Ethel Churchill/Chapter 67
CHAPTER XXXII.
AN AUDIENCE.
Not with the world to teach us, may we learn
The spirit's noblest lessons. Hope and Faith
Arc stars that shine amid the far off heaven,
Dimmed and obscured by vapours from below;
Impatient selfishness, and shrewd distrust,
Are taught us in the common ways of life;
Dust is beneath our feet, and at our side
The coarse and mean, the false and the unjust;
And constant, contact makes us grow too like
The things we daily struggle with and scorn:
Only by looking up, can we see heaven.
Sir Robert gave one quick scrutinising glance as his fair guests entered, which was succeeded by the prolonged look of extreme admiration; he called up his most courteous manner as he pointed to the seats nearest to his own.
"I never," said he, "wished my gout with my enemies so cordially as I do at this moment."
"Nay," replied Lady Marchmont, "I cannot help feeling obliged to it; at all events, you cannot seek safety in flight. We have stormed your stronghold, and you must yield yourself our prisoner, rescue or no rescue!"
"Not so bad as that, either," exclaimed Walpole; "I would not fly, if I could:
'Old as I am, for ladies' love unfit,
The power of beauty I remember yet!'"
"I trust," returned Henrietta, with a glance at the silent and confused Ethel, "that we shall find you a very slave to its influence."
Sir Robert smiled, and then said, in a good-humoured tone, "Well, now, fair ladies, what do you want with me? for, I suppose, you are no exceptions to the general rule; no one ever comes to me who does not want something."
"Well," replied the young countess, "you would not have us unlike every body else in the world?"
"That is what you already are!" said the minister, with an air of great gallantry.
"To be frank," continued Lady Marchmont, having first appropriated the compliment with a very sweet smile, "we do come to ask a favour!"
"Now, the Lord have mercy upon me!" exclaimed Sir Robert, sinking back in his chair; "there is nothing in the world so unreasonable as a pretty woman. Well, let me hear what outrageous proposition is about to come from two at once!" and he half hummed through his teeth the air then in its zenith of popularity:—
"How happy could I be with either,
Were t'other dear charmer away!"
"Nay," said Lady Marchmont, "we trust that our petition will not be so very outrageous, either. But, will you allow me to introduce my companion, Miss Churchill?"
Sir Robert's brow darkened at once; but there was something in Ethel's pale and subdued loveliness, which softened him; for he asked, in a very kind tone, "And what does Miss Churchill want of me?"
"Pity and pardon!" exclaimed Ethel, in a low, but distinct whisper.
"I thought how it was!" cried Walpole, "those fantastic coxcombs have all the luck with you. Here is a goose—by Jove! I am calumniating that respectable bird: Trevanion has not even the brains of a goose—an idiot tries to unsettle a whole kingdom, does contrive to turn the heads of some worthy people, and here are two of the prettiest women in England coming to beg for his head, as if it were worth keeping on his shoulders!"
"You are quite wrong," interrupted Lady Marchmont; "as far as Mr. Trevanion is concerned, you have our full permission to hang him out of the way at your earliest convenience!"
"You only say this," returned Sir Robert, fixing a penetrating glance on Ethel, to whose cheek the colour rose vividly, "because you know he has escaped! The jailor was fool enough to have a daughter, and she was fool enough to think, because a man was handsome, he ought not to be hanged; so they took advantage of a dark night, and a smuggler's boat, and are gone to France and the devil together! Don't faint; at least, not here!" added he abruptly, to Ethel, whose fading blush left her paler than before: "your lover is not more inconstant than all men are: but I see how it is; women are all alike, they would rather have a lover hanged, than that another should save him from the gallows!"
A quick temper feeds on its own indulgence, and Sir Robert had talked himself into being angry; however, Lady Marchmont took advantage of the pause to say, "Mr. Trevanion has nothing to do with our visit; it is on Mrs. Churchill's account that we have ventured to address you. We have heard that she is to be imprisoned: it is for her sake that we implore your compassion!"
"My grandmother," exclaimed Ethel eagerly, "pines for her own home: I am sure a prison will kill her. Consider, sir, she is an old woman, she will not trouble you long!"
"An old woman!" exclaimed the minister, whom an unlucky twinge made at that moment doubly impatient, "old women are the plague of my life! So I am to send Mrs. Churchill down to the very spot where a treasonable correspondence is most easily managed; and by the ease with which she gets out of a first scrape, give her all possible encouragement to get into another. Well, I was quite right in asking what preposterous request had you come here about!"
"I see," returned Lady Marchmont, "that old women are no favourites of yours; but if you would extend your clemency to Mrs. Churchill, I think she has seen her folly, and will leave conspiracies to themselves in future."
"And who," asked Sir Robert, "will become sureties for her future good conduct?"
This appeared an easy question to answer; and from the early friends of their house, Ethel selected two neighbouring gentlemen, to whom she had always been accustomed to look with the utmost respect. She could scarcely have made a worse selection, for they were two most notorious Jacobites. The moment Sir Robert heard the names, "Really, this is too bad!" exclaimed he in a rage, ringing a bell violently that stood by him on the table: "ladies, I can waste no more time in listening to any such nonsense. Good morning!"
There was no resource, the minister would not even look towards them, so absorbed had he suddenly become in the papers before him. The door opened; and, in another moment, they found themselves in the vestibule, where the young secretary was waiting to hand them to the carriage. He was too accustomed to discontented suitors not to see at a glance that the interview had been one of disappointment, and he was too discreet to ask any questions; a discretion, by the by, of all kinds the rarest.