The Banished Man/Volume 2/Chapter 17
Pomm' in umil fortuna, od in superba;
Al dolce ære ferno, al sosco e grave;
Pommi alla notle al di lungo, ed al breve;
Alla matura etate, od all' aeerba.
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Pommi con fama oscura, o con illustre:
Sarò qual fui: vivrò com' io visso
Continuando il' mio fospic trilustre
PETRARCH.
IN consequence of Ellesmere's approbation of his intentions, and of other circumstances that served to strength his resolution, D'Alonville proposed to Mrs. Denzil a plan, on her consent to which he declared the future happiness of his life depended.—This was, that Angelina should immediately be his; that without naming their marriage to Lord Aberdore, to whom it would probably be no additional recommendation that he was allied to a family to which he himself once acknowledged some relationship, he should accept the situation offered him, and endeavour, by the advantages that might accrue from it, to encrease his little income so as to support his wife, who, with her mother, her younger brothers and sisters, should take an house as near as could be conveniently found to the seat of Lord Aberdore's, where his son, Lord Aurevalle, and the other branches of his family were to be entrusted to their tutors. This, as it was now was not the house in Staffordshire, but another much larger, and upon the most capital estate possessed by the Aberdore family; and from a decayed town near it they took their title.—It was partly in Merionethshire, in a county eminently romantic and beautiful, but at such a distance from London, that the present Lady Aberdore disliked residing there for any length of time, and was not always prevailed upon to accompany Lord Aberdore in his annual visit, which he usually paid his Welsh estate at or soon after Christmas; and she had now prevailed on her Lord to give it up to his children, alleging that it was the most capacious and most healthy of his feats; but as in consequence of this new arrangement he would have no occasion for so large an house as that in Staffordshire, she hinted, in no very equivocal terms, how prudent it would be to let that, and to confine their country excursions to their annual visit to Rock-March, (the name of the seat in Wales) and to their occasional residence at Barton Grove, a villa he had purchased since his second marriage, in the neighbourhood of Hampton Court.—To these arrangements also Lord Aberdore agreed, with that ready submission which should mark the conduct of all peaceably-disposed husbands in regard to reasonable proposals from pretty and lively wives, twenty years younger than themselves. Had the family of which D'Alonville was to become a temporary member, remained in Staffordshire, there might have been many objections to the scheme for which he so earnestly pleased, that did not now arise; the family of Mrs. Denzil were known there, and she could not suppose that her return to a neighbourhood where she had before resided, or the motives for her return could long remain undiscovered.—
This might have destroyed at once the flattering visions in which D'Alonville had indulged himself, and involve them all in discussions which she desired particularly to avoid; but languishing, as she did, to quit scenes in and near London, where she had undergone so many years of fruitless anxiety, and hopeless misery, she felt more satisfaction than she had long been sensible of, in the idea of hiding herself in a distant province of Wales, and trying, amidst its wild and romantic scenes, to find again a relish for those rude beauties of unadulterated nature, which used in happier days to flatter her imagination and soothe her heart.
Too well convinced, however, that for her happiness was no where to be found, she would not have indulged herself in the visionary pursuit of even such transient gratification as the more mild and sublime landscapes of another part of Britain could offer her, nor would the advantage her health might gain by change of air and place, or any other consideration that related to herself only, have had the smallest influence on her resolution; but in giving her beloved child to D'Alonville, she saw a prospect of happiness for that child, which she thought no affluence of rank could give her with a man to whom she was less attached. Mrs. Denzil had learned by sad experience, that in a marriage made by parents on mercenary considerations only, their scheme of felicity may often be wholly defeated, and that then, only the bitterness of disappointed ambition remains; but that in a union where love alone determines, every trapping of fortune may be wanting, and yet, that the purest felicity may be found that in this state of being can be tasted on earth.
This conviction; D'Alonville's merit, which every hour appeared more evident; and Angelina's unalterable affection for him; the certainty there was that his little property would afford her the necessaries of life, and he persuasion Mrs. Denzil was in, that those who with the most officious vehemence declaimed against such an alliance, could offer no objection which unprejudiced reason would listen to, determined her to agree to their immediate marriage, and to remain in London with her daughter for some weeks afterwards, while D'Alonville should accompany his pupils to Rock-March, and look around it for such an habitation as would conveniently receive Mrs. Denzil and her family, together with De Touranges, his wife, mother, and child; for she heartily concurred with him in his generous resolution not to abandon these unfortunate friends. Language cannot do justice to the transports with which D'Alonville, who had been too tremblingly anxious to speak to Mrs. Denzil, received the answer she gave to the letter he had written detailing this scheme.—He flew down to Wandsworth, where she yet remained (though in another lodging,) and with the timid acquiescence of Angelina, every preliminary was that evening settled.
In two days afterwards, Mrs. Denzil and her family removed to London; the preparations, as to clothes, were soon made, for the simplest only were necessary; but there arose difficulties as to procuring a licence, (for Angelina was a minor, and had a father living in a foreign country,) which almost distracted D'Alonville, who had been informed by Miss Milsington that he would be expected at Rock-March in a very short time; his situation there, however, he determined to abandon, if its highest advantages were for a moment placed in opposition to his immediate marriage with Angelina; but fortunately some political engagements detained Lord Aberdore in London much longer than he expected, and prevented his attending his children into Wales, (a compliment he thought he could not decently dispense with), much longer than he was aware of.
While D'Alonville was intoxicated with the delightful hope of being in a few days the husband of the woman he adored, and was ready to absolve his fate for all his former misfortunes, so far as they had affected only himself; Miss Milsington, not at all suspecting his real situation, was pleasing herself, in spite of her pride and her reason, with the flattering idea of having secured his gratitude—perhaps mingled with a more tender sentiment; for who, suggested her vanity, who could be obliged to Jemima Milsington, and not feel the sweetness of involuntary affection insensibly associating itself with the recollection of her goodness? Who could contemplate her mind without loving her person? From the first moment she had seen D'Alonville, she had been charmed with his person; and a dreadful vacancy having lately happened in her heart, by the defection of a titled dangler whom her excessive vanity had made her believe intended to marry her, she had some how or other suffered the image of the handsome young foreigner who had been introduced to her at Eddisbury, to usurp this enviable place, yet was hardly conscious she had done so, till she found she had talked as well as thought so much of D'Alonville, that Lady Aberdore at last told her of it—"My dear Milsington," said she, as they were sitting alone in her dressing room, "you really bore one about that Frenchman—do you know, child that if you were eighteen, I should recommend it to your good mother to look carefully after you."
"Gracious! Lady Aberdore," answered the lady, blushing, albeit unused to the blushing mood—"Gracious, what have I said?"
"Oh, nothing," replied the other, carelessly, "that is very unusual with women who are not extremely young, who of course are somewhat of veterans, and may talk of male beauty, I suppose, without so much impropriety; but for heaven's sake, my dear creature, restrain yourself a little before the lady Viponts! consider that lady Tryphena is in her thirteenth year, and this Chevalier of your's is to be her tutor in French, and so forth, and really to hear so much of his beauty, and his charms, and his gallantry, may make a girl that age fancy him a hero, and fall in love with him."
Extremely nettled at this speech, Miss Milsington was preparing a very tart answer, when Lord Aberdore suddenly entered the room, to speak to his wife before he went to the levee. "Do you know, my Lord," said she, laughing, "I have been preaching prudence to Jemima, and bidding her not praise so immoderately this French tutor you have engaged for Rock-March, at least before any younger persons, for they may not be aware, you know, that it is our cousin's lively way, and may fancy, that a man praised by so good a judge must be something more than mortal—Pray tell me, my lord, for I have never seen him, is he such a very charming creature?"
"I looked to nothing, Lady Aberdore," answered he coldly, "but his capacity of instructing my family in certain branches of their education: that I apprehend he possesses from Miss Milsington's report, and in my opinion all other enquiry is improper and superfluous."
The noble peer then turned to Miss Milsington, who has requested him to let his coach set her down at St. James's, when he went thither, and asking if she was ready, they went away together.—The lady, swelling with resentment, which it was, however, necessary she should stifle; for the conveniences of Lady Aberdore's houses and carriages were not to be given up, though the occasional advantages they afforded her were purchased by mean submission to the insulting caprices of her young, beautiful, and fortunate relation. The truth was, Lady Aberdore, though she found Miss Milsington useful as a companion, who would accompany her to public places when no other person would go with her, and fit with her, or read to her when she was whimsical or sick, yet did not love, and was glad to mortify her: this arose partly from having been bid, when a girl, to look up to her cousin as capable of instructing her in music and other acquirements; partly from her envy at those acquirements of which she possessed no share herself, and partly from natural malignity. This last instance of invidious remark, though it was not made without reason, sunk into the mind of Miss Milsington, and was not easily forgotten. But as she was to be of the party, who know towards the end of January were to go down to settle the new arrangements at Rock-March, she determined to be more guarded in speaking of D'Alonville; to resolve on thinking of him less, was not so much in her power.
The magnificence that reigned in the family she was now with, was far from bestowing happiness, or even content on the members of it. Lord Aberdore was one of those ambitious men who, without talents, aspire to the first places of power and patronage; and who, scrupling not to acquire that power by any means, are as meanly humble to their superiors, as insolent and overbearing towards whoever they consider as their inferiors. His character was a common one, and had little to distinguish it from numberless others in public life. In domestic life he was now governed by his wife, to whom he was said to have shown too much attachment, long before there was a probability of his having it in his power to raise her to the rank she now enjoyed. He considered his children no otherwise, than as beings who were to perpetuate or aggrandize his family; but that the boys might be qualified to shine in political life, and the girls accomplished enough to aspire to the most illustrious alliances, he spared nothing that could contribute to complete their education, and was persuaded to believe, that this could be carried on better in the arrangement made at Rock-March, than it could be in London. Cold and stately towards his children, they had little pleasure in his company; and the young men were not sorry to enjoy that degree of liberty at a distance, on which his presence always seemed a restraint—while ladies Tryphena and Louisa, who had been taught by the old servants about them to detest their mother-in-law, were very glad to have a sort of an establishment of their own at a distance from her; though they were old enough to understand the motives that made Lady Aberdore desire their absence, and failed not to say they did, to every one they were allowed to see; some of whom repeated their remarks, which served only to determine her to hasten their departure; though as her lord intended to accompany them, she was compelled to sacrifice three weeks or a month of time which she thought it would have been much pleasanter to have passed in London.
While the enjoyments of wealth and affluence were thus embittered by the passions of jealousy and malignity, the humble lodging of Mrs. Denzil afforded a scene of at least transient happiness; and she had a heart that could delight in the felicity of others: yet to a mother, the giving away for ever a beloved child, is a period of excessive anxiety; it was particularly so to her, who had consented to the marriage of Angelina contrary to the general opinion of those few friends, who thought it worth while to give any opinion at all on the disposal of a young woman without fortune.—Experience of the futility of those plans and projects that parents usually form for the happiness of their children without consulting them; experience of the vanity of mere riches, "which make themselves wings and fly away"—and experience of the mercenary and fluctuating temper of a world, that bows the knee only to success, and that would worship idiotism or deformity, if it were raised on the wheel of fortune; had taught her to adopt for the remainder of her life, (of which much more than half had been passed as the miserable victim of the selfish policy of others,) the opinion of Voltaire, when he says,
Nous ne vivons que deux momens
Qu'il en foit un, pour le bonheur.
The longer she was acquainted with D'Alonville the more time she had given herself to study his temper and disposition, the more firmly she believed, that the day which made Angelina his, ought to be for her a day of joy.—To D'Alonville it seemed as if destiny, determined to teach him every extreme of misery and felicity, had now raised him to happiness beyond the lot of humanity.—He had the unexpected satisfaction of remaining almost a fortnight with his wife, before the final summons arrived which called him from her, to the duties he had undertaken in the family of Lord Aberdore.
But he left her with the delicious certainty that they should soon meet again to part no more—and he carried with him the delightful reflection, that it was for her he was engaging in an employment which, however contrary to his former habits of life, the idea of its contributing to her comfort would render not only easy but pleasant.
"There be some sports are painful, but their labour
"Delight in sets them off—Some kinds of baseness
"Are nobly undergone.*
Angelina saw him depart with tender yet trusting solicitude—her mother with confidence and pleasure.—When Angelina had bade him adieu, she looked from the dining-room window will he turned into the next street, and then retired to her own room to indulge for a few moments in those tears which she could no longer repress, though she was conscious that is was weakness to yield to them.—Soon, however, recovering her composure, by reflecting on the prospect of that humble happiness they hoped to enjoy together, she was able to meet her mother at dinner with a calm and even a chearful countenance.
D'Alonville in the mean time found himself in Portland-place, hardly knowing how he got thither.—The carriages were waiting in which the young men were to travel; those that conveyed Lord and lady Aberdore and Miss Milsington; the ladies Vipont, their governesses and women, were not ordered till a later hour, but Lord Aurevalle and his brothers, with their tutors and domestics, were to begin their journey immediately.
The reverend Lemuel Paunceford, for the first time saw the chevalier D'Alonville, who was chosen to be his coadjutor in the important task of educating future legislators of the British empire. The reverend Lemuel Paunceford made him as good a bow as he could make, and introduced his pupils thus:—"Monsieur Dallunville, this is my Lord Aurevalle; this is the honourable Henry Augustus Vipont, his lordship's next brother, and this the honourable Frederic Charles Vipont, his lordship's younger brother." D'Alonville bowed to each of the boys, and Mr. Paunceford pointing to a chair, he sat down.
The curiosity of D'Alonville, which had at first been excited by the odd figure of this young divine, was soon satisfied, for he strutted for a moment about the room as if to exhibit himself to the best advantage. He was a punch figure of five feet, whose tight black clothes, knowing boots and splendid leathern breeches, served only to make his redundancy of flesh more remarkable. He wore his hair high behind his round head, so that a collop of fat that was thrust from his short poll by the pressure of his neckcloth; seemed to support the spruce row of yellow curls that marked him, (though somewhat to his displeasure) as being in orders. But however he might internally murmur at the harsh decrees of custom which deprived his person of many advantages of which laymen are allowed to avail themselves, his spirit was well enough calculated for his situation; for with an infinite deal of pride, he had such a pliant disposition where any thing was to be got, that there was no doubt of his dying a dignitary of the church.
Till that happy epocha arrived, he was not unwilling to show the way that was to lead to it, with every flower he could gather, without hazarding his character. He loved a good dinner extremely, and found Lord Aberdore's table very suitable to his taste; he loved his ease, and found that it was more in appearance than in reality that he should have any thing to do; he was very fond of governing, and therefore well content to find that the management of every thing at Rock-March was to be left to him; and as he did not dislike women, he imagined that with the two governesses, who were young and genteel women, and the three or four smart damsels who waited on them and the young ladies, he should have something like a little seraglio around him, for the indulgence of sentimental affections at least. It was not therefore without some sensation, bordering on mortification and disappointment, that he beheld the very handsome figure of D'Alonville, who, besides the advantage of being somewhat above six feet high, and of a light and graceful figure, had a face at once manly and expressive, fine eyes, and the most beautiful teeth that could be seen. It was to make comparisons between himself and this unwelcome coadjutor that Mr. Paunceford now paraded from the great pier glass to the door, from the door to the pier glass; and it was with extreme reluctance that he was compelled, after several turns, to acknowledge, that the Frenchman was really tolerably well-looking considering; for that was all he could bring himself to avow.
When the chevalier D'Alonville had been talked of, Mr. Paunceford had imagined to himself that he resembled one of those figure that are usually exhibited in print shops in ridicule of his country, and that he should only find him a contrast to his own agreeable person: but his eyes refused to accede to this caricature of his imagination, and he was now heartily sorry that his residence with his pupils at the villa near Hampton-court, at the time Lord Aberdore had engaged with D'Alonville prevented his trying to put an end to the negociation.—Now it was too late, and he could only form vague plans of prejudicing his pupils against him, and finding some means of getting him dismissed as speedily as possible.—D'Alonville having smiled internally at the pert round figure and consequential manner of the little Abbé, thought no more about him, but paying only as much attention to the young Viponts, as the common forms of politeness required, in speaking to each of them in French, of which they all understood something, and which the eldest spoke tolerably well, he turned all his thoughts to Angelina, and in reflecting how soon he should be many miles from her, he sunk into a melancholy reverie, from which he was suddenly roused by Miss Milsington, who bouncing into the room, exclaimed—"Oh, my dear boys! I thought I should have been too late to have seen you before you set off—you servant, sir," coldly, to Mr. Paunceford; then turning to D'Alonville, who had risen on her entering the room she exclaimed, "Oh, Chevalier! never creature was so delighted as I am, to find you are not gone without my seeing you. My dear sir, what a horrible journey we shall have and such and ungallant, uncomfortable plan as this, of travelling separate!—Well, my dear friend, but we shall meet at last; and I hope the gods will give us good weather, that we may ramble about at Rock-March.—Do you know that if you love romantic views you will be quite wild!—for my part I adore them!—my delight is to gaze on woods, and rocks, and mountains, and torrents, when I am in the country." D'Alonville, though usually prompt enough at reply, was at a loss what to say to this sentence, which, though meaning little, was so energetically delivered; but he was relieved from his embarrassment by a footman who can in to inform Mr. Paunceford that everything was ready. Mr. Paunceford then sneeringly addressed Miss Milsington—"Madam, if your business with Monseer is at an end, I believe there is nothing more to detain us.—My Lord Aurevalle, your Lordship goes with me in the first chaise—Mr. Vipont and Mr. Frederic Vipont, Monseer Dallumvil is to attend you in the second." The Reverend Lemuel Paunceford then marched down stairs with the young lord, who did not seem particularly delighted with the arrangement; D'Alonville respectfully kissing Miss Milsington's hand, which she generously rendered to him, followed the two younger boys, and the chaises drove away.
How dull Aurevalle will be," cried the eldest, "shut up with our little Parson Punch."
"I hope," answered his brother, "Bob Jerom will preach to him all the way. I like to have Aurevalle teized with that quiz—because he often sets him upon me."
D'Alonville, though by no means comprehending the terms Parson Punch, Bob Jerom, and Quiz, yet perfectly understood that the lads were ridiculing their tutor, for whom he had before guessed by their looks they had no great reverence; but as he though it too soon for him to commence monitor, he endeavoured to turn the discourse on the villages they were passing, and to direct their observations to the objects they passed; he found the eldest greatly skilled in horseflesh, giving his opinion of "the cattle" that went by—knew to what men of fashion they belonged, and told D'Alonville the names and ages of Lord Aberdore's horses at each of his residences; named the brood mares, and had a very tolerable notion of a pedigree: these were accomplishments which D'Alonville did not suspect his pupil of having acquired under the learned clerk of Oxenford, Mr. Lemuel Paunceford; but he did not know that he was himself a sportsman, the best shot of his college, and celebrated fro taking care himself to have his game well dressed; he was besides, though rather overweight, a keen sportsman, and followed hare hounds with particular guste; inclinations which had prevented his checking in his pupils the too lively interest they seemed disposed to take in the affairs of the stable.
As for some reason or other Lord Aberdore did not intend to pass the night at the same inn, they saw nothing of him on the road.—Paunceford seemed sullen and out of humour at supper; and drily saying to D'Alonville that the misfortune of his own not knowing the French language would make conversation unpleasant to him, he took a book out of his pocket, and D'Alonville was left to converse with the boys till they separated for the night.
CHAP.