lady Florence, with a lively and perceptible impatience in her tone and manner. The young beauty was thoroughly spoilt—and now all the scorn of a scornful nature was drawn forth, by observing the envious eyes of the crowd were bent upon one whom the Duke of ——— was actually talking to. Brilliant as were her own powers of conversation, she would not deign to exert them—she was an aristocrat of intellect rather than birth, and she took it into her head that the duke was an idiot. She was very much mistaken. If she had but broken up the ice, she would have found that the water below was not shallow. The duke, in fact, like many other Englishmen, though he did not like the trouble of showing forth, and had an ungainly manner, was a man who had read a good deal, possessed a sound head and an honourable mind, though he did not know what it was to love anybody, to care much for anything, and was at once perfectly sated and yet perfectly contented; for apathy is the combination of satiety and content.

Still Florence judged of him as lively persons are apt to judge of the sedate; besides, she wanted to proclaim to him and to everybody else, how little she cared for dukes and great matches; she, therefore, with a slight inclination of her head, turned away, and extended her hand to a dark young man, who was gazing on her with that respectful but unmistakable admiration which proud women are never proud enough to despise.

“Ah, signor,” said she, in Italian, “I am so glad to see you; it is a relief, indeed, to find genius in a crowd of nothings.”

So saying, the heiress seated herself on one of those convenient couches which hold but two, and beckoned the Italian to her side. Oh, how the vain heart of Castruccio Cesarini beat!—what visions of love, rank, wealth, already flitted before him!

“I almost fancy,” said Castruccio, “that the old days of romance are returned, when a queen could turn from princes and warriors to listen to a troubadour.”

“Troubadours are now more rare than warriors and princes,” replied Florence, with gay animation, which contrasted strongly with the coldness she had manifested to the Duke of ———, “and therefore it would not now be a very great merit in a queen to fly from dulness and insipidity to poetry and wit.”

“Ah, say not wit,” said Cesarini; “wit is incompatible with the grave character of deep feelings;—incompatible with enthusiasm, with worship;—incompatible with the thoughts that wait upon Lady Florence Lascelles.”

Florence coloured and slightly frowned; but the immense distinction between her position and that of the young foreigner, with her own inexperience, both of real life and the presumption of vain hearts, made her presently forget the flattery that would have offended her in another. She turned the conversation, however, into general channels, and she talked of Italian poetry with a warmth and eloquence worthy of the theme. While they thus conversed, a new guest had arrived, who, from the spot where he stood, engaged with Lord Saxingham, fixed a steady and scrutinising gaze upon the pair.

“Lady Florence has indeed improved,” said this new guest. “I could not have conceived that England boasted any one half so beautiful.”

“She certainly is handsome, my dear Lumley,—the Lascelles cast of countenance,” replied Lord Saxingham, “and so gifted! She is positively learned—quite a bas bleu. I tremble to think of the crowd of poets and painters who will make a fortune out of her enthusiasm. Entre nous, Lumley, I could wish her married to a man of sober sense, like the Duke of ———; for sober sense is exactly what she wants. Do observe, she has been sitting just half an hour flirting with that odd-looking adventurer, a Signor Cesarini, merely because he writes sonnets and wears a dress like a stage-player!”

“It is the weakness of the sex, my dear lord,” said Lumley; “they like to patronise, and they dote upon all oddities, from China monsters to cracked poets. But I fancy, by a restless glance cast every now and then around the room, that my beautiful cousin has in her something of the coquette.”

“There you are quite right, Lumley,” returned Lord Saxingham, laughing; “but I will not quarrel with her for breaking hearts and refusing hands, if she do but grow steady at last, and settle into the Duchess of———.”

“Duchess of ———!” repeated Lumley, absently; “well, I will go and present myself. I see she is growing tired of the signor. I will sound her as to the ducal impressions, my dear lord.”

“Do—I dare not,” replied the father; “she is an excellent girl, but heiresses are always contradictory. It was very foolish to deprive me of all control over her fortune. Come and see me again soon, Lumley. I suppose you are going abroad?”

“No, I shall settle in England; but of my prospects and plans more hereafter.”

With this, Lumley quietly glided away to Florence. There was something in Ferrers that was remarkable from its very simplicity. His clear, sharp features, with the short hair and high brow—the absolute plainness of his dress, and the noiseless, easy, self-collected calm of all his motions, made a strong contrast to the showy Italian, by whose side he now stood. Florence looked up at him with some little surprise at his intrusion.

“Ah, you don’t recollect me!” said Lumley, with his pleasant laugh. “Faithless Imogen, after all your vows of constancy! Behold your Alonzo!

‘The worms they crept in and the worms they crept out.’

“Don’t you remember how you trembled when I told you that true story, as we

‘Conversed as we sat on the green”?

“Oh!” cried Florence, “it is indeed you, my dear cousin—my dear Lumley! What an age since we parted!”

“Don’t talk of age—it is an ugly word to a man of my years. Pardon, signor, if I disturb you.”

And here Lumley, with a low bow, slid coolly into the place which Cesarini, who had shyly risen, left vacant for him. Castruccio looked disconcerted; but Florence had forgotten him in her delight at seeing Lumley, and Cesarini moved discontentedly away, and seated himself at a distance.

“And I come back,” continued Lumley, “to find you a confirmed beauty and a professional coquette—don’t blush!”

“Do they, indeed, call me a coquette?”

“Oh, yes,—for once the world is just.”

“Perhaps I do deserve the reproach. Oh, Lumley, how I despise all that I see and hear!”

“What, even the Duke of ———?”

“Yes, I fear even the Duke of ——— is no exception!”

“Your father will go mad if he hear you.”

“My father!—my poor father!—yes, he thinks the utmost that I, Florence Lascelles, am made for, is to wear a ducal coronet, and give the best balls in London.”

“And pray what was Florence Lascelles made for?”

“Ah! I cannot answer the question. I fear for Discontent and Disdain.”

“You are an enigma—but I will take pains and not rest till I solve you.”

“I defy you.”

“Thanks—better defy than despise.

“Oh, you must be strangely altered, if I can despise you.”

“Indeed! what do you remember of me?”

“That you were frank, bold, and therefore, I suppose, true!—that you shocked my aunts and my father by your contempt for the vulgar hypocrisies of our conventional life. Oh, no! I cannot despise you.”

Lumley raised his eyes to those of Florence—he gazed on her long and earnestly—ambitious hopes rose high within him.