Lothair Part 32

"About our friend? It would be a great misfortune."

"The bishop says there is nothing in it," said the lord-lieutenant.

"Well, he ought to know. I understand he has had some serious conversation recently with our friend?"

"Yes; he has spoken to me about it. Are you going to attend the early celebration tomorrow? It is not much to my taste; a little new-fangled, I think; but I shall go, as they say it will do good."

"I am glad of that; it is well that he should be impressed at this moment with the importance and opinion of his county."

"Do you know I never saw him before?" said the lord-lieutenant. "He is winning."

"I know no youth," said the duke, "I would not except my own son, and Bertram has never given me an uneasy moment, of whom I have a better opinion, both as to heart and head. I should deeply deplore his being smashed by a Jesuit."

The dancing had ceased for a moment; there was a stir; Lord Carisbrooke was enlarging, with unusual animation, to an interested group, about a new dance at Paris--the new dance. Could they not have it here?

Unfortunately, he did not know its name, and could not describe its figure; but it was something new; quite new; they got it at Paris.

Princess Metternich dances it. He danced it with her, and she taught it him; only he never could explain any thing, and indeed never did exactly make it out. "But you danced it with a shawl, and then two ladies hold the shawl, and the cavaliers pa.s.s under it. In fact, it is the only thing; it is the new dance at Paris."

What a pity that any thing so delightful should be so indefinite and perplexing, and indeed impossible, which rendered it still more desirable! If Lord Carisbrooke only could have remembered its name, or a single step in its figure--it was so tantalizing!

"Do not you think so?" said Hugo Bohun to Mrs. Campian, who was sitting apart, listening to Lord St. Aldegonde's account of his travels in the United States, which he was very sorry he ever quitted. And then they inquired to what Mr. Bohun referred, and then he told them all that had been said.

"I know what he means," said Mrs. Campian. "It is not a French dance; it is a Moorish dance."

"That woman knows everything, Hugo," said Lord St. Aldegonde in a solemn whisper. And then he called to his wife. "Bertha, Mrs. Campian will tell you all about this dance that Carisbrooke is making such a mull of. Now, look here, Bertha; you must get the Campians to come to us as soon as possible. They are going to Scotland from this place, and there is no reason, if you manage it well, why they should not come on to us at once. Now, exert yourself."

"I will do all I can, Granville."

"It is not French, it is Moorish; it is called the Tangerine," said Theodora to her surrounding votaries. "You begin with a circle."

"But how are we to dance without the music?" said Lady Montairy.

"Ah! I wish I had known this," said Theodora, "before dinner, and I think I could have dotted down something that would have helped us. But let me see," and she went up to the eminent professor, with whom she was well acquainted, and said, "Signor Ricci, it begins so," and she hummed divinely a fantastic air, which, after a few moments' musing, he reproduced; "and then it goes off into what they call in Spain a saraband. Is there a shawl in the room?"

"My mother has always a shawl in reserve," said Bertram, "particularly when she pays visits to houses where there are galleries;" and he brought back a mantle of Cashmere.

"Now, Signor Ricci," said Mrs. Campian, and she again hummed an air, and moved forward at the same time with brilliant grace, waving at the end the shawl.

The expression of her countenance, looking round to Signor Ricci, as she was moving on to see whether he had caught her idea, fascinated Lothair.

"It is exactly what I told you," said Lord Carisbrooke, "and, I can a.s.sure you, it is the only dance now. I am very glad I remembered it."

"I see it all," said Signor Ricci, as Theodora rapidly detailed to him the rest of the figure. "And at any rate it will be the Tangerine with variations."

"Let me have the honor of being your partner in this great enterprise,"

said Lothair; "you are the inspiration of Muriel."

"Oh! I am very glad I can do any thing, however slight, to please you and your friends. I like them all; but particularly Lady Corisande."

A new dance in a country-house is a festival of frolic grace. The incomplete knowledge, and the imperfect execution, are themselves causes of merry excitement, in their contrast with the unimpa.s.sioned routine and almost unconscious practice of traditionary performances. And gay and frequent were the bursts of laughter from the bright and airy band who were proud to be the scholars of Theodora. The least successful among them was perhaps Lord Carisbrooke.

"Princess Metternich must have taught you wrong, Carisbrooke," said Hugo Bohun.

They ended with a waltz, Lothair dancing with Miss Arundel. She accepted his offer to take some tea on its conclusion. While they were standing at the table, a little withdrawn from the others, and he holding a sugar-basin, she said in a low voice, looking on her cup and not at him, "the cardinal is vexed about the early celebration; he says it should have been at midnight."

"I am sorry he is vexed," said Lothair.

"He was going to speak to you himself," continued Miss Arundel; "but he felt a delicacy about it. He had thought that your common feelings respecting the Church might have induced you if not to consult, at least to converse, with him on the subject; I mean as your guardian."

"It might have been perhaps as well," said Lothair; "but I also feel a delicacy on these matters."

"There ought to be none on such matters," continued Miss Arundel, "when every thing is at stake."

"I do not see that I could have taken any other course than I have done," said.Lothair. "It can hardly be wrong. The bishop's church views are sound."

"Sound!" said Miss Arundel; "moons.h.i.+ne instead of suns.h.i.+ne."

"Moons.h.i.+ne would rather suit a midnight than a morning celebration,"

said Lothair; "would it not?"

"A fair repartee, but we are dealing with a question that cannot be settled by jests. See," she said with great seriousness, putting down her cup and taking again his offered arm, "you think you are only complying with a form befitting your position and the occasion. You deceive yourself. You are hampering your future freedom by this step, and they know it. That is why it was planned. It was not necessary; nothing can be necessary so pregnant with evil. You might have made, you might yet make, a thousand excuses. It is a rite which hardly suits the levity of the hour, even with their feelings; but, with your view of its real character, it is sacrilege. What at is occurring tonight might furnish you with scruples?" And she looked up in his face.

"I think you take an exaggerated view of what I contemplate," said Lothair. "Even with your convictions, it may be an imperfect rite; but it never can be an injurious one."

"There can be no compromise on such matters," said Miss Arundel. "The Church knows nothing of imperfect rites. They are all perfect, because they are all divine; any deviation from them is heresy, and fatal. My convictions on this subject are your convictions; act up to them."

"I am sure, if thinking of these matters would guide a man right--" said Lothair, with a sigh, and he stopped.

"Human thought will never guide you; and very justly, when you have for a guide Divine truth. You are now your own master; go at once to its fountain-head; go to Rome, and then all your perplexities will vanish, and forever."

"I do not see much prospect of my going to Rome," said Lothair, "at least at present."

"Well," said Miss Arundel, "in a few weeks I hope to be there; and if so, I hope never to quit it."

"Do not say that; the future is always unknown."

"Not yours," said Miss Arundel. "Whatever you think, you will go to Rome. Mark my words. I summon you to meet me at Rome."

CHAPTER 46

There can be little doubt, generally speaking, that it is more satisfactory to pa.s.s Sunday in the country than in town. There is something in the essential stillness of country-life, which blends harmoniously with the ordinance of the most divine of our divine laws.

It is pleasant, too, when the congregation breaks up, to greet one's neighbors; to say kind words to kind faces; to hear some rural news profitable to learn, which sometimes enables you to do some good, and sometimes prevents others from doing some harm. A quiet, domestic walk, too, in the afternoon, has its pleasures; and so numerous and so various are the sources of interest in the country, that, though it be Sunday, there is no reason why your walk should not have an object.

But Sunday in the country, with your house full of visitors, is too often an exception to this general truth. It is a trial. Your guests cannot always be at church, and, if they could, would not like it. There is nothing to interest or amuse them; no sport; no castles or factories to visit; no adventurous expeditions; no gay music in the morn, and no light dance in the evening. There is always danger of the day becoming a course of heavy meals and stupid walks, for the external scene and all teeming circ.u.mstances, natural and human, though full of concern to you, are to your visitors an insipid blank.

How did Sunday go off at Muriel Towers?