Lothair, Benjamin Disraeli [crime books to read TXT] 📗

the critics are? The men who have failed in literature and art."


CHAPTER 36

The lodge-gate of Belmont was opening as Lothair one morning approached it; a Hansom cab came forth, and in it was a person whose countenance was strongly marked on the memory of Lothair. It was that of his unknown friend at the Fenian meeting. Lothair instantly recognized and cordially saluted him, and his greeting, though hurriedly, was not ungraciously returned; but the vehicle did not stop. Lothair called to the driver to halt; but the driver, on the contrary, stimulated his steed, and in the winding lane was soon out of sight.

Theodora was not immediately visible. She was neither in her usual apartment nor in her garden; but it was only perhaps because Lothair was so full of his own impressions from his recent encounter at the lodge, that he did not observe that the demeanor of Mrs. Campian, when she appeared, was hardly marked by her habitual serenity. She entered the room hurriedly and spoke with quickness.

"Pray," exclaimed Lothair, rather eagerly, "do tell me the name of the gentleman who has just called here."

Theodora changed color, looked distressed, and was silent; unobserved, however, by Lothair, who, absorbed by his own highly-excited curiosity, proceeded to explain why he presumed to press for the information. "I am under great obligations to that person; I am not sure I may not say I owe him my life, but certainly an extrication from great dander and very embarrassing danger too. I never saw him but once, and he would not give me his name, and scarcely would accept my thanks. I wanted to stop his cab to-day, but it was impossible. He literally galloped off."

"He is a foreigner," said Mrs Campian, who had recovered herself; "he was a particular friend of my dear father; and when he visits England, which he does occasionally, he calls to see us."

"Ah!" said Lothair, "I hope I shall soon have an opportunity of expressing to him my gratitude."

"It was so like him not to give his name and to shrink from thanks," said Mrs. Campian. "He never enters society, and makes no acquaintances."

"I am sorry for that," said Lothair, "for it is not only that he served me, but I was much taken with him, and felt that he was a person I should like to cultivate."

"Yes, Captain Bruges is a remarkable man," said Theodora; "he is not one to be forgotten."

"Captain Bruges. That, then, is his name?"

"He is known by the name of Captain Bruges," said Theodora, and she hesitated; and then speaking more quickly she added: "I cannot sanction, I cannot bear, any deception between you and this roof. Bruges is not his real name, nor is the title he assumes his real rank. He is not to be known, and not to be spoken of. He is one, and one of the most eminent, of the great family of sufferers in this world, but sufferers for a divine cause. I myself have been direly stricken in this struggle. When I remember the departed, it is not always easy to bear the thought. I keep it at the bottom of my heart; but this visit to-day has too terribly revived every thing. It is well that you only are here to witness my suffering, but you will not have to witness it again, for we will never again speak of these matters."

Lothair was much touched: his good heart and his good taste alike dissuaded him from attempting commonplace consolation. He ventured to take her hand and pressed it to his lips. "Dear lady!" he murmured, and he led her to a seat. "I fear my foolish tattle has added to pain which I would gladly bear for you."

They talked about nothings: about a new horse which Colonel Campian had just purchased, and which he wanted to show to Lothair; an old opera revived, but which sounded rather flat; something amusing that somebody had said, and something absurd which somebody had done. And then, when the ruffled feeling had been quite composed, and all had been brought back to the tenor of their usual pleasant life, Lothair said suddenly and rather gayly. "And now, dearest lady, I have a favor to ask. You know my majority is, to be achieved and to be celebrated next month. I hope that yourself and Colonel Campian will honor me by being my guests."

Theodora did not at all look like a lady who had received a social attention of the most distinguished class. She looked embarrassed, and began to murmur something about Colonel Campian, and their never going into society.

"Colonel Campian is going to Scotland, and you are going with him," said Lothair. "I know it, for he told me so, and said he could manage the visit to me, if you approved it, quite well. In fact, it will fit in with this Scotch visit."

"There was some talk once about Scotland," said Theodora, "but that was a long time ago. Many things have happened since then. I do not think the Scotch visit is by any means so settled as you think."

"But, however that may be decided," said Lothair, "there can be no reason why you should not come to me."

"It is presumptuous in me, a foreigner, to speak of such matters," said Theodora; "but I fancy that, in such celebrations as you contemplate, there is, or there should be, some qualification of blood or family connection for becoming your guests. We should be there quite strangers, and in everybody's way, checking the local and domestic abandon which I should suppose is one of the charms of such meetings."

"I have few relations and scarcely a connection," said Lothair rather moodily. "I can only ask friends to celebrate my majority, and there are no friends whom I so much regard as those who live at Belmont."

"It is very kind of you to say that, and to feel it; and I know that you would not say it if you did not feel it," replied Theodora. "But still, I think it would be better that we should come to see you at a time when you are less engaged; perhaps you will take Colonel Campian down some day and give him some shooting."

"All I can say is that, if you do not come, it will be the darkest, instead of the brightest, week in my life," said Lothair. "In short, I feel I could not get through the business; I should be so mortified. I cannot restrain my feelings or arrange my countenance. Unless you come, the whole affair will be a complete failure, and worse than a failure."

"Well, I will speak to Colonel Campian about it," said Theodora, but with little animation.

"We will both speak to him about it now," said Lothair, for the colonel at that moment entered the room and greeted Lothair, as was his custom, cordially.

"We are settling the visit to Muriel," said Lothair; "I want to induce Mrs. Campian to come down a day or two before the rest, so that we may have the benefit of her counsel."


CHAPTER 37

Muriel Tower crowned a wooded steep, part of a wild, and winding, and sylvan valley, at the bottom of which rushed a foaming stream. On the other side of the castle the scene, though extensive, was not less striking, and was essentially romantic. A vast park spread in all directions beyond the limit of the eye, and with much variety of character--ornate near the mansion, and choicely timbered; in other parts glens and spreading dolls, masses of black pines and savage woods; everywhere, sometimes glittering, and sometimes sullen, glimpses of the largest natural late that inland England boasts, Muriel Mere, and in the extreme distance moors, and the first crest of mountains. The park, too, was full of life, for there were not only herds of red and fallow deer, but, in its more secret haunts, wandered a race of wild-cattle, extremely savage, white and dove-colored, and said to be of the time of the Romans.

It was not without emotion that Lothair beheld the chief seat of his race. It was not the first time he had visited it. He had a clear and painful recollection of a brief, hurried, unkind glimpse caught of it in his very earliest boyhood. His uncle had taken him there by some inconvenient cross-railroad, to avail themselves of which they had risen in the dark on a March morning, and in an east wind. When they arrived at their station they had hired an open fly drawn by a single horse, and, when they had thus at last reached the uninhabited Towers, they entered by the offices, where Lothair was placed in the steward's room, by a smoky fire, given something to eat, and told that he might walk about and amuse himself, provided he did not go out of sight of the castle, while his uncle and the steward mounted their horses and rode over the estate; leaving Lothair for hours without companions, and returning just in time, in a shivering twilight, to clutch him up, as it were, by the nape of the neck, twist him back again into the one-horse fly, and regain the railroad; his uncle praising himself the whole time for the satisfactory and business-like manner in which he had planned and completed the edition.

What a contrast to present circumstances! Although Lothair had wished, and thought he had secured, that his arrival at Muriel should be quite private, and even unknown, and that all ceremonies and celebrations should be postponed for a few days, during which he hoped to become a little more familiar with his home, the secret could not be kept, and the county would not tolerate this reserve. He was met at the station by five hundred horsemen, all well mounted, and some of them gentlemen of high degree, who insisted upon accompanying him to his gates. His carriage passed under triumphal arches, and choirs of enthusiastic children; waving parochial banners, hymned his auspicious approach.

At the park gates his cavalcade quitted him with that delicacy of feeling which always distinguishes Englishmen, however rough their habit. As their attendance was self-invited, they would not intrude upon his home.

"Your lordship will have enough to do to-day, without being troubled with us," said their leader, as he shook hands with Lothair.

But Lothair would not part with them thus. With the inspiring recollection of his speech at the Fenian meeting, Lothair was not afraid of rising in his barouche and addressing them. What he said was said very well and it was addressed to a people who, though the shyest in the world, have a passion for public speaking, than which no achievement more tests reserve. It was something to be a great peer and a great proprietor, and to be young and singularly well-favored; but to be able to make a speech, and such a good one, such cordial words in so strong and musical a voice--all felt at once they were in the presence of the natural leader of the county. The enthusiasm of the hunting-field burst forth. They gave him three ringing cheers, and jostled their horses forward, that they might grasp his hand.

The park gates were open, and the postillions dashed along through scenes of loveliness on which Lothair would fain have lingered, but be consoled himself with the recollection that he should probably have an opportunity of seeing them again. Sometimes his carriage seemed in the heart of an ancient forest; sometimes the deer, startled at his approach, were scudding over expanding