The Young Duke by Benjamin Disraeli (read book .TXT) 📖

the Graftons were to follow him in a fortnight, still even these fourteen days were a holiday. It is extraordinary how hourly, and how violently, change the feelings of an inexperienced young man.

Sir Lucius, however, was disappointed in his Brighton trip. Ten days after the departure of the young Duke the county member died. Sir Lucius had been long maturing his pretensions to the vacant representation. He was strongly supported; for he was a personal favourite, and his family had claims; but he was violently opposed; for a _novus homo_ was ambitious, and the Baronet was poor. Sir Lucius was a man of violent passions, and all feelings and considerations immediately merged in his paramount ambition. His wife, too, at this moment, was an important personage. She was generally popular; she was beautiful, highly connected, and highly considered. Her canvassing was a great object. She canvassed with earnestness and with success; for since her consolatory friendship with the Duke of St. James her character had greatly changed, and she was now as desirous of conciliating her husband and the opinion of society as she was before disdainful of the one and fearless of the other. Sir Lucius and Lady Aphrodite Grafton were indeed on the best possible terms, and the whole county admired his conjugal attentions and her wifelike affections.

The Duke, who had no influence in this part of the world, and who was not at all desirous of quitting Brighton, compensated for his absence at this critical moment by a friendly letter and the offer of his purse. By this good aid, his wife's attractions, and his own talents, Sir Lucy succeeded, and by the time Parliament had assembled he was returned member for his native county.

In the meantime, his friend had been spending his time at Brighton in a far less agitated manner, but, in its way, not less successful; for he was amused, and therefore gained his object as much as the Baronet. The Duke liked Brighton much. Without the bore of an establishment, he found himself among many agreeable friends, living in an unostentatious and impromptu, though refined and luxurious, style. One day a new face, another day a new dish, another day a new dance, successively interested his feelings, particularly if the face rode, which they all do; the dish was at Sir George Sauceville's, and the dance at the Duke of Burlington's. So time flew on, between a canter to Rottindean, the flavours of a Perigord, and the blunders of the mazurka.

But February arrived, and this agreeable life must end. The philosophy of society is so practical that it is not allowed, even to a young Duke, absolutely to trifle away existence. Duties will arise, in spite of our best endeavours; and his Grace had to roll up to town, to dine with the Premier, and to move the Address.


CHAPTER III.


A New Star Rises


ANOTHER season had arrived, another of those magical periods of which one had already witnessed his unparalleled triumphs, and from which he had derived such exquisite delight. To his surprise, he viewed its arrival without emotion; if with any feeling, with disgust.

He had quaffed the cup too eagerly. The draught had been delicious; but time also proved that it had been satiating. Was it possible for his vanity to be more completely gratified than it had been? Was it possible for victories to be more numerous and more unquestioned during the coming campaign than during the last? Had not his life, then, been one long triumph? Who had not offered their admiration? Who had not paid homage to his all-acknowledged empire? Yet, even this career, however dazzling, had not been pursued, even this success, however brilliant, had not been attained, without some effort and some weariness, also some exhaustion. Often, as he now remembered, had his head ached; more than once, as now occurred to him, had his heart faltered. Even his first season had not passed over without his feeling lone in the crowded saloon, or starting at the supernatural finger in the banqueting-hall. Yet then he was the creature of excitement, who pursued an end which was as indefinite as it seemed to be splendid. All had now happened that could happen. He drooped. He required the impulse which we derive from an object unattained.

Yet, had he exhausted life at two-and-twenty? This must not be. His feelings must be more philosophically accounted for. He began to suspect that he had lived too much for the world and too little for himself; that he had sacrificed his ease to the applause of thousands, and mistaken excitement for enjoyment. His memory dwelt with satisfaction on the hours which had so agreeably glided away at Brighton, in the choice society of a few intimates. He determined entirely to remodel the system of his life; and with the sanguine impetuosity which characterised him, he, at the same moment, felt that he had at length discovered the road to happiness, and determined to pursue it without the loss of a precious moment.

The Duke of St. James was seen less in the world, and he appeared but seldom at the various entertainments which he had once so adorned. Yet he did not resign his exalted position in the world of fashion; but, on the contrary, adopted a course of conduct which even increased his consideration. He received the world not less frequently or less splendidly than heretofore; and his magnificent mansion, early in the season, was opened to the favoured crowd. Yet in that mansion, which had been acquired with such energy and at such cost, its lord was almost as strange, and certainly not as pleased, an inmate as the guests, who felt their presence in his chambers a confirmation, or a creation, of their claims to the world's homage. The Alhambra was finished, and there the Duke of St. James entirely resided; but its regal splendour was concealed from the prying eye of public curiosity with a proud reserve, a studied secrecy, and stately haughtiness becoming a caliph. A small band of initiated friends alone had the occasional entree, and the mysterious air which they provokingly assumed whenever they were cross-examined on the internal arrangements of this mystical structure, only increased the number and the wildness of the incidents which daily were afloat respecting the fantastic profusion and scientific dissipation of the youthful sultan and his envied viziers.

The town, ever since the season commenced, had been in feverish expectation of the arrival of a new singer, whose fame had heralded her presence in all the courts of Christendom. Whether she were an Italian or a German, a Gaul or a Greek, was equally unknown. An air of mystery environed the most celebrated creature in Europe. There were odd whispers of her parentage. Every potentate was in turn entitled to the gratitude of mankind for the creation of this marvel. Now it was an emperor, now a king. A grand duke then put in his claim, and then an archduke. To-day she was married, tomorrow she was single. To-day her husband was a prince incog., to-morrow a drum-major well known. Even her name was a mystery; and she was known and worshipped throughout the whole civilised world by the mere title of '_The Bird of Paradise!_'

About a month before Easter telegraphs announced her arrival. The Admiralty yacht was too late. She determined to make her first appearance at the opera: and not only the young Duke, but even a far more exalted personage, was disappointed in the sublime idea of anticipating the public opinion by a private concert. She was to appear for the first time on Tuesday; the House of Commons adjourned.

The curtain is drawn up, and the house is crowded. Everybody is there who is anybody. Protocoli, looking as full of fate as if the French were again on the Danube; Macaroni, as full of himself as if no other being were engrossing universal attention. The Premier appears far more anxious than he does at Council, and the Duke of Burlington arranges his fanlike screen with an agitation which, for a moment, makes him forget his unrivalled nonchalance. Even Lady Bloomerly is in suspense, and even Charles Annesley's heart beats. But ah! (or rather, bah!) the enthusiasm of Lady de Courcy! Even the young Guardsman, who paid her Ladyship for her ivory franks by his idle presence, even he must have felt, callous as those young Guardsmen are.

Will that bore of a tenor ever finish that provoking aria, that we have heard so often? How drawlingly he drags on his dull, deafening--

_Eccola!_

Have you seen the primal dew ere the sun has lipped the pearl? Have you seen a summer fly, with tinted wings of shifting light, glance in the liquid noontide air? Have you marked a shooting star, or watched a young gazelle at play? Then you have seen nothing fresher, nothing brighter, nothing wilder, nothing lighter, than the girl who stands before you! She was infinitely small, fair, and bright. Her black hair was braided in Madonnas over a brow like ivory; a deep pure pink spot gave lustre to each cheek. Her features were delicate beyond a dream! her nose quite straight, with a nostril which would have made you crazy, if you had not already been struck with idiocy by gazing on her mouth. She a singer! Impossible! She cannot speak. And, now we look again, she must sing with her eyes, they are so large and lustrous!

The Bird of Paradise curtsied as if she shrunk under the overwhelming greeting, and crossed her breast with arms that gleamed like moonbeams and hands that glittered like stars. This gave time to the _cognoscenti_ to remark her costume, which was ravishing, and to try to see her feet; but they were too small. At last Lord Squib announced that he had discovered them by a new glass, and described them as a couple of diamond-claws most exquisitely finished.

She moved her head with a faint smile, as if she distrusted her powers and feared the assembly would be disappointed, and then she shot forth a note which thrilled through every heart and nearly cracked the chandelier. Even Lady Fitz-pompey said 'Brava!' As she proceeded the audience grew quite frantic. It was agreed on all hands that miracles had recommenced. Each air was sung only to call forth fresh exclamations of 'Miracolo!' and encores were as unmerciful as an usurper.

Amid all this rapture the young Duke was not silent. His box was on the stage; and ever and anon the syren shot a glance which seemed to tell him that he was marked out amid this brilliant multitude. Each round of applause, each roar of ravished senses, only added a more fearful action to the wild purposes which began to flit about his Grace's mind. His imagination was touched. His old passion to be distinguished returned in full force. This creature was strange, mysterious, celebrated. Her beauty, her accomplishments, were as singular and as rare as her destiny and her fame. His reverie absolutely raged; it was only disturbed by her repeated notice and his returned acknowledgments. He arose in a state of mad excitation, once more the slave or the victim of his intoxicated vanity. He hurried behind the scenes. He congratulated her on her success, her genius, and her beauty; and, to be brief, within a week of her arrival in our metropolis, the Bird of Paradise was fairly caged in the Alhambra.


CHAPTER IV.


The Bird is Caged


HITHERTO the Duke of St. James had been a celebrated personage, but his fame had been confined to the two thousand Brahmins who constitute the world. His patronage of the Signora extended his celebrity in