Henrietta Temple: A Love Story
‘I have the pleasure of meeting an old friend,’ said his lordship.
Ferdinand just touched his lordship’s finger, and bowed rather stiffly; then, turning to his mother, he gave her Lady Bellair’s note. ‘It concerns you more than myself,’ he observed.
‘You were not at Lady Bellair’s last night, Captain Armine,’ said her Grace.
‘I never go anywhere,’ was the answer.
‘He has been a great invalid,’ said Lady Armine.
‘Where is Glastonbury, Ferdinand?’ said Lady Armine. ‘He never comes near us.’
‘He goes every day to the British Museum.’
‘I wish he would take me,’ said Katherine. ‘I have never been there. Have you?’ she enquired, turning to Henrietta.
‘I am ashamed to say never,’ replied Henrietta. ‘It seems to me that London is the only city of which I know nothing.’
‘Ferdinand,’ said Katherine, ‘I wish you would go with us to the Museum some day. Miss Temple would like to go. You know Miss Temple,’ she added, as if she of course supposed he had not that pleasure.
Ferdinand bowed; Lord Montfort came forward, and turned the conversation to Egyptian antiquities. When a quarter of an hour had passed, Ferdinand thought that he might now withdraw.
‘Do you dine at home, Katherine, to-day?’ he enquired.
Miss Grandison looked at Miss Temple; the young ladies whispered.
‘Ferdinand,’ said Katherine, ‘what are you going to do?’
‘Nothing particular.’
‘We are going to ride, and Miss Temple wishes you would come with us.’
‘I should be very happy, but I have some business to attend to.’
‘Dear Ferdinand, that is what you always say. You really appear to me to be the most busy person in the world.’
‘Pray come, Captain Armine,’ said Lord Montfort.
‘Thank you; it is really not in my power.’ His hat was in his hand; he was begging her Grace to bear his compliments to the duke, when Henrietta rose from her seat, and, coming up to him, said, ‘Do, Captain Armine, come with us; I ask you as a favour.’
That voice! Oh! it came o’er his ear ‘like the sweet south;’ it unmanned him quite. He scarcely knew where he was. He trembled from head to foot. His colour deserted him, and the unlucky hat fell to the floor; and yet she stood before him, awaiting his reply, calm, quite calm, serious, apparently a little anxious. The duchess was in earnest conversation with his mother. Lord Montfort had walked up to Miss Grandison, and was engaged in arranging a pattern for her. Ferdinand and Henrietta were quite unobserved. He looked up; he caught her eye; and then he whispered, ‘This is hardly fair.’
She stretched forth her hand, took his hat, and laid it on the table; then, turning to Katherine, she said, in a tone which seemed to admit no doubt, ‘Captain Armine will ride with us;’ and she seated herself by Lady Armine.
The expedition was a little delayed by Ferdinand having to send for his horse; the others had, in the meantime, arrived. Yet this half-hour, by some contrivance, did at length disappear. Lord Montfort continued talking to Miss Grandison. Henrietta remained seated by Lady Armine. Ferdinand revolved a great question in, his mind, and it was this: Was Lord Montfort aware of the intimate acquaintance between himself and Miss Temple? And what was the moving principle of her present conduct? He conjured up a thousand reasons, but none satisfied him. His curiosity was excited, and, instead of regretting his extracted promise to join the cavalcade, he rejoiced that an opportunity was thus afforded him of perhaps solving a problem in the secret of which he now began to feel extremely interested.
And yet in truth when Ferdinand found himself really mounted, and riding by the side of Henrietta Temple once more, for Lord Montfort was very impartial in his attentions to his fair companions, and Ferdinand continually found himself next to Henrietta, he really began to think the world was bewitched, and was almost sceptical whether he was or was not Ferdinand Armine. The identity of his companion too was so complete: Henrietta Temple in her riding-habit was the very image most keenly impressed upon his memory. He looked at her and stared at her with a face of curious perplexity. She did not, indeed, speak much; the conversation was always general, and chiefly maintained by Lord Montfort, who, though usually silent and reserved, made on this occasion successful efforts to be amusing. His attention to Ferdinand too was remarkable; it was impossible to resist such genuine and unaffected kindness. It smote Ferdinand’s heart that he had received his lordship’s first advances so ungraciously. Compunction rendered him now doubly courteous; he was even once or twice almost gay.
The day was as fine as a clear sky, a warm sun, and a western breeze could render it. Tempted by so much enjoyment, their ride was long. It was late, much later than they expected, when they returned home by the green lanes of pretty Willesden, and the Park was quite empty when they emerged from the Edgware-road into Oxford-street.
‘Now the best thing we can all do is to dine in St. James’-square,’ said Lord Montfort. ‘It is ten minutes past eight. We shall just be in time, and then we can send messages to Grosvenor-square and Brook-street. What say you, Armine? You will come, of course?’
‘Thank you, if you would excuse me.’
‘No, no; why excuse you?’ said Lord Montfort: ‘I think it shabby to desert us now, after all our adventures.’
‘Really you are very kind, but I never dine out.’
‘Dine out! What a phrase! You will not meet a human being; perhaps not even my father. If you will not come, it will spoil everything.’
‘I cannot dine in a frock,’ said Ferdinand.
‘I shall,’ said Lord Montfort, ‘and these ladies must dine in their habits, I suspect.’
‘Oh! certainly, certainly,’ said the ladies.
‘Do come, Ferdinand,’ said Katherine.
‘I ask you as a favour,’ said Henrietta, turning to him and speaking in a low voice.
‘Well,’ said Ferdinand, with a sigh.
‘That is well,’ said Montfort; ‘now let us trot through the Park, and the groom can call in Grosvenor-square and Brook-street, and gallop after us. This is amusing, is it not?’
CHAPTER IX
Which Is on the Whole Almost as Perplexing as the Preceding One.
WHEN Ferdinand found himself dining in St. James’-square, in the very same room where he had passed so many gay hours during that boyish month of glee which preceded his first joining his regiment, and then looked opposite him and saw Henrietta Temple, it seemed to him that, by some magical process or other, his life was acting over again, and the order of the scenes and characters had, by some strange mismanagement, got confused. Yet he yielded himself up to the excitement which had so unexpectedly influenced him; he was inflamed by a species of wild delight which he could not understand, nor stop to analyse; and when the duchess retired with the young ladies to their secret conclave in the drawing-room, she said, ‘I like Captain Armine very much; he is so full of spirit and imagination. When we met him this morning, do you know, I thought him rather stiff and fine. I regretted the bright boyish flow that I so well recollected, but I see I was mistaken.’
‘Ferdinand is much changed,’ said Miss Grandison. ‘He was once the most brilliant person, I think, that ever lived: almost too brilliant; everybody by him seemed so tame. But since his illness he has quite changed. I have scarcely heard him speak or seen him smile these six months. There is not in the whole world a person so wretchedly altered. He is quite a wreck. I do not know what is the matter with him to-day. He seemed once almost himself.’
‘He indulged his feelings too much, perhaps,’ said Henrietta; ‘he lived, perhaps, too much alone, after so severe an illness.’
‘Oh, no! it is not that,’ said Miss Grandison, ‘it is not exactly that. Poor Ferdinand! he is to be pitied. I fear he will never be happy again.’
‘Miss Grandison should hardly say that,’ said the duchess, ‘if report speaks truly.’
Katherine was about to reply, but checked herself.
Henrietta rose from her seat rather suddenly, and asked Katherine to touch the piano.
The duchess took up the ‘Morning Post.’
‘Poor Ferdinand! he used to sing once so beautifully, too!’ said Katherine to Miss Temple, in a hushed voice. ‘He never sings now.’
‘You must make him,’ said Henrietta.
Miss Grandison shook her head.
‘You have influence with him; you should exert it,’ said Henrietta.
‘I neither have, nor desire to have, influence with him,’ said Miss Grandison. ‘Dearest Miss Temple, the world is in error with respect to myself and my cousin; and yet I ought not to say to you what I have not thought proper to confess even to my aunt.’
Henrietta leant over and kissed her forehead. ‘Say what you like, dearest Miss Grandison; you speak to a friend, who loves you, and will respect your secret.’
The gentlemen at this moment entered the room, and interrupted this interesting conversation.
‘You must not quit the instrument, Miss Grandison,’ said Lord Montfort, seating himself by her side. Ferdinand fell into conversation with the duchess; and Miss Temple was the amiable victim of his Grace’s passion for écarté.
‘Captain Armine is a most agreeable person,’ said Lord Montfort.
Miss Grandison rather stared. ‘We were just speaking of Ferdinand,’ she replied, ‘and I was lamenting his sad change.’
‘Severe illness, illness so severe as his, must for the moment change anyone; we shall soon see him himself again.’
‘Never,’ said Miss Grandison mournfully.
‘You must inspire him,’ said Lord Montfort. ‘I perceive you have great influence with him.’
‘I give Lord Montfort credit for much acuter perception than that,’ said Miss Grandison.
Their eyes met: even Lord Montfort’s dark vision shrank before the searching glance of Miss Grandison. It conveyed to him that his purpose was not undiscovered.
‘But you can exert influence, if you please,’ said Lord Montfort.
‘But it may not please me,’ said Miss Grandison.
At this moment Mr. Glastonbury was announced. He had a general invitation, and was frequently in the habit of paying an evening visit when the family were disengaged. When he found Ferdinand, Henrietta, and Katherine, all assembled together, and in so strange a garb, his perplexity was wondrous. The tone of comparative ease, too, with which Miss Temple addressed him, completed his confusion. He began to suspect that some critical explanation had taken place. He looked around for information.
‘We have all been riding,’ said Lord Montfort.
‘So I perceive,’ said Glastonbury.
‘And as we were too late for dinner, took refuge here,’ continued his lordship.
‘I observe it,’ said Glastonbury.
‘Miss Grandison is an admirable musician, sir.’
‘She is an admirable lady in every respect,’ said Glastonbury.
‘Perhaps you will join her in some canzonette; I am so stupid as not to be able to sing. I wish I could induce Captain Armine.’
‘He has left off singing,’ said Glastonbury, mournfully. ‘But Miss Temple?’ added Glastonbury, bowing to that lady.
‘Miss Temple has left off singing, too,’ said Lord Montfort, quietly.
‘Come, Mr. Glastonbury,’ said the duchess, ‘time was when you and I have sung together. Let us try to shame these young folks.’ So saying, her Grace seated herself at the piano, and the gratified Glastonbury summoned all his energies to accompany her.
Lord Montfort seated himself by Ferdinand. ‘You have been severely ill, I am sorry to hear.’
‘Yes; I have been rather shaken.’
‘This spring will bring you round.’
‘So everyone tells me. I cannot say I feel its beneficial influence.’
‘You should,’ said Lord Montfort. ‘At our age we ought to rally quickly.’
‘Yes! Time is the great physician. I cannot say I have much more faith in him than in the spring.’
‘Well, then, there is Hope; what think you of that?’
‘I have no great faith,’ said Ferdinand, affecting to smile.
‘Believe, then, in optimism,’ said Henrietta Temple, without taking her eyes off the cards. ‘Whatever is, is best.’
‘That is not my creed, Miss Temple,’ said Ferdinand, and he rose and was about to retire.
‘Must you go? Let us all do something to-morrow!’ said Lord Montfort, interchanging a glance with Henrietta. ‘The British Museum; Miss Grandison wishes to go to the British Museum. Pray come with us.’
‘You are very good, but–’
‘Well! I will write you a little note in the morning and tell you our plans,’ said Lord Montfort. ‘I hope you will not desert us.’
Ferdinand bowed and retired: he avoided catching the eye of Henrietta.
The carriages of Miss Temple and Miss Grandison were soon announced, and, fatigued with their riding-dresses, these ladies did not long remain.
‘To-day has been a day of trial,’ said Henrietta, as she was about to bid Lord Montfort farewell. ‘What do you think of affairs? I saw you speaking to Katherine. What do you think?’
‘I think Ferdinand Armine is a formidable rival. Do you know, I am rather jealous?’
‘Digby! can you be ungenerous?’
‘My sweet Henrietta, pardon my levity. I spoke in the merest playfulness. Nay,’ he continued, for she seemed really hurt, ‘say good night very sweetly.’
‘Is there any hope?’ said Henrietta.
‘All’s well that ends well,’ said Lord Montfort, smiling; ‘God bless you.’
Glastonbury was about to retire, when Lord Montfort returned and asked him to come up to his lordship’s own apartments, as he wished to show him a curious antique carving.
‘You seemed rather surprised at the guests you found here to-night,’ said Lord Montfort when they were alone.
Glastonbury looked a little confused. ‘It was certainly a curious meeting, all things considered,’ continued Lord Montfort: ‘Henrietta has never concealed anything of the past from me, but I have always wished to spare her details. I told her this morning I should speak to you upon the subject, and that is the reason why I have asked you here.’
‘It is a painful history,’ said Glastonbury.
‘As painful to me as anyone,’ said his lordship; ‘nevertheless, it must be told. When did you first meet Miss Temple?’
‘I shall never forget it,’ said Glastonbury, sighing and moving very uneasily in his chair. ‘I took her for Miss Grandison.’ And Glastonbury now entered into a complete history of everything that had occurred.
‘It is a strange, a wonderful story,’ said Lord Montfort, ‘and you communicated everything to Miss Grandison?’
‘Everything but the name of her rival. To that she would not listen. It was not just, she said, to one so unfortunate and so unhappy.’
‘She seems an admirable person, that Miss Grandison,’ said Lord Montfort.
‘She is indeed as near an angel as anything earthly can be,’ said Glastonbury.
‘Then it is still a secret to the parents?’
‘Thus she would have it,’ said Glastonbury. ‘She clings to them, who love her indeed as a daughter; and she shrank from the desolation that was preparing for them.’
‘Poor girl!’ said Lord Montfort, ‘and poor Armine! By heavens, I pity him from the bottom of my heart.’
‘If you had seen him as I have,’ said Glastonbury, ‘wilder than the wildest Bedlamite! It was an awful sight.’
‘Ah! the heart, the heart,’ said Lord Montfort: ‘it is a delicate organ, Mr. Glastonbury. And think you his father and mother suspect nothing?’
‘I know not what they think,’ said Glastonbury, ‘but they must soon know all.’ And he seemed to shudder at the thought.
‘Why must they?’ asked Lord Montfort.
Glastonbury stared.
‘Is there no hope of softening and subduing all their sorrows?’ said Lord Montfort; ‘cannot we again bring together these young and parted spirits?’
‘It is my only hope,’ said Glastonbury, ‘and yet I sometimes deem it a forlorn one.’
‘It is the sole desire of Henrietta,’ said Lord Montfort; ‘cannot you assist us? Will you enter into this conspiracy of affection with us?’
‘I want no spur to such a righteous work,’ said Glastonbury, ‘but I cannot conceal from myself the extreme difficulty. Ferdinand is the most impetuous of human beings. His passions are a whirlwind; his volition more violent than becomes a suffering mortal.’
‘You think, then, there is no difficulty but with him?’
‘I know not what to say,’ said Glastonbury; ‘calm as appears the temperament of Miss Grandison, she has heroic qualities. Oh! what have I not seen that admirable young lady endure! Alas! my Digby, my dear lord, few passages of this terrible story are engraven on my memory more deeply than the day when I revealed to her the fatal secret. Yet, and chiefly for her sake, it was my duty.’
‘It was at Armine?’
‘At Armine. I seized an opportunity when we were alone together, and without fear of being disturbed. We had gone to view an old abbey in the neighbourhood. We were seated among its ruins, when I took her hand and endeavoured to prepare her for the fatal intelligence, “All is not right with Ferdinand,” she immediately said; “there is some mystery. I have long suspected it.” She listened to my recital, softened as much as I could for her sake, in silence. Yet her paleness I never can forget. She looked like a saint in a niche. When I had finished, she whispered me to leave her for some short time, and I walked away, out of sight indeed, but so near that she might easily summon me. I stood alone until it was twilight, in a state of mournful suspense that I recall even now with anguish. At last I heard my name sounded, in a low yet distinct voice, and I looked round and she was there. She had been weeping. I took her hand and pressed it, and led her to the carriage. When I approached our unhappy home, she begged me to make her excuses to the family, and for two or three days we saw her no more. At length she sent for me, and told me she had been revolving all these sad circumstances in her mind, and she felt for others more even than for herself; that she forgave Ferdinand, and pitied him, and would act towards him as a sister; that her heart was distracted with the thoughts of the unhappy young lady, whose name she would never know, but that if by her assistance I could effect their union, means should not be wanting, though their source must be concealed; that for the sake of her aunt, to whom she is indeed passionately attached, she would keep the secret, until it could no longer be maintained; and that in the meantime it was to be hoped that health might be restored to her cousin, and Providence in some way interfere in favour of this unhappy family.’
‘Angelic creature!’ said Lord Montfort. ‘So young, too; I think so beautiful. Good God! with such a heart what could Armine desire?’
‘Alas!’ said Glastonbury, and he shook his head. ‘You know not the love of Ferdinand Armine for Henrietta Temple. It is a wild and fearful thing; it passeth human comprehension.’
Lord Montfort leant back in his chair, and covered his face with his hands. After some minutes he looked up, and said in his usual placid tone, and with an’ unruffled brow, ‘Will you take anything before you go, Mr. Glastonbury?’
CHAPTER X
In Which Captain Armine Increases His Knowledge of the Value of Money, and Also Becomes Aware of the Advantage of an Acquaintance Who Burns Coals.
FERDINAND returned to his hotel in no very good humour, revolving in his mind Miss Temple’s advice about optimism. What could she mean? Was there really a conspiracy to make him marry his cousin, and was Miss Temple one of the conspirators? He could scarcely believe this, and yet it was the most probable, deduction from all that had been said and done. He had lived to witness such strange occurrences, that no event ought now to astonish him. Only to think that he had been sitting quietly in a drawing-room with Henrietta Temple, and she avowedly engaged to be married to another person, who was present; and that he, Ferdinand Armine, should be the selected companion of their morning ride, and be calmly invited to contribute to their daily amusement by his social presence! What next? If this were not an insult, a gross, flagrant, and unendurable outrage, he was totally at a loss to comprehend what was meant by offended pride. Optimism, indeed! He felt far more inclined to embrace the faith of the Manichee! And what a fool was he to have submitted to such a despicable, such a degrading situation! What infinite weakness not to be able to resist her influence, the influence of a woman who had betrayed him! Yes! betrayed him. He had for some period reconciled his mind to entertain the idea of Henrietta’s treachery to him. Softened by time, atoned for by long suffering, extenuated by the constant sincerity of his purpose, his original imprudence, to use his own phrase in describing his misconduct, had gradually ceased to figure as a valid and sufficient cause for her behaviour to him. When he recollected how he had loved this woman, what he had sacrificed for her, and what misery he had in consequence entailed upon himself and all those dear to him; when he contrasted his present perilous situation with her triumphant prosperity, and remembered that while he had devoted himself to a love which proved false, she who had deserted him was, by a caprice of fortune, absolutely rewarded for her fickleness; he was enraged, he was disgusted, he despised himself for having been her slave; he began even to hate her. Terrible moment when we first dare to view with feelings of repugnance the being that our soul has long idolised! It is the most awful of revelations. We start back in horror, as if in the act of profanation.
Other annoyances, however, of a less ethereal character, awaited our hero on his return to his hotel. There he found a letter from his lawyer, informing him that he could no longer parry the determination of one of Captain Armine’s principal creditors to arrest him instantly for a considerable sum. Poor Ferdinand, mortified and harassed, with his heart and spirit alike broken, could scarcely refrain from a groan. However, some step must be taken. He drove Henrietta from his thoughts, and, endeavouring to rally some of his old energy, revolved in his mind what desperate expedient yet remained.
His sleep was broken by dreams of bailiffs, and a vague idea of Henrietta Temple triumphing in his misery; but he rose early, wrote a diplomatic note to his menacing creditor, which he felt confident must gain him time, and then, making a careful toilet, for when a man is going to try to borrow money it is wise to look prosperous, he took his way to a quarter of the town where lived a gentleman with whose brother he had had some previous dealings at Malta, and whose acquaintance he had made in England in reference to them.
It was in that gloomy quarter called Golden-square, the murky repose of which strikes so mysteriously on the senses after the glittering bustle of the adjoining Regent-street, that Captain Armine stopped before a noble yet now dingy mansion, that in old and happier days might probably have been inhabited by his grandfather, or some of his gay friends. A brass plate on the door informed the world that here resided Messrs. Morris and Levison, following the not very ambitious calling of coal merchants. But if all the pursuers of that somewhat humble trade could manage to deal in coals with the same dexterity as Messrs. Morris and Levison, what very great coal merchants they would be!
The ponderous portal obeyed the signal of the bell, and apparently opened without any human means; and Captain Armine, proceeding down a dark yet capacious passage, opened a door, which invited him by an inscription on ground glass that assured him he was entering the counting-house. Here several clerks, ensconced within lofty walls of the darkest and dullest mahogany, were busily employed; yet one advanced to an aperture in this fortification and accepted the card which the visitor offered him. The clerk surveyed the ticket with a peculiar glance; and then, begging the visitor to be seated, disappeared. He was not long absent, but soon invited Ferdinand to follow him. Captain Armine was ushered up a noble staircase, and into a saloon that once was splendid. The ceiling was richly carved, and there still might be detected the remains of its once gorgeous embellishment in the faint forms of faded deities and the traces of murky gilding. The walls of this apartment were crowded with pictures, arranged, however, with little regard to taste, effect, or style. A sprawling copy of Titian’s Venus flanked a somewhat prim peeress by Hoppner; a landscape that smacked of Gainsborough was the companion of a dauby moonlight, that must have figured in the last exhibition; and insipid Roman matrons by Hamilton, and stiff English heroes by Northcote, contrasted with a vast quantity of second-rate delineations of the orgies of Dutch boors and portraits of favourite racers and fancy dogs. The room was crowded with ugly furniture of all kinds, very solid, and chiefly of mahogany; among which were not less than three escritoires, to say nothing of the huge horsehair sofas. A sideboard of Babylonian proportions was crowned by three massive and enormous silver salvers, and immense branch candlesticks of the same precious metal, and a china punch-bowl which might have suited the dwarf in Brobdignag. The floor was covered with a faded Turkey carpet. But amid all this solid splendour there were certain intimations of feminine elegance in the veil of finely-cut pink paper which covered the nakedness of the empty but highly-polished fire-place, and in the hand-screens, which were profusely ornamented with ribbon of the same hue, and one of which afforded a most accurate if not picturesque view of Margate, while the other glowed with a huge wreath of cabbage-roses and jonquils.
