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Books: Lothair

B >> Benjamin Disraeli >> Lothair




How did Sunday go off at Muriel Towers?

In the first place, there was a special train, which, at an early hour,
took the cardinal and his suite and the St. Jerome family to
Grandchester, where they were awaited with profound expectation. But
the Anglican portion of the guests were not without their share of
ecclesiastical and spiritual excitement, for the bishop was to preach
this day in the chapel of the Towers, a fine and capacious sanctuary of
florid Gothic, and hit lordship was a sacerdotal orator of repute.

It had been announced that the breakfast-hour was to be somewhat
earlier. The ladies in general were punctual, and seemed conscious of
some great event impending. The Ladies Flora and Grizell entered with,
each in her hand, a prayer-book of purple velvet, adorned with a decided
cross, the gift of the primus. Lord Culloden, at the request of Lady
Corisande, had consented to their hearing the bishop, which he would not
do himself. He passed his morning in finally examining the guardians'
accounts, the investigation of which he conducted and concluded, during
the rest of the day, with Mr. Putney Giles. Mrs. Campian did not leave
her room. Lord St. Aldegonde came down late, and looked about him with
an uneasy, ill-humored air.

Whether it were the absence of Theodora, or some other cause, he was
brusk, ungracious, scowling, and silent, only nodding to the bishop, who
benignly saluted him, refusing every dish that was offered; then getting
up, and helping himself at the side-table, making a great noise with the
carving instruments, and flouncing down his plate when he resumed his
seat. Nor was his costume correct. All the other gentlemen, though
their usual morning-dresses were sufficiently fantastic -- trunk-hose of
every form, stockings bright as paroquets, wondrous shirts, and
velvet-coats of every tint -- habited themselves to-day, both as regards
form and color, in a style indicative of the subdued gravity of their
feelings. Lord St. Aldegonde had on his shooting-jacket of brown velvet
and a pink-shirt and no cravat, and his rich brown locks, always, to a
certain degree, neglected, were peculiarly dishevelled.

Hugo Bohun, who was not afraid of him, and was a high-churchman, being,
in religion, and in all other matters, always on the side of the
duchesses, said: "Well, St. Aldegonde, are you going to chapel in that
dress?" But St. Aldegonde would not answer; he gave a snort, and
glanced at Hugo, with the eye of a gladiator.

The meal was over. The bishop was standing near the mantel-piece
talking to the ladies, who were clustered round him; the archdeacon and
the chaplain and some other clergy a little in the background; Lord St.
Aldegonde, who, whether there were a fire or not, always stood with his
back to the fireplace with his hands in his pockets, moved
discourteously among them, assumed his usual position, and listened, as
it were, grimly, for a few moments to their talk; then he suddenly
exclaimed in a loud voice, and with the groan of a rebellious Titan,
"How I hate Sunday!"

"Granville!" exclaimed Lady St. Aldegonde, turning pale. There was a
general shudder.

"I mean in a country-house," said Lord St. Aldegonde. "Of course, I
mean in a country-house. I do not dislike it when alone, and I do not
dislike it in London. But Sunday in a country-house is infernal."

"I think it is now time for us to got" said the bishop, walking away
with dignified reserve, and they all dispersed.

The service was choral and intoned; for, although the Rev. Dionysius
Smylie had not yet had time or opportunity, as was his intention, to
form and train a choir from the household of the Towers, he had secured
from his neighboring parish and other sources external and effective aid
in that respect. The parts of the service were skillfully distributed,
and rarely were a greater number of priests enlisted in a more imposing
manner. A good organ was well played; the singing, as usual, a little
too noisy; there was an anthem and an introit -- but no incense, which
was forbidden by the bishop; and, though there were candles on the
altar, they were not permitted to be lighted.

The sermon was most successful; the ladies returned with elate and
animated faces, quite enthusiastic and almost forgetting in their
satisfaction the terrible outrage of Lord St. Aldegonde. He himself had
by this time repented of what he had done, and recovered his temper, and
greeted his wife with a voice and look which indicated to her practised
senses the favorable change.

"Bertha," he said, "you know I did not mean any thing personal to the
bishop in what I said. I do not like bishops; I think there is no use
in them; but I have no objection to him personally; I think him an
agreeable man; not at all a bore. Just put it right, Bertha. But I
tell you what, Bertha, I cannot go to church here. Lord Culloden does
not go, and he is a very religious man. He is the man I most agree with
on these matters. I am a free-church man, and there is on end of it. I
cannot go this afternoon. I do not approve of the whole thing. It is
altogether against my conscience. What I mean to do, if I can manage
it, is to take a real long walk with the Campians."

Mrs. Campian appeared at luncheon. The bishop was attentive to her;
even cordial. He was resolved she should not feel he was annoyed by her
not having been a member of his congregation in the morning. Lady
Corisande too had said to him: "I wish so much you would talk to Mrs.
Campian; she is a sweet, noble creature, and so clever! I feel that she
might be brought to view things in the right light."

"I never know," said the bishop, "how to deal with these American
ladies. I never can make out what they believe, or what they
disbelieve. It is a sort of confusion between Mrs. Beecher Stowe and
the Fifth Avenue congregation and -- Barnum," he added with a twinkling
eye.

The second service was late; the dean preached. The lateness of the
hour permitted the lord-lieutenant and those guests who had arrived only
the previous day to look over the castle, or ramble about the gardens.
St. Aldegonde succeeded in his scheme of a real long walk with the
Campians, which Lothair, bound to listen to the head of his college, was
not permitted to share.

In the evening Signor Mardoni, who had arrived, and Madame Isola Bella,
favored them with what they called sacred music; principally prayers
from operas and a grand Stabat Mater.

Lord Culloden invited Lothair into a farther saloon, where they might
speak without disturbing the performers or the audience.

"I'll just take advantage, my dear boy," said Lord Culloden, in a tone
of unusual tenderness, and of Doric accent, "of the absence of these
gentlemen to have a little quiet conversation with you. Though I have
not seen so much of you of late as in old days, I take a great interest
in you, no doubt of that, and I was very pleased to see how good-natured
you were to the girls. You have romped with them when they were little
ones. Now, in a few hours, you will be master of a great inheritance,
and I hope it will profit ye. I have been over the accounts with Mr.
Giles, and I was pleased .to hear that you had made yourself properly
acquainted with them in detail. Never you sign any paper without
reading It first, and knowing well what it means. You will have to sign
a release to us if you be satisfied, and that you may easily be. My
poor brother-in-law left you as large an income as may be found on this
side Trent, but I will be bound he would stare if he saw the total of
the whole of your rent-roll, Lothair. Your affairs have been well
administered, though I say it who ought not. But it is not my
management only, or principally, that has done it. It is the progress
of the country, and you owe the country a good deal, and you should
never forget you are born to be a protector of its liberties, civil and
religious. And if the country sticks to free trade, and would enlarge
its currency, and be firm to the Protestant faith, it will, under Divine
Providence, continue to progress.

"And here, my boy, I'll just say a word, in no disagreeable manner,
about your religious principles. There are a great many stories about,
and perhaps they are not true, and I am sure I hope they are not. If
popery were only just the sign of the cross, and music, and censer-pots,
though I think them all superstitious, I'd be free to leave them alone
if they would leave me. But popery is a much deeper thing than that,
Lothair, and our fathers found it out. They could not stand it, and we
should be a craven crew to stand it now. A man should be master in his
own house. You will be taking a wife, some day; at least it is to be
hoped so; and how will you like one of these monsignores to be walking
into her bedroom, eh; and talking to her alone when be pleases, and
where he pleases; and when you want to consult your wife, which a wise
man should often do, to find there is another mind between hers and
yours? There's my girls, they are just two young geese, and they have a
hankering after popery, having had a Jesuit in the house. I do not know
what has become of the women. They are for going into a convent, and
they are quite right in that, for if they be papists they will not find
a husband easily in Scotland, I ween.

"And as for you, my boy, they will be telling you that it is only just
this and just that, and there's no great difference, and what not; but I
tell you that, if once you embrace the scarlet lady, you are a tainted
corpse. You'll not be able to order your dinner without a priest, and
they will ride your best horses without saying with your leave or by
your leave."

The concert in time ceased; there was a stir in the room; the Rev.
Dionysius Smylie moved about mysteriously, and ultimately seemed to make
an obeisance before the bishop. It was time for prayers.

"Shall you go?" said Lord St. Aldegonde to Mrs. Campian, by whom he was
sitting.

"I like to pray alone," she answered.

"As for that," said Aldegonde, "I am not clear we ought to pray at all,
either in public or private. It seems very arrogant in us to dictate to
an all-wise Creator what we desire."

"I believe in the efficacy of prayer," said Theodora.

"And I believe in you," said St. Aldegonde, after a momentary pause.



CHAPTER 47


On the morrow, the early celebration in the chapel was numerously
attended. The duchess and her daughters, Lady Agramont, and Mrs.
Ardenne, were among the faithful; but what encouraged and gratified the
bishop was, that the laymen, on whom he less relied, were numerously
represented. The lord-lieutenant, Lord Carisbrooke, Lord Montairy,
Bertram, and Hugo Bohun. accompanied Lothair to the altar.

After the celebration, Lothair retired to his private apartments. It
was arranged that he was to join his assembled friends at noon, when he
would receive their congratulations, and some deputations from the
county.

At noon, therefore, preparatively preceded by Mr. Putney Giles, whose
thought was never asleep, and whose eye was on every thing, the
guardians, the cardinal, and the Earl of Culloden, waited on Lothair to
accompany him to his assembled friends, and, as it were, launch him into
the world.

They were assembled at one end of the chief gallery, and in a circle.
Although the deputations would have to advance the whole length of the
chamber, Lothair and his guardians entered from a side apartment. Even
with this assistance he felt very nervous. There was no lack of
feeling, and, among many, of deep feeling, on this occasion, but there
was an equal and a genuine exhibition of ceremony.

The lord-lieutenant was the first person who congratulated Lothair,
though the high-sheriff had pushed forward for that purpose, but, in his
awkward precipitation, he got involved with the train of the Hon. Lady
Clotworthy, who bestowed on him such a withering glance, that he felt a
routed man, and gave up the attempt. There were many kind and some
earnest words. Even St. Aldegonde acknowledged the genius of the
occasion. He was grave, graceful, and dignified, and, addressing
Lothair by his title, he said, "that be hoped he would meet in life that
happiness which he felt confident he deserved." Theodora said nothing,
though her lips seemed once to move; but she retained for a moment
Lothair's hand, and the expression of her countenance touched his
innermost heart. Lady Corisande beamed with dazzling beauty. Her
countenance was joyous, radiant; her mien imperial and triumphant. She
gave her hand with graceful alacrity to Lothair, and said in a hushed
tone, but every word of which reached his ear, "One of the happiest
hours of my life was eight o'clock this morning."

The lord-lieutenant and the county members then retired to the other end
of the gallery, and ushered in the deputation of the magistracy of the
county, congratulating their new brother, for Lothair had just been
appointed to the bench, on his secession to his estates. The
lord-lieutenant himself read the address, to which Lothair replied with
a propriety all acknowledged. Then came the address of the mayor and
corporation of Grandchester, of which city Lothair was hereditary
high-steward; and then that of his tenantry, which was cordial and
characteristic. And here many were under the impression that this
portion of the proceedings would terminate; but it was not so. There
had been some whispering between the bishop and the archdeacon, and the
Rev. Dionysius Smylie had, after conference with his superiors, twice
left the chamber. It seems that the clergy had thought fit to take this
occasion of congratulating Lothair on his great accession and the
proportionate duties which it would fall on him to fulfil. The bishop
approached Lothair and addressed him in a whisper. Lothair seemed
surprised and a little agitated, but apparently bowed assent. Then the
bishop and his staff proceeded to the end of the gallery and introduced
a diocesan deputation, consisting of archdeacons and rural deans, who
presented to Lothair a most uncompromising address, and begged his
acceptance of a bible and prayer-book richly bound, and borne by the
Rev. Dionysius Smylie on a cushion of velvet.

The habitual pallor of the cardinal's countenance became unusually wan;
the cheek of Clare Arundel was a crimson flush; Monsignore Catesby bit
his lip; Theodora looked with curious seriousness, as if she were
observing the manners of a foreign country; St. Aldegonde snorted, and
pushed his hand through his hair, which had been arranged in unusual
order. The great body of those present, unaware that this deputation
was unexpected, were unmoved.

It was a trial for Lothair, and scarcely a fair one. He was not unequal
to it, and what he said was esteemed, at the moment, by all parties as
satisfactory; though the archdeacon, in secret conclave, afterward
observed that he dwelt more on religion than on the Church, and spoke of
the Church of Christ and not of the Church of England. He thanked them
for their present of volumes, which all must reverence or respect.

While all this was taking place within the Towers, vast bodies of people
were assembling without. Besides the notables of the county and his
tenantry and their families, which drained all the neighboring villages,
Lothair had forwarded several thousand tickets to the mayor and
corporation of Grandchester, for distribution among their
fellow-townsmen, who were invited to dine at Muriel and partake of the
festivities of the day, and trains were hourly arriving with their eager
and happy guests. The gardens were at once open for their unrestricted
pleasure, but at two o'clock, according to the custom of the county
under such circumstances, Lothair held what, in fact, was a lev e, or
rather a drawing-room, when every person who possessed a ticket was
permitted, and even invited and expected, to pass through the whole
range of the state apartments of Muriel Towers, and at the same time pay
their respects to, and make the acquaintance of, their lord.

Lothair stood with his chief friends near him, the ladies, however,
seated, and every one passed -- farmers and townsmen and honest folk,
down to the stokers of the trains from Grandchester, with whose presence
St. Aldegonde was much pleased, and whom he carefully addressed as they
passed by.

After this great reception they all dined in pavilions in the park --
one thousand tenantry by themselves, and at a fixed hour; the
miscellaneous multitude in a huge crimson tent, very lofty, with many
flags, and in which was served a banquet that never stopped till sunset,
so that in time all might be satisfied; the notables and deputations,
with the guests in the house, lunched in the armory. It was a bright
day, and there was unceasing music.

In the course of the afternoon Lothair visited the pavilions, where his
health was proposed, and pledged -- in the first by one of his tenants,
and in the other by a workman, both orators of repute; and he addressed
and thanked his friends. This immense multitude, orderly and joyous,
roamed about the parks and gardens, or danced on a platform which the
prescient experience of Mr. Giles had provided for them in a due
locality, and whiled away the pleasant hours, in expectation a little
feverish of the impending fireworks, which, there was a rumor, were to
be on a scale and in a style of which neither Grandchester nor the
county had any tradition.

"I remember your words at Blenheim," said Lothair to Theodora. "You
cannot say the present party is founded on the principle of exclusion."

In the mean time, about six o'clock, Lothair dined in his great hall
with his two hundred guests at a banquet where all the resources of
nature and art seemed called upon to contribute to its luxury and
splendor. The ladies, who had never before dined at a public dinner,
were particularly delighted. They were delighted by the speeches,
though they had very few; they were delighted by the national anthem,
all rising; particularly, they were delighted by "three-times-three, and
one cheer more," and "hip, hip." It seemed to their unpractised ears
like a great naval battle, or the end of the world, or any thing else of
unimaginable excitement, tumult, and confusion.

The lord-lieutenant proposed Lothair's health, and dexterously made his
comparative ignorance of the subject the cause of his attempting a
sketch of what he hoped might be the character of the person whose
health he proposed. Every one intuitively felt the resemblance was
just, and even complete, and Lothair confirmed their kind and sanguine
anticipations by his terse and well-considered reply. His proposition
of the ladies' healths was a signal that the carriages were ready to
take them, as arranged, to Muriel Mere.

The sun had set in glory over the broad expanse of waters still glowing
in the dying beam; the people were assembled in thousands on the borders
of the lake, in the centre of which was an island with a pavilion.
Fanciful barges and gondolas of various shapes and colors were waiting
for Lothair and his party, to carry them over to the pavilion, where
they found a repast which became the hour and the scene -- coffee and
ices and whimsical drinks, which sultanas would sip in Arabian tales.
No sooner were they seated than the sound of music was heard -- distant,
but now nearer, till there came floating on the lake, until it rested
before the pavilion, a gigantic shell, larger than the building itself,
but holding in its golden and opal seats Signor Mardoni and all his
orchestra.

Then came a concert rare in itself, but ravishing in the rosy twilight;
and in about half an hour, when the rosy twilight had subsided into a
violet eve, and when the white moon that had only gleamed began to
glitter, the colossal shell again moved on, and Lothair and his
companions, embarking once more in their gondolas, followed it in
procession about the lake. He carried in his own bark the duchess,
Theodora, and the lord-lieutenant, and was rowed by a crew in Venetian
dresses. As he handed Theodora to her seat, the impulse was
irresistible -- he pressed her hand to his lips.

Suddenly a rocket rose with a hissing rush from the pavilion. It was
instantly responded to from every quarter of the lake. Then the island
seemed on fire, and the scene of their late festivity became a brilliant
palace, with pediments and columns and statues, bright in the blaze of
colored flame. For half an hour the sky seemed covered with blue lights
and the bursting forms of many-colored stars; golden fountains, like the
eruption of a marine volcano, rose from different parts of the water;
the statued palace on the island changed and became a forest glowing
with green light; and finally a temple of cerulean tint, on which
appeared in huge letters of prismatic color the name of Lothair.

The people cheered, but even the voice of the people was overcome by
troops of rockets rising from every quarter of the lake, and by the
thunder of artillery. When the noise and the smoke had both subsided,
the name of Lothair still legible on the temple but the letters quite
white, it was perceived that on every height for fifty miles round they
had fired a beacon.



CHAPTER 48


The ball at Muriel which followed the concert on the lake was one of
those balls which, it would seem, never would end. All the preliminary
festivities, instead of exhausting the guests of Lothair, appeared only
to have excited them, and rendered them more romantic and less tolerant
of the routine of existence. They danced in the great gallery, which
was brilliant and crowded, and they danced as they dance in a festive
dream, with joy and the enthusiasm of gayety. The fine ladies would
sanction no exclusiveness. They did not confine their inspiring
society, as is sometimes too often the case, to the Brecons and the
Bertrams and the Carisbrookes; they danced fully and freely with the
youth of the county, and felt that in so doing they were honoring and
gratifying their host.

At one o'clock they supped in the armory, which was illuminated for the
first time, and a banquet in a scene so picturesque and resplendent
renovated not merely their physical energies. At four o'clock the
duchess and a few others quietly disappeared, but her daughters
remained, and St. Aldegonde danced endless reels, which was a form in
which he preferred to worship Terpsichore. Perceiving by an open window
that it was dawn, be came up to Lothair and said, "This is a case of
breakfast."

Happy and frolicsome suggestion! The invitations circulated, and it was
soon known that they were all to gather at the matin meal.

"I am so sorry that her grace has retired," said Hugo Bohun to Lady St.
Aldegonde, as he fed her with bread and butter, "because she always
likes early breakfasts in the country."

The sun was shining as the guests of the house retired, and sank into
couches from which it seemed they never could rise again; but, long
after this, the shouts of servants and the scuffle of carriages
intimated that the company in general were not so fortunate and
expeditious in their retirement from the scene; and the fields were all
busy, and even the towns awake, when the great body of the wearied but
delighted wassailers returned from celebrating the majority of Lothair.

In the vast and statesmanlike programme of the festivities of the week,
which had been prepared by Mr. and Mrs. Putney Giles, something of
interest and importance had been appropriated to the morrow, but it was
necessary to erase all this; and for a simple reason -- no human being
on the morrow morn even appeared -- one might say, even stirred. After
all the gay tumult in which even thousands had joined, Muriel Towers on
the morrow presented a scene which only could have been equalled by the
castle in the fairy tale inhabited by the Sleeping Beauty.

At length, about two hours after noon, bells began to sound which were
not always answered. Then a languid household prepared a meal of which
no one for a time partook, till at last a monsignore appeared, and a
rival Anglican or two. Then St. Aldegonde came in with a troop of men
who had been bathing in the mere, and called loudly for kidneys, which
happened to be the only thing not at hand, as is always the case. St.
Aldegonde always required kidneys when he had sat up all night and
bathed. "But the odd thing is," he said, "you never can get any thing
to eat in these houses. Their infernal cooks spoil every thing. That's
why I hate staying with Bertha's people in the north at the end of the
year. What I want in November is a slice of cod and a beefsteak, and by
Jove I never could get them; I was obliged to come to town. If is no
joke to have to travel three hundred miles for a slice of cod and a
beefsteak."

Notwithstanding all this, however, such is the magic of custom, that by
sunset civilization had resumed its reign at Muriel Towers. The party
were assembled before dinner in the saloon, and really looked as fresh
and bright as if the exhausting and tumultuous yesterday had never
happened. The dinner, too, notwithstanding the criticism of St.
Aldegonde, was first rate, and pleased palates not so simply fastidious
as his own. The bishop and his suite were to depart on the morrow, but
the cardinal was to remain. His eminence talked much to Mrs. Campian,
by whom, from the first, he was much struck. He was aware that she was
born a Roman, and was not surprised that, having married a citizen of
the United States, her sympathies were what are styled liberal; but this
only stimulated his anxious resolution to accomplish her conversion,
both religious and political. He recognized in her a being whose
intelligence, imagination, and grandeur of character, might be of
invaluable service to the Church.