CHAPTER V.
Hours elapsed, and the Captain had not returned home. I began to feel
uneasy, and went forth in search of him, though I knew not whither to
direct my steps. I thought it, however, at least probable that he had
not been able to resist visiting Lady Ellinor, so I went first to St.
James's Square. My suspicions were correct; the Captain had been there
two hours before. Lady Ellinor herself had gone out shortly after the
Captain left. While the porter was giving me this information, a
carriage stopped at the door, and a footman, stepping up, gave the
porter a note and a small parcel, seemingly of books, saying simply,
"From the Marquis of Castleton." At the sound of that name I turned
hastily, and recognized Sir Sedley Beaudesert seated in the carriage and
looking out of the window with a dejected, moody expression of
countenance, very different from his ordinary aspect, except when the
rare sight of a gray hair or a twinge of the toothache reminded him that
he was no longer twenty-five. Indeed, the change was so great that I
exclaimed dubiously,--"Is that Sir Sedley Beaudesert?" The footman
looked at me, and touching his hat, said, with a condescending smile,
"Yes, sir, now the Marquis of Castleton."
Then, for the first time since the young lord's death, I remembered Sir
Sedley's expressions of gratitude to Lady Castleton and the waters of
Ems for having saved him from "that horrible marquisate." Meanwhile my
old friend had perceived me, exclaiming,--
"What! Mr. Caxton? I am delighted to see you. Open the
door, Thomas. Pray come in, come in."
I obeyed, and the new Lord Castleton made room for me by his side.
"Are you in a hurry?" said he. "If so, shall I take you
anywhere? If not, give me half an hour of your time while I drive to
the city."
As I knew not now in what direction more than another to prosecute my
search for the Captain, and as I thought I might as well call at our
lodgings to inquire if he had not returned, I answered that I should be
very happy to accompany his lordship; "Though the City," said I,
smiling, "sounds to me strange upon the lips of Sir Sedley--I beg
pardon, I should say of Lord--"
"Don't say any such thing; let me once more hear the grateful sound of
Sedley Beaudesert. Shut the door, Thomas to Gracechurch Street,--
Messrs. Fudge & Fidget."
The carriage drove on.
"A sad affliction has befallen me," said the marquis, "and none
sympathize with me!"
"Yet all, even unacquainted with the late lord, must have felt shocked
at the death of one so young and so full of promise."
"So fitted in every way to bear the burden of the great Castleton name
and property. And yet you see it killed him! Ah! if he had been but a
simple gentleman, or if he had had a less conscientious desire to do his
duties, he would have lived to a good old age. I know what it is
already. Oh, if you saw the piles of letters on my table! I positively
dread the post. Such colossal improvement on the property which the
poor boy had began, for me to finish. What do you think takes me to
Fudge & Fidget's? Sir, they are the agents for an infernal coal-mine
which my cousin had re-opened in Durham, to plague my life out with
another thirty thousand pounds a year! How am I to spend the money?--
how am I to spend it? There's a cold-blooded head steward who says that
charity is the greatest crime a man in high station can commit,--it
demoralizes the poor. Then, because some half-a-dozen farmers sent me a
round-robin to the effect that their rents were too high, and I wrote
them word that the rents should be lowered, there was such a hullabaloo,
you would have thought heaven and earth were coming together. 'If a man
in the position of the Marquis of Castleton set the example of letting
land below its value, how could the poorer squires in the country exist?
Or if they did exist, what injustice to expose them to the charge that
they were grasping landlords, vampires, and bloodsuckers! Clearly if
Lord Castleton lowered his rents (they were too low already), he struck
a mortal blow at the property of his neighbors if they followed his
example, or at their characters if they did not.' No man can tell how
hard it is to do good, unless fortune gives him a hundred thousand
pounds a-year, and says--'Now, do good with it!' Sedley Beaudesert
might follow his whims, and all that would be said against him was
'good-natured, simple fellow!' But if Lord Castleton follow his whims,
you would think he was a second Catiline,--unsettling the peace and
undermining the prosperity of the entire nation!" Here the wretched man
paused, and sighed heavily; then, as his thoughts wandered into a new
channel of woe, he resumed: "Ah! if you could but see the forlorn great
house I am expected to inhabit, cooped up between dead walls instead of
my pretty rooms with the windows full on the park; and the balls I am
expected to give; and the parliamentary interest I am to keep up; and
the villanous proposal made to me to become a lord-steward or lord-
chamberlain, because it suits my rank to be a sort of a servant. Oh,
Pisistratus, you lucky dog,--not twenty-one, and with, I dare say, not
two hundred pounds a-year in the world!"
Thus bemoaning and bewailing his sad fortunes, the poor marquis ran on,
till at last he exclaimed, in a tone of yet deeper despair,--
"And everybody says I must marry too;--that the Castleton line must not
be extinct! The Beaudeserts are a good old family ono,'--as old, for
what I know, as the Castletons; but the British empire would suffer no
loss if they sank into the tomb of the Capulets. But that the Castleton
peerage should expire is a thought of crime and woe at which all the
mothers of England rise in a phalanx! And so, instead of visiting the
sins of the fathers on the sons, it is the father that is to be
sacrificed for the benefit of the third and fourth generation!"
Despite my causes for seriousness, I could not help laughing; my
companion turned on me a look of reproach.
"At least," said I, composing my countenance, "Lord Castleton has one
comfort in his afflictions,--if he must marry, he may choose as he
pleases."
"That is precisely what Sedley Beaudesert could, and Lord Castleton
cannot do," said the marquis, gravely. "The rank of Sir Sedley
Beaudesert was a quiet and comfortable rank, he might marry a curate's
daughter, or a duke's, and please his eye or grieve his heart as the
caprice took him. But Lord Castleton must marry, not for a wife, but
for a marchioness,--marry some one who will wear his rank for him; take
the trouble of splendor oft his hands, and allow him to retire into a
corner and dream that he is Sedley Beaudesert once more! Yes, it must
be so,--the crowning sacrifice must be completed at the altar. But a
truce to my complaints. Trevanion informs me you are going to
Australia,--can that be true?"
"Perfectly true."
"They say there is a sad want of ladies there."
"So much the better,--I shall be all the more steady."
"Well, there's something in that. Have you seen Lady Ellinor?"
"Yes,--this morning."
"Poor woman! A great blow to her,--we have tried to console each other.
Fanny, you know, is staying at Oxton, in Surrey, with Lady Castleton,--
the poor lady is so fond of her,--and no one has comforted her like
Fanny."
"I was not aware that Miss Trevanion was out of town."
"Only for a few days, and then she and Lady Ellinor join Trevanion in
the North,--you know he is with Lord N--, settling measures on which--
But, alas! they consult me now on those matters,--force their secrets on
me. I have, Heaven knows how many votes! Poor me! Upon my word, if
Lady Ellinor was a widow, I should certainly make up to her: very clever
woman, nothing bores her." (The marquis yawned,--Sir Sedley Beaudesert
never yawned.) "Trevanion has provided for his Scotch secretary, and is
about to get a place in the Foreign Office for that young fellow Gower,
whom, between you and me, I don't like. But he has bewitched
Trevanion!"
"What sort of a person is this Mr. Gower? I remember you said that he
was clever and good-looking."
"He is both; but it is not the cleverness of youth,--he is as hard and
sarcastic as if he had been cheated fifty times, and jilted a hundred!
Neither are his good looks that letter of recommendation which a
handsome face is said to be. He has an expression of countenance very
much like that of Lord Hertford's pet bloodhound when a stranger comes
into the room. Very sleek, handsome dog the bloodhound is certainly,--
well-mannered, and I dare say exceedingly tame; but still you have but
to look at the corner of the eye to know that it is only the habit of
the drawing-room that suppresses the creature's constitutional tendency
to seize you by the throat, instead of giving you a paw. Still, this
Mr. Gower has a very striking head,--something about it Moorish or
Spanish, like a picture by Murillo--I half suspect that he is less a
Gower than a gypsy!"
"What!"--I cried, as I listened with rapt and breathless attention to
this description. "He is then very dark, with high, narrow forehead,
features slightly aquiline, but very delicate, and teeth so dazzling
that the whole face seems to sparkle when he smiles,--though it is only
the lip that smiles, not the eye."
"Exactly as you say; you have seen him, then?"
"Why, I am not sure, since you say his name is Gower."
"He says his name is Gower," returned Lord Castleton, dryly, as he
inhaled the Beaudesert mixture.
"And where is he now,--with Mr. Trevanion?"
"Yes, I believe so. Ah! here we are--Fudge & Fidget! But perhaps,"
added Lord Castleton, with a gleam of hope in his blue eye,--"perhaps
they are not at home!"
Alas! that was an illusive "imagining," as the poets of the nineteenth
century unaffectedly express themselves. Messrs. Fudge & Fidget were
never out to such clients as the Marquis of Castleton; with a deep sigh,
and an altered expression of face, the Victim of Fortune slowly
descended the steps of the carriage.
"I can't ask you to wait for me," said he; "Heaven only knows how long I
shall be kept! Take the carriage where you will, and send it back to
me."
"A thousand thanks, my dear lord, I would rather walk. But you will let
me call on you before I leave town."
"Let you!--I insist on it. I am still at the old quarters,--under
pretence," said the marquis, with a sly twinkle of the eyelid, "that
Castleton House wants painting!"
"At twelve to-morrow, then?"
"Twelve to-morrow! Alas! that's just the hour at which Mr. Screw, the
agent for the London property (two squares, seven streets, and a lane!)
is to call."
"Perhaps two o'clock will suit you better?"
"Two! just the hour at which Mr. Plausible, one of the Castleton
members, insists upon telling me why his conscience will not let him
vote with Trevanion!"
"Three o'clock?"
"Three! just the hour at which I am to see the secretary of the
Treasury, who has promised to relieve Mr. Plausible's conscience! But
come and dine with me,--you will meet the executors to the will!"
"Nay, Sir Sedley,--that is, my dear lord,--I will take my chance, and
look in after dinner."
"I do so; my guests are not lively! What a firm step the rogue has!
Only twenty, I think,--twenty! and not an acre of property to plague
him!" So saying, the marquis dolorously shook his head and vanished
through the noiseless mahogany doors behind which Messrs. Fudge &
Fidget awaited the unhappy man,--with the accounts of the great
Castleton coal-mine.
