Henrietta Temple by Benjamin Disraeli (my miracle luna book free read txt) 📖

soft-hearted.'

'And you, Henrietta, what are you?'

'Hard-hearted. The most callous of mortals.'

'Oh, what would Lord Montfort say?'

'Lord Montfort knows it. We never have love scenes.'

'And yet you love him?'

'Dearly; I love and esteem him.'

'Well,' said Miss Grandison, 'I may be wrong, but if I were a man I do not think I should like the lady of my love to esteem me.'

'And yet esteem is the only genuine basis of happiness, believe me, Kate. Love is a dream.'

'And how do you know, dear Henrietta?'

'All writers agree it is.'

'The writers you were just ridiculing?'

'A fair retort; and yet, though your words are the more witty, believe me, mine are the more wise.'

'I wish my cousin would wake from his dream,' said Katherine. 'To tell you a secret, love is the cause of his unhappiness. Don't move, dear Henrietta,' added Miss Grandison; 'we are so happy here;' for Miss Temple, in truth, seemed not a little discomposed.

'You should marry your cousin,' said Miss Temple.

'You little know Ferdinand or myself, when you give that advice,' said Katherine. 'We shall never marry; nothing is more certain than that. In the first place, to be frank, Ferdinand would not marry me, nothing would induce him; and in the second place, I would not marry him, nothing would induce me.'

'Why not?' said Henrietta, in a low tone, holding her book very near to her face.

'Because I am sure that we should not be happy,' said Miss Grandison. 'I love Ferdinand, and once could have married him. He is so brilliant that I could not refuse his proposal. And yet I feel it is better for me that we have not married, and I hope it may yet prove better for him, for I love him very dearly. He is indeed my brother.'

'But why should you not be happy?' enquired Miss Temple.

'Because we are not suited to each other. Ferdinand must marry some one whom he looks up to, somebody brilliant like himself, some one who can sympathise with all his fancies. I am too calm and quiet for him. You would suit him much better, Henrietta.'

'You are his cousin; it is a misfortune; if you were not, he would adore you, and you would sympathise with him.'

'I think not: I should like to marry a very clever man,' said Katherine. 'I could not endure marrying a fool, or a commonplace person; I should like to marry a person very superior in talent to myself, some one whose opinion would guide me on all points, one from whom I could not differ. But not Ferdinand; he is too imaginative, too impetuous; he would neither guide me, nor be guided by me.'

Miss Temple did not reply, but turned over a page of her book.

'Did you know Ferdinand before you met him yesterday at our house?' enquired Miss Grandison, very innocently.

'Yes!' said Miss Temple.

'I thought you did,' said Miss Grandison, 'I thought there was something in your manner that indicated you had met before. I do not think you knew my aunt before you met her at Bellair House?'

'I did not.'

'Nor Sir Ratclifle?'

'Nor Sir Ratclifle.'

'But you did know Mr. Glastonbury?'

'I did know Mr. Glastonbury.'

'How very odd!' said Miss Grandison.

'What is odd?' enquired Henrietta.

'That you should have known Ferdinand before.'

'Not at all odd. He came over one day to shoot at papa's. I remember him very well.'

'Oh,' said Miss Grandison. 'And did Mr. Glastonbury come over to shoot?'

'I met Mr. Glastonbury one morning that I went to see the picture gallery at Armine. It is the only time I ever saw him.'

'Oh!' said Miss Grandison again, 'Armine is a beautiful place, is it not?'

'Most interesting.'

'You know the pleasaunce.'

'Yes.'

'I did not see you when I was at Armine.'

'No; we had just gone to Italy.'

'How beautiful you look to-day, Henrietta!' said Miss Grandison. 'Who could believe that you ever were so ill!'

'I am grateful that I have recovered,' said Henrietta. 'And yet I never thought that I should return to England.'

'You must have been so very ill in Italy, about the same time as poor Ferdinand was at Armine. Only think, how odd you should both have been so ill about the same time, and now that we should all be so intimate!'

Miss Temple looked perplexed and annoyed. 'Is it so odd?' she at length said in a low tone.

'Henrietta Temple,' said Miss Grandison, with great earnestness, 'I have discovered a secret; you are the lady with whom my cousin is in love.'


CHAPTER XIII.


_In Which Ferdinand Has the Honour of Dining with Mr. Bond
Sharpe_.


WHEN Ferdinand arrived at Mr. Bond Sharpe's he was welcomed by his host in a magnificent suite of saloons, and introduced to two of the guests who had previously arrived. The first was a stout man, past middle age, whose epicurean countenance twinkled with humour. This was Lord Castlefyshe, an Irish peer of great celebrity in the world of luxury and play, keen at a bet, still keener at a dinner. Nobody exactly knew who the other gentleman, Mr. Bland-ford, really was, but he had the reputation of being enormously rich, and was proportionately respected. He had been about town for the last twenty years, and did not look a day older than at his first appearance. He never spoke of his family, was unmarried, and apparently had no relations; but he had contrived to identify himself with the first men in London, was a member of every club of great repute, and of late years had even become a sort of authority; which was strange, for he had no pretension, was very quiet, and but humbly ambitious; seeking, indeed, no happier success than to merge in the brilliant crowd, an accepted atom of the influential aggregate. As he was not remarkable for his talents or his person, and as his establishment, though well appointed, offered no singular splendour, it was rather strange that a gentleman who had apparently dropped from the clouds, or crept out of a kennel, should have succeeded in planting himself so vigorously in a soil which shrinks from anything not indigenous, unless it be recommended by very powerful qualities. But Mr. Bland-ford was good-tempered, and was now easy and experienced, and there was a vague tradition that he was immensely rich, a rumour which Mr. Blandford always contradicted in a manner which skilfully confirmed its truth.

'Does Mirabel dine with you, Sharpe?' enquired Lord Castlefyshe of his host, who nodded assent.

'You won't wait for him, I hope?' said his lordship. 'By-the-bye, Blandford, you shirked last night.'

'I promised to look in at the poor duke's before he went off,' said Mr. Blandford.

'Oh! he has gone, has he?' said Lord Castlefyshe. 'Does he take his cook with him?'

But here the servant ushered in Count Alcibiades de Mirabel, Charles Doricourt, and Mr. Bevil.

'Excellent Sharpe, how do you do?' exclaimed the Count. 'Castlefyshe, what _betises_ have you been talking to Crocky about Felix Winchester? Good Blandford, excellent Blandford, how is my good Blandford?'

Mr. Bevil was a tall and handsome young man, of a great family and great estate, who passed his life in an imitation of Count Alcibiades de Mirabel. He was always dressed by the same tailor, and it was his pride that his cab or his _vis-a-vis_ was constantly mistaken for the equipage of his model; and really now, as the shade stood beside its substance, quite as tall, almost as good-looking, with the satin-lined coat thrown open with the same style of flowing grandeur, and revealing a breastplate of starched cambric scarcely less broad and brilliant, the uninitiated might have held the resemblance as perfect. The wristbands were turned up with not less compact precision, and were fastened by jewelled studs that glittered with not less radiancy. The satin waistcoat, the creaseless hosen, were the same; and if the foot were not quite as small, its Parisian polish was not less bright. But here, unfortunately, Mr. Bevil's mimetic powers deserted him.

We start, for soul is wanting there!

The Count Mirabel could talk at all times, and at all times well; Mr. Bevil never opened his mouth. Practised in the world, the Count Mirabel was nevertheless the child of impulse, though a native grace, and an intuitive knowledge of mankind, made every word pleasing and every act appropriate; Mr. Bevil was all art, and he had not the talent to conceal it. The Count Mirabel was gay, careless, generous; Mr. Bevil was solemn, calculating, and rather a screw. It seemed that the Count Mirabel's feelings grew daily more fresh, and his faculty of enjoyment more keen and relishing; it seemed that Mr. Bevil could never have been a child, but that he must have issued to the world ready equipped, like Minerva, with a cane instead of a lance, and a fancy hat instead of a helmet. His essence of high breeding was never to be astonished, and he never permitted himself to smile, except in the society of intimate friends.

Charles Doricourt was another friend of the Count Mirabel, but not his imitator. His feelings were really worn, but it was a fact he always concealed. He had entered life at a remarkably early age, and had experienced every scrape to which youthful flesh is heir. Any other man but Charles Doricourt must have sunk beneath these accumulated disasters, but Charles Doricourt always swam. Nature had given him an intrepid soul; experience had cased his heart with iron. But he always smiled; and audacious, cool, and cutting, and very easy, he thoroughly despised mankind, upon whose weaknesses he practised without remorse. But he was polished and amusing, and faithful to his friends. The world admired him, and called him Charley, from which it will be inferred that he was a privileged person, and was applauded for a thousand actions, which in anyone else would have been met with decided reprobation.

'Who is that young man?' enquired the Count Mirabel of Mr. Bond Sharpe, taking his host aside, and pretending to look at a picture.

'He is Captain Armine, the only son of Sir Ratcliffe Armine. He has just returned to England after a long absence.'

'Hum! I like his appearance,' said the Count. 'It is very distinguished.'

Dinner and Lord Catchimwhocan were announced at the same moment; Captain Armine found himself seated next to the Count Mirabel. The dinners at Mr. Bond Sharpe's were dinners which his guests came to eat. Mr. Bond Sharpe had engaged for his club-house the most celebrated of living artists, a gentleman who, it was said, received a thousand a-year, whose convenience was studied by a chariot, and amusement secured by a box at the French play. There was, therefore, at first little conversation, save criticism on the performances before them, and that chiefly panegyrical; each dish was delicious, each wine exquisite; and yet, even in these occasional remarks, Ferdinand was pleased with the lively fancy of his neighbour, affording an elegant contrast to the somewhat gross unction with which Lord Castlefyshe, whose very soul seemed wrapped up in his occupation, occasionally expressed himself.

'Will you take some wine, Captain Armine?' said the Count Mirabel, with a winning smile. 'You have recently returned here?'

'Very recently,' said Ferdinand.

'And you are glad?'

'As it may be; I