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Books: Lothair

B >> Benjamin Disraeli >> Lothair




On the I night of the drawing-room a great ball was given at Crecy
House, to celebrate the entrance of Corisande into the world. It was a
sumptuous festival. The palace, resonant with fantastic music, blazed
amid illumined gardens rich with summer warmth.

A prince of the blood was dancing with Lady Corisande. Lothair was
there, vis- -vis with Miss Arundel.

"I delight in this hall," she said to Lothair; "but how superior the
pictured scene to the reality!"

"What! would you like, then, to be in a battle?"

"I should like to be with heroes, wherever they might be. What a fine
character was the Black Prince! And they call those days the days of
superstition!"

The silver horns sounded a brave flourish. Lothair had to advance and
meet Lady Corisande. Her approaching mien was full of grace and
majesty, but Lothair thought there was a kind expression in her glance,
which seemed to remember Brentham, and, that he was her brother's
friend.

A little later in the evening he was her partner. He could not refrain
from congratulating her on the beauty and the success of the festival.

"I am glad you are pleased, and I am glad you think it successful; but,
you know, I am no judge, for this is my first ball!"

"Ah! to be sure; and yet it seems impossible," he contended, in a tone
of murmuring admiration.

"Oh! I have been at little dances at my sisters' -- half behind the
door," she added, with a slight smile. "But to-night I am present at a
scene of which I have only read."

"And how do you like balls?" said Lothair.

"I think I shall like them very much," said Lady Corisande; "but
to-night, I will confess, I am a little nervous."

"You do not look so."

"I am glad of that."

"Why?"

"Is it not a sign of weakness?"

"Can feeling be weakness?"

"Feeling without sufficient cause is, I should think." And then, and
in a tone of some archness, she said, "And how do you like balls?"

"Well, I like them amazingly," said Lothair. "They seem to me to have
every quality which can render an entertainment agreeable: music, light,
flowers, beautiful faces, graceful forms, and occasionally charming
conversation."

"Yes; and that never lingers," said Lady Corisande, "for see, I am
wanted."

When they were again undisturbed, Lothair regretted the absence of
Bertram, who was kept at the House.

"It is a great disappointment," said Lady Corisande; "but he will yet
arrive, though late. I should be most unhappy, though, if he were
absent from his post on such an occasion. I am sure if he were here, I
could not dance."

"You are a most ardent politician," said Lothair.

"Oh! I do not care in the least about common politics -- parties, and
office, and all that; I neither regard nor understand them," replied
Lady Corisande. "But when wicked men try to destroy the country, then I
like my family to be in the front."

As the destruction of the country meditated this night by wicked men was
some change in the status of the Church of England, which Monsignore
Catesby in the morning had suggested to Lothair as both just and
expedient and highly conciliatory, Lothair did not pursue the theme, for
he had a greater degree of tact than usually falls to the lot of the
ingenuous.

The bright moments flew on. Suddenly there was a mysterious silence in
the hall, followed by a kind of suppressed stir. Every one seemed: to
be speaking with bated breath, or, if moving, walking on tiptoe. It was
the supper-hour --

"Soft hour which wakes the wish and melts the heart."

Royalty, followed by the imperial presence of ambassadors, and escorted
by a group of dazzli, not a casual incident of it. There is not a duty
of existence, not a joy or sorrow which the services of the Church do
not assert, or with which they do not sympathize. Tell me, now; you
have, I was glad to hear, attended the services of the Church of late,
since you have been under this admirable roof. Have you not then found
some consolation?"

"Yes; without doubt I have been often solaced." And Lothair sighed.

"What the soul is to man, the Church is to the world," said the
cardinal. "It is the link between us and the Divine nature. It came
from heaven complete; it has never changed, and it can never alter. Its
ceremonies are types of celestial truths; its services are suited to all
the moods of man; they strengthen him in his wisdom and his purity, and
control and save him in the hour of passion and temptation. Taken as a
whole, with all its ministrations, its orders, its offices, and the
divine splendor of its ritual, it secures us on earth some adumbration
of that ineffable glory which awaits the faithful in heaven, where the
blessed Mother of God and ten thousand saints perpetually guard over no
with Divine intercession."

"I was not taught these things in my boyhood," said Lothair.

"And you might reproach me, and reasonably, as your guardian, for my
neglect," said the cardinal. "But my power was very limited, and, when
my duties commenced, you must remember that I was myself estranged from
the Church, I was myself a Parliamentary Christian, till despondency and
study and ceaseless thought and prayer, and the Divine will, brought me
to light and rest. But I at least saved you from a Presbyterian
university; I at least secured Oxford for you; and I can assure you, of
my many struggles, that was not the least."

"It gave the turn to my mind," said Lothair, and I am grateful to you
for it. What it will all end in, God only knows."

"It will end in His glory and in yours," said the cardinal. "I have
spoken, peand here is my chair."

"On no account; half of it and some soup will satisfy me."

"I should have thought you would have been with the swells," said Hugo
Bohun.

"That does not exactly suit me," said St. Aldegonde. "I was ticketed to
the Duchess of Salop, but I got a first-rate substitute with the charm
of novelty for her grace, and sent her in with Lothair."

St. Aldegonde was the heir-apparent of the wealthiest, if not the most
ancient, dukedom in the United Kingdom. He was spoiled, but he knew it.
Had he been an ordinary being, he would have merely subsided into
selfishness and caprice; but, having good abilities and a good
disposition, he was eccentric, adventurous, and sentimental.
Notwithstanding the apathy which had been engendered by premature
experience, St. Aldegonde held extreme opinions, especially on political
affairs, being a republican of the reddest dye. He was opposed to all
privilege, and indeed to all orders of men, except dukes, who were a
necessity. He was also strongly in favor of the equal division of all
property, except land. Liberty depended on land, and the greater the
land-owners, the greater the liberty of a country. He would hold forth
on this topic even with energy, amazed at any one differing from him;
"As if a fellow could have too much land," he would urge, with a voice
and glance which defied contradiction. St. Aldegonde had married for
love, and he loved his wife, but he was strongly in favor of woman's
rights and their extremest consequences. It was thought that he had
originally adopted these latter views with the amiable intention of
piquing Lady St. Aldegonde; but if so, he had not succeeded. Beaming
with brightness, with the voice and airiness of a bird, and a cloudless
temper, Albertha St. Aldegonde had from the first hour of her marriage,
concentrated her intelligence, which was not mean, on one object; and
that was, never to cross her husband on any conceivable topic. They had
been married several years, and she treated him as a darling spoiled
child. When he cried for the moon, it was promised him immediately;
however irrational his proposition, she always assented to it, though
generally by tact and vigilance she guided him in the right direction.
Nevertheless, St. Aldegonde was sometimes in scrapes; but then he always
went and told his best friend, whose greatest delight was to extricate
him from his perplexities and embarrassments.



CHAPTER 22


Although Lothair was not in the slightest degree shaken in his
conviction that life should be entirely religious, he was perplexed by
the inevitable obstacles which seemed perpetually to oppose themselves
to the practice of his opinions. It was not merely pleasure in its
multiform appearances that he had to contend against, but business began
imperiously to solicit his attention. Every month brought him nearer to
his majority, and the frequent letters from Mr. Putney Giles now began
to assume the pressing shape of solicitations for personal interviews.
He had a long conversation one morning with Father Coleman on this
subject, who greatly relieved him by the assurance that a perfectly
religious life was one of which the sovereign purpose was to uphold the
interests of the Church of Christ, the father added after a momentary
pause. Business, and even amusement, were, not only compatible with
such a purpose, but might even be conducive to its fulfilment.

Mr. Putney Giles reminded Lothair that the attainment of his majority
must be celebrated, and in a becoming manner. Preparation, and even
considerable preparation, was necessary. There were several scenes of
action -- some very distant. It was not too early to contemplate
arrangements. Lothair really must confer with his guardians. They were
both now in town, the Scotch uncle having come up to attend Parliament.
Could. they be brought together? Was it indeed impossible? If so, who
was to give the necessary instructions?

It was much more than a year since Lothair had met his uncle, and he did
not anticipate much satisfaction from the renewal of their intimacy; but
every feeling of propriety demanded that it should be recognized, and to
a certain degree revived. Lord Culloden was a black Scotchman, tall and
lean, with good features, a hard red face and iron-gray hair. He was a
man who shrank from scenes, and he greeted Lothair as if they had only
parted yesterday. Looking at him with his keen, unsentimental, but not
unkind, eye, he said: "Well, sir, I thought you would have been at
Oxford."

"Yes, my dear uncle; but circumstances -- "

"Well, well, I don't want to hear the cause. I am very glad you are not
there; I believe you might as well be at Rome."

And then in due course, and after some talk of the past and old times,
Lothair referred to the suggestions of Mr. Giles, and hinted at a
meeting of his guardians to confer and advise together.

"No, no," said the Scotch peer, shaking his head; "I will have nothing
to do with the Scarlet Lady. Mr. Giles is an able and worthy man; he
may well be trusted to draw up a programme for our consideration, and
indeed it is an affair in which yourself should be most consulted. Let
all be done liberally, for you have a great inheritance, and I would be
no curmudgeon in these matters."

"Well, my dear uncle, whatever is arranged, I hope you and my cousins
will honor and gratify me with your presence throughout the
proceedings."

"Well, well, it is not much in my way. You will be having balls and
fine ladies. There is no fool like an old fool, they say; but I think,
from what I hear, the young fools will beat us in the present day. Only
think of young persons going over to the Church of Rome. Why, they are
just naturals!"

The organizing genius of Mr. Putney Giles had rarely encountered a more
fitting theme than the celebration of the impending majority. There was
place for all his energy and talent and resources; a great central
inauguration; sympathetical festivals and gatherings in half a dozen
other counties; the troth, as it were, of a sister kingdom to be
pledged; a vista of balls and banquets, and illuminations and addresses,
of ceaseless sports and speeches, and processions alike endless.

"What I wish to effect," said Mr. Giles, as he was giving his
multifarious orders, "is to produce among all classes an impression
adequate to the occasion. I wish the lord and the tenantry alike to
feel they have a duty to perform."

In the mean time, Monsignore Catesby was pressing Lothair to become one
of the patrons of a Roman Catholic Bazaar, where Lady St. Jerome and
Miss Arundel were to preside over a stall. It was of importance to show
that charity was not the privilege of any particular creed.

Between his lawyers, and his monsignores, and his architects, Lothair
began to get a little harassed. He was disturbed in his own mind, too,
on greater matters, and seemed to feel every day that it was more
necessary to take a decided step, and more impossible to decide upon
what it should be. He frequently saw the cardinal, who was very kind to
him, but who had become more reserved on religious subjects. He had
dined more than once with his eminence, and had met some distinguished
prelates and some of his fellow-nobles who had been weaned from the
errors of their cradle. The cardinal, perhaps, thought that the
presence of these eminent converts would facilitate the progress,
perhaps the decision, of his ward; but something seemed always to happen
to divert Lothair in his course. It might-be sometimes apparently a
very slight cause, but yet for the time sufficient; a phrase of Lady
Corisande for example, who, though she never directly addressed him on
the subject, was nevertheless deeply interested in his spiritual
condition.

"You ought to speak to him, Bertram," she said one day to her brother
very indignantly, as she read a fresh paragraph alluding to an impending
conversion. "You are his friend. What is the use of friendship if not
in such a crisis as this?"

"I see no use in speaking to a man about love or religion," said
Bertram; "they are both stronger than friendship. If there be any
foundation for the paragraph, my interference would be of no avail; if
there be none, I should only make myself ridiculous."

Nevertheless, Bertram looked a little more after his friend, and
disturbing the monsignore, who was at breakfast with Lothair one
morning, Bertram obstinately outstayed the priest, and then said: "I
tell you what, old fellow, you are rather hippish; I wish you were in
the House of Commons."

"So do I," said Lothair, with a sigh; "but I have come into every thing
ready-made. I begin to think it very unfortunate."

"What are you going to do with yourself to-day? If you be disengaged, I
vote we dine together at White's, and then we will go down to the House.
I will take you to the smoking-room and introduce you to Bright, and we
will trot him out on primogeniture."

At this moment the servant brought Lothair two letters: one was an
epistle from Father Coleman, meeting Lothair's objections to becoming a
patron of the Roman Catholic Bazaar, in a very unctuous and exhaustive
manner; and the other from his stud-groom at Oxford, detailing some of
those disagreeable things which will happen with absent masters who will
not answer letters. Lothair loved his stable, and felt particularly
anxious to avoid the threatened visit of Father Coleman on the morrow.
His decision was rapid. "I must go down, this afternoon to Oxford, my
dear fellow. My stable is in confusion. I shall positively return
to-morrow, and I will dine with you at White's, and we will go to the
House of Commons together, or go to the play."



CHAPTER 23


Lothair's stables were about three miles from Oxford. They were a
rather considerable establishment, in which he had taken much interest,
and, having always intended to return to Oxford in the early part of the
year, although he had occasionally sent for a hack or two to London, his
stud had been generally maintained.

The morning after his arrival, he rode over to the stables, where he had
ordered his drag to be ready. About a quarter of a mile before he
reached his place of destination, he observed at some little distance a
crowd in the road, and, hastening on, perceived as he drew nearer a
number of men clustered round a dismantled vehicle, and vainly
endeavoring to extricate and raise a fallen horse; its companion,
panting and foaming, with broken harness but apparently uninjured,
standing aside and held by a boy. Somewhat apart stood a lady alone.
Lothair immediately dismounted and approached her, saying, "I fear you
are in trouble, madam. Perhaps I may be of service?"

The lady was rather tall, and of a singularly distinguished presence.
Her air and her costume alike intimated high breeding and fashion. She
seemed quite serene amid the tumult and confusion, and apparently the
recent danger. As Lothair spoke, she turned her head to him, which had
been at first a little averted, and he beheld a striking countenance,
but one which he instantly felt he did not see for the first time.

She bowed with dignity to Lothair, and said in a low but distinct voice:
"You are most courteous, sir. We have had a sad: accident, but a great
escape. Our horses ran away with us, and, had it not been for that heap
of stones, I do not see how we could have been saved."

"Fortunately my stables are at hand," said Lothair, "and I have a
carriage waiting for me at this moment, not a quarter of a mile away.
It is at your service, and I will send for it," and his groom, to whom
he gave directions, galloped off.

There was a shout as the fallen horse was on his legs again, much cut,
and the carriage shattered and useless. A gentleman came from the crowd
and approached the lady. He was tall and fair, and not ill-favored,
with fine dark eyes and high cheekbones, and still young, though an
enormous beard at the first glance gave him an impression of years, the
burden of which he really did not bear. His dress, though not vulgar,
was richer and more showy than is usual in this country, and altogether
there was something in his manner which, though calm and full of
self-respect, was different from the conventional refinement of England.
Yet he was apparently an Englishman, as he said to the lady, "It is a
bad business, but we must be thankful it is no worse. What troubles me
is how you are to get back. It will be a terrible walk over these stony
roads, and I can hear of no conveyance."

"My husband," said the lady, as with dignity she presented the person to
Lothair. "This gentleman," she continued, "has most kindly offered us
the use of his carriage, which is almost at hand."

"Sir, you are a friend," said the gentleman. "I thought there were no
horses that I could not master, but it seems I am mistaken. I bought
these only yesterday; took a fancy to them as we were driving about, and
bought them of a dealer in the road."

"That seems a clever animal," said Lothair, pointing to the one
uninjured.

"Ah! you like horses?" said the gentleman.

"Well, I have some taste that way."

"We are visitors to Oxford," said the lady. "Colonel Campian, like all
Americans, is very interested in the ancient parts of England."

"To-day we were going to Blenheim," said the colonel, "but I thought I
would try these new tits a bit on a by-road first."

"All's well that ends well," said Lothair; "and there is no reason why
you should not fulfil your intention of going to Blenheim, for here is
my carriage, and it is entirely at your service for the whole day, and,
indeed, as long as you stay at Oxford."

"Sir, there requires no coronet on Your carriage to tell me you are a
nobleman," said the colonel. "I like frank manners, and I like your
team. I know few things that would please me more than to try them."

They were four roans, highly bred, with black manes and tails. They had
the Arab eye, with arched neck and seemed proud of themselves and their
master.

"I do not see why we should not go to Blenheim," said the colonel.

"Well, not to-day," said the lady, "I think. We have had an escape, but
one feels these things a little more afterward than at the time. I
would rather go back to Oxford and be quiet; and there is more than one
college which you have not yet seen."

"My team is entirely at your service wherever you go," said Lothair;
"but I cannot venture to drive you to Oxford, for I am there in statu
pupillari and a proctor might arrest us all. But perhaps," and he
approached the lady, "you will permit me to call on you to-morrow, when
I hope I may find you have not suffered by this misadventure."

"We have got a professor dining with us to-day at seven o'clock," said
the colonel, "at our hotel, and if you be disengaged and would join the
party you would add to the favors which you know so well how to confer."

Lothair handed the lady into the carriage, the colonel mounted the box
and took the ribbons like a master, and the four roans trotted away with
their precious charge and their two grooms behind with folded arms and
imperturbable countenances.

Lothair watched the equipage until it vanished in the distance.

"It is impossible to forget that countenance," he said; "and I fancy I did
hear at the time that she had married an American. Well, I shall meet
her at dinner -- that is something." And he sprang into his saddle.



CHAPTER 24


The Oxford professor, who was the guest of the American colonel, was
quite a young man, of advanced opinions on all subjects, religious,
social, and political. He was clever, extremely well-informed, so far
as books can make a man knowing, but unable to profit even by his
limited experience of life from a restless vanity and overflowing
conceit, which prevented him from ever observing or thinking of any
thing but himself. He was gifted with a great command of words, which
took the form of endless exposition, varied by sarcasm and passages of
ornate jargon. He was the last person one would have expected to
recognize in an Oxford professor; but we live in times of transition.

A Parisian man of science, who had passed his life in alternately
fighting at barricades and discovering planets, had given Colonel
Campian, who had lived much in the French capital, a letter of
introduction to the professor, whose invectives against the principles
of English society were hailed by foreigners as representative of the
sentiments of venerable Oxford. The professor, who was not satisfied
with his home career, and, like many men of his order of mind, had
dreams of wild vanity which the New World, they think, can alone
realize, was very glad to make the colonel's acquaintance, which might
facilitate his future movements. So he had lionized the distinguished
visitors during the last few days over the university, and had availed
himself of plenteous opportunities for exhibiting to them his celebrated
powers of exposition, his talent for sarcasm, which he deemed peerless,
and several highly-finished, picturesque passages, which were introduced
with contemporary art.

The professor was very much surprised when he saw Lothair enter the
saloon at the hotel. He was the last person in Oxford whom he expected
to encounter. Like sedentary men of extreme opinions, he was a social
parasite, and instead of indulging in his usual invectives against peers
and princes, finding himself unexpectedly about to dine with one of that
class, he was content only to dazzle and amuse him.

Mrs. Campian only entered the room when dinner was announced. She
greeted Lothair with calmness but amenity, and took his offered arm.

"You have not suffered, I hope?" said Lothair.

"Very little, and through your kindness."

It was a peculiar voice, low and musical, too subdued to call thrilling,
but a penetrating voice, so that, however ordinary the observation, it
attracted and impressed attention. But it was in harmony with all her
appearance and manner. Lothair thought he had never seen any one or any
thing so serene; the serenity, however, not of humbleness, nor of merely
conscious innocence; it was not devoid of a degree of majesty; what one
pictures of Olympian repose. And the countenance was Olympian: a
Phidian face, with large gray eyes and dark lashes; wonderful hair,
abounding without art, and gathered together by Grecian fillets.

The talk was of Oxford, and was at first chiefly maintained by the
colonel and the professor.

"And do you share Colonel Campian's feeling about Old England ?"
inquired Lothair of his hostess.

"The present interests me more than the past," said the lady, "and the
future more than the present."

"The present seems to me as unintelligible as the future," said Lothair.

"I think it is intelligible," said the lady, with a faint smile. "It
has many faults but, not, I think, the want of clearness."

"I am not a destructive," said the professor, addressing the colonel,
but speaking loudly; "I would maintain Oxford, under any circumstances,
with the necessary changes."

"And what are those might I ask?" inquired Lothair.

"In reality, not much. I would get rid of the religion."

"Get rid of the religion!" said Lothair.

"You have got rid of it once," said the professor.

"You have altered, you have what people call reformed it," said Lothair;
"but you have not abolished or banished it from the university."

"The shock would not be greater, nor so great, as the change from the
papal to the Reformed faith. Besides, universities have nothing to do
with religion."