Thaddeus of Warsaw Part 39

[Footnote: This accomplished singer and composer still lives--one of the most admired ornaments of the British orchestra.--1845.]

Listen a little to my merits. Do you know that if it were not for my timely lectures, Lascelles would grow the most insufferable gossip about town? There is not a match nor a divorce near St. James's of which he cannot repeat all the whys and wherefores. I call him Sir Benjamin Backbite; and I believe he hates me worse than Asmodeus himself."

"Such a man's dislike," rejoined Mary, "is the highest encomium he can bestow. I never yet heard him speak well of any person who did not resemble himself."

"And he is not consistent even there," resumed the viscount: "I am not sure I have always heard him speak in the gentlest terms of Miss Dundas. Yet, on that I cannot quite blame him; for, on my honor, she provokes me beyond any woman breathing."

"Many women," replied Mary, smiling, "would esteem that a flattering instance of power."

"And, like everything that flatters," returned he, "it would tell a falsehood. A shrew can provoke a man who detests her. As to Miss Dundas, notwithstanding her parade of learning, she generally espouses the wrong side of the argument; and I may say with somebody, whose name I have forgotten, that any one who knows Diana Dundas never need be at a loss for a woman to call impertinent."

"You are not usually so severe, my lord!"

"I am not usually so sincere, Miss Beaufort," answered he; "but I see you think for yourself, therefore I make no hesitation in speaking what I think--to you."

His auditor bowed her head sportively but modestly. Lady Dundas at that moment beckoned him across the room. She compelled him to sit down to whist. He cast a rueful glance at Mary, and took a seat opposite to his costly partner.

"Lord Berrington is a very worthy young man," observed the clergyman to whom at the beginning of the evening Miss Beaufort had resigned her chair; "I presume, madam, you have been honoring him with your conversation?"

"Yes," returned Mary, noticing the benign countenance of the speaker; "I have not had the pleasure of long knowing his lordship, but what I have seen of his character is highly to his advantage."

"I was intimate in his father's house for years," rejoined the gentleman: "I knew this young n.o.bleman from a boy. If he has faults, he owes them to his mother, who doated on him, and rather directed his care to the adornment of his really handsome person than to the cultivation of talents he has since learned to appreciate."

"I believe Lord Berrington to be very sensible, and, above all, very humane," returned Miss Beaufort.

"He is so," replied the old gentleman; "yet it was not till he had attained the age of twenty-two that he appeared to know he had anything to do in the world besides dressing and attending on the fair s.e.x. His taste produced the first, whilst the urbanity of his disposition gave birth to the latter. When Berrington arrived at his t.i.tle, he was about five-and-twenty. Sorrow for the death of his amiable parents, who died in the same month, afforded him leisure to find his reason. He discovered that he had been acting a part beneath him, and he soon implanted on the good old stock those excellent acquirements which you see he possesses. In spite of his regeneration," continued the clergyman, casting a good-humored glance on the dove-colored suit of the viscount, "you perceive that first impressions will remain. He loves dress, but he loves justice and philanthropy better."

"This eulogy, sir," said Mary, "affords me real pleasure, may I know the name of the gentleman with whom I have the honor to converse?"

"My name is Blackmore," returned he.

"Dr. Blackmore?"

"The same."

He was the same Dr. Blackmore who had been struck by the appearance of the Count Sobieski at the Hummums, but had never learned his name, and who, being a rare visitor at Lady Dundas's, had never by chance met a second time with the object of his compa.s.sion.

"I am happy," resumed Miss Beaufort, "in having the good fortune to meet a clergyman of whom I have so frequently heard my guardian, Sir Robert Somerset, speak with the highest esteem."

"Ah!" replied he, "I have not seen him since the death of his lady; I hope that he and his son are well!"

"Both are perfectly so now," returned she, "and are together in the country!"

"You, madam, I suppose are my lady's niece, the daughter of the brave Admiral Beaufort?"

"I am, sir."

"Well, I rejoice at this incident," rejoined he, pressing her hand; "I knew your mother when she was a lovely girl. She used to spend her summers with the late Lady Somerset, at the castle. It was there I had the honor of cultivating her friendship."

"I do not remember ever having seen my mother," replied the now thoughtful Mary. Dr. Blackmore observing the expression of her countenance, smiled kindly, and said, "I fear I am to blame here.

This is a somewhat sad way of introducing myself. But your goodness must pardon me," continued he; "for I have so long accustomed myself to speak what I think to those in whom I see cause to esteem, that sometimes, as now, I undesignedly inflict pain."

"Not in this case," returned Miss Beaufort. "I am always pleased when listening to a friend of my mother, and particularly so when he speaks in her praise."

The breaking up of the card-tables prevented further conversation.

Lord Berrington again approached the sofa where Mary sat, exclaiming, as he perceived her companion, "Ah my good doctor; have you presented yourself at this fair shrine I declare you eccentric folk may dare anything. Whilst you are free, Miss Beaufort," added he turning to her, "adopt the advice which a good lady once gave me, and which I have implicitly followed: 'When you are young, get the character of an oddity, and it seats you in an easy chair for life.'"

Mary was interrupted in her reply by a general stir amongst the company, who, now the cards were over, like bees and wasps were swarming about the room, gathering honey or stinging as they went.

At once the house was cleared; and Miss Beaufort threw herself on the pillow, to think, and then to dream of Thaddeus.

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

THE GREAT AND THE SMALL OF SOCIETY.

If it be true what the vivid imaginations of poets have frequently a.s.serted, that when the soul dreams, it is in the actual presence of those beings whose images present themselves to their slumbers, then have the spirit, of Thaddeus and Mary been often commingled at the hour of midnight; then has the young Sobieski again visited his distant country, again seen it victorious, again knelt before his sainted parents.

From such visions as these did Thaddeus awake in the morning, after having spent the preceding evening with Lady Tinemouth.

He had walked with her ladyship in Hyde Park till a late hour. By the mild light of the moon, which shone brightly through the still, balmy air of a midsummer night, they took their way along the shadowy bank of the Serpentine.

There is a solemn appeal to the soul in the repose of nature that "makes itself be felt." No syllable from either Thaddeus or the countess for some time broke the universal silence. Thaddeus looked around on the clear expanse of water, over-shaded by the long reflection of the darkening trees; then raising his eyes to that beautiful planet which has excited tender thoughts in every feeling breast since the creation of the world, he drew a deep sigh. The countess echoed it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LADY TINEMOUTH.]

"In such a night as this," said Thaddeus, in a low voice, as if afraid to disturb the sleeping deity of the place, "I used to walk the ramparts of Villanow with my dear departed mother, and gaze on that lovely orb; and when I was far from her, I have looked at it from the door of my tent, and fancying that her eyes were then fixed on the same object as mine, I found happiness in the idea."

A tear stole down the cheek of Thaddeus. That moon yet shone brightly; but his mother's eyes were closed in the grave.

"Villanow!" repeated the countess, in a tone of tender surprise; "surely that was the seat of the celebrated Palatine of Masovia! You have discovered yourself, Constantine! I am much mistaken if you be not his grandson, the young, yet far-famed, Thaddeus Sobieski?"

Thaddeus had allowed the remembrances pressing on his mind to draw him into a speech which had disclosed to the quick apprehension of the countess what his still too sensitive pride would forever have concealed.

"I have indeed betrayed my secret," cried he, incapable of denying it; "but, dear lady Tinemouth, as you value my feelings, never let it escape your lips. Having long considered you as my best friend, and loved you as a parent, I forgot, in the recollection of my beloved mother, that I had withheld any of my history from you."

"Mysterious Providence!" exclaimed her ladyship, after a pause, in which ten thousand admiring and pitying reflections thronged on her mind: "is it possible? Can it be the Count Sobieski, that brave and ill.u.s.trious youth of whom every foreigner spoke with wonder? Can it be him that I behold in the unknown, unfriended Constantine?"

"Even so," returned Thaddeus, pressing her hand. "My country is no more. I am now forgotten by the world, as I have been by fortune. I have nothing to do on the earth but to fulfil the few duties which a filial friendship has enjoined, and then it will be a matter of indifference to me how soon I am laid in its bosom."

"You are too young, dear Constantine, (for I am still to call you by that name,) to despair of happiness being yet reserved for you."

"No, my dear Lady Tinemouth, I do not cheat myself with such hope; I am not so importunate with the gracious Being who gave me life and reason. He bestowed upon me for awhile the tenderest connections-- friends, rank, honors, glory. All these were crushed in the fall of Poland; yet I survive, I sought resignation only, and I have found it. It cost me many a struggle; but the contest was due to the decrees of that all-wise Creator who gave my first years to happiness."

"Inestimable young man!" cried the countess, wiping the flowing tears from her eyes; "you teach misfortune dignity! Not when all Warsaw rose in a body to thank you, not when the king received you in the senate with open arms, could you have appeared to me so worthy of admiration as at this moment, when, conscious of having been all this, you submit to the direct reverse, because you believe it to be the will of your Maker! Ah! little does Miss Beaufort think, when seated by your side, that she is conversing with the youthful hero whom she has so often wished to see!"