Algernon Graham, Earl of Kingsbury

Front matter

ALGERNON GRAHAM EARL OF KINGSBURY {NOT PUBLISHED) |1rinkb fw SPOTTISWOODE & CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE, LONDON TO REGINALD CHARLES EDWARD LORD COLCHESTER. My dearest Reginald, I think it may amuse you to read the following Story. It was written more than thirty years ago ; but as I never had time or patience to copy out the original manuscript, and felt it would be too severe a tax upon you, or any of my friends, to ask them to read it in that form, I have now had a few copies printed, and trust it may interest you in an idle hour, as the work of Your very affectionate Mother, ELIZABETH S. COLCHESTER. J EARL OF KINGSBURY.

Chapter I

In one of the northern counties of England, on a sultry afternoon in the month of August, a dark green britscha with dark bay horses stood before the porch of the venerable abbey of Minsted Friars. The glowing rays of the western sun rested on the rich Gothic tracery of its oriel windows, now brought out into strong relief by the vivid colours of the stained glass, which glittered like precious stones between each separate compartment of the fine and laborious carving, while its warm and crimson hue lighted up and enlivened the masses of clustering ivy, which climbed up to the summit of its time-wom towers, here and there half concealing the various pointed gables which adorned the facade of this aged and irregular edifice. High above their roofs gleamed many a golden vane, sparkling against the azure sky, and towering above the summits of thickly wooded hills, which rose immediately behind the abbey and formed a background of varied tints, B which greatly increased the picturesque effect of this ancient pile.

The parterre, divided into formal compartments, was composed of three stars, from the centres of which the variegated borders radiated to the outer circles, glittering with every hue of the rainbow, from the bright yellow of the Escholzia to the rich scarlet of the Verbena and the more delicate azure of the Nemophila insignis. The antiquated sun-dial, which stood raised on steps in the centre, and the well-rolled terrace which surrounded the flower-garden, corresponded with the styde and date of the building. The borders were trimmed with the utmost neat ness, the turf evenly and carefully mown ; not a leaf strayed on to the smooth and well-swept terrace : everything in short conveyed to the mind the idea of order and the vigilant eye of an experienced master. Even to the equipage which stood before the door, the handsome dark bay horses, the neat and brightly polished brass harness, all was perfect in its way, all seemed to bespeak the quiet and refined taste of the owner, which, whilst plenty smiled around, seemed rather to consist in the enjoyment of tranquil com fort, than in the display of ostentatious luxury.

Who would have thought that the owner of this enviable abode, the vigilant master of this well ordered domain was a youth of five-and-twenty ? Tet such was the case ; and there he was standing beneath the porch, waiting till the cares of the toilet allowed Frederick Marchmont to make his appearance and accompany his host to the house of his neighbour Mr. Langton, who resided about seven miles from Minsted Friars. At length the important business was concluded, and as young Marchmont sprung into the britscha with his friend, his hand some features, glossy curls, and graceful figure did credit to the pains bestowed on their adornment. ' A thousand pardons, Ilminster,' he cried to the young lord who seated himself by his side ; ' I am afraid you have been waiting for me, but these country squires dine so confoundedly early.

Gracious heavens ! we shall be covered with dust before we get half way to the dwelling of these Goths ! What on earth could induce you to order the britscha ? ' ' Why, the day is so heavenly,' replied Lord Ilminster, ' I thought we should enjoy the fresh air. We can put up the apron, and if the night should prove chilly, our cloaks may be put in requi sition.' ' Why, to be sure, it would be a sin to be boxed up in a chariot at this hour, since the natives cannot be induced to feed at a more rational time of day. Well, Ilminster, you are really a pattern of a country gentleman to submit to this sort of penance ; but do give me a notion of the kind of animals we are likely to encounter ; are they of the loquacious or the taciturn genus ? do they eat with their fingers or forks '? ' ' I am afraid,' answered his friend, ' that I cannot promise you much amusement amongst those we are likely to meet at Mr. Langton's to-day ; but he is a very worthy man, and one must keep on good terms with one's neighbours.

With regard to his guests, B as you know I have only returned to this neighbour hood within the last week, after an absence of four years, many new personages may have sprung up since then, with whom I am not acquainted ; but of the old set, we shall probably have the Oldfields, father, mother, and daughter, the greatest contrasts to each other that can well be imagined : the father an honest, dull, silent man, the mother dressed in glaring colours and talking incessantly, and the daughter a lady of no particular age, attired in a gaudy but probably tarnished robe, with a countenance expressive of that repulsive severity, which leaves it doubtful whether her state of single blessed ness be quite entirely the result of her own maidenly choice.' ' Well, Ilminster, I declare even you are growing satirical.

This does not sound very attractive ; what else can you promise me ? ' ' Mr. Turnbull perhaps, a young squire chiefly dis tinguished by his violent opposition to the poor laws, with his silent wife. Old Mr. Dewster, the clergyman, and his wife, by far the best society in the neigh bourhood, and a young niece who will assure you that she has two more notes in her voice than Grisi, and that having once heard her at the Music Meet ing at Birmingham she has succeeded in catching her style and pronunciation to perfection. I fear that both her voice and dress (if not improved since I last saw her) may incur the severity of your criticism, as even I, wh© was not such an adept as yourself in these matters, must confess I should have been better pleased if she would have sung less and dressed in better taste.' ' And now I think, I am au bout de mon Latin.' ' Algernon Graham has been staying with his father at Graham Castle for two or three months, but as I passed him on the road last week, going into town the morning I left it, I conclude he has not yet returned.' ' But tell me, by the by,' said Marchmont, ' have we no chance of seeing this paragon of perfection, this beauteous Helen, who has waved so effectually her magic wand over the devoted head of poor Algernon Graham ? ' ' Indeed,' replied Lord Hminster, ' I should not be very much surprised if we were to meet Mrs. Griffith and her daughter, for I hear that since the poor old man's death the neighbourhood have been very kind to them, and partly out of respect to his memory, and partly perhaps owing to Graham's unfortunate partiality for the daughter, they have been received on a footing which was not the case formerly.

In deed, I can recollect the first day when my father, who had a high respect for old Griffith, asked him to dinner, that some of the neighbouring squires were not quite pleased at meeting the village doctor, and when I left England my poor mother was the only lady in the neighbourhood who had left her card with Mrs. Griffith, but she felt so grateful to the old doctor for his devoted attention to my poor little sister, who died as you may perhaps recollect of a typhus fever, that she was anxious by every means in her power to prove to him her gratitude for his conduct. As for poor Julia, she was then a child of thirteen, and as I have been abroad these four years I have scarcely seen her since, but the interest I feel for her family makes me heartily sorry for this foolish attachment of Algernon's. He is so blinded by his present feelings that he is deaf to reason, and cannot be made to open his eyes to the misery he is in all probability preparing for himself and the unfortunate object of his affections.' ' But the girl must be a fool to suppose Algernon will marry her,' replied Marchmont. ' This little flirtation is a very good resource for whiling away a few idle weeks in the country ; but I suppose by the first of November, if not sooner, he will find that even languishing black eyes cannot interest one for ever, and then like other faithless swains he'll love and he'll ride away7, leaving his fair lady drowned in tears and wringing her hands, with dishevelled locks — but we all know these heroines never die of love.' ' I wish, Marchmont, I could look upon this affair in as trivial a light as you do.

But from all I know of Algernon Graham, and from all I hear of poor Julia, I much fear that neither are likely to abandon hope, though the strenuous and very natural opposition of his father renders the fulfilment of their wishes at present a doubtful event.' ' Why, good heavens, Ilminster, you do not really inivig-ine that Algernon with his expectations — heir to his father's large property, and heir presumptive to an earldom into the bargain — will sacrifice himself for life to a temporary passion for the pretty daughter of a village apothecary. He is not a boy, Ilminster, he is at least five years older than yourself; he has been attache already at half the courts of Europe, and depend upon it he knows the world too well by this time to make such a fool of himself. But since this fair Chloe seems quite as devoted as her Strephon I conclude she will not make him sigh long in vain.' ' Marchmont,' interrupted Ilminster, in a tone that betrayed at once indignation and displeasure, ' 1 have known Algernon Graham from my earliest childhood, and though some years his junior we have always lived together in the strictest intimacy.

The circumstances of my life have in some degree tended perhaps to make me older than my years. The sudden illness and early death of an only sister to whom I was devotedly attached, too soon, alas ! followed by the loss of a beloved father and mother, have long left me alone in the world, and but for the unceasing kindness and friendship of Algernon my health would probably have sunk beneath the trials to which it has been exposed. The last two years we have passed entirely together, partly at Vienna, where he was attache to the Embassy, and partly in visiting Italy and Greece, from whence we returned together in the spring. Since then he has been chiefly staying at Graham Castle, and as I have been detained in town by Parliament we have scarcely met since our return to England ; but you see that I have had the fullest opportunity of form ing a judgment of his character, and however the nobler qualities of his heart and mind may be occasionally obscured by a want of that firmness, which leads a man despite of every temptation, to follow unhesitatingly the dictates of conscience, yet he is incapable, even in the wildest heights of passion, of harbouring in his breast even for a moment, a dishonourable thought.

The very weakness I lament arises from the romantic generosity of his nature. He can never bear to wound the feelings of another, and is always ready to sacrifice himself for his friends, whilst the warmth of his feelings is perpetually in volving him in perplexities, from which it is almost impossible to extricate himself to the satisfaction of all parties, and this character, alas ! which is amiable even to weakness, will I fear cause lasting misery to himself, as well as to those whose happiness he most wishes to promote.' ' In short, he is a thorough Don Quixote by your account of him,' said Marchmont. ' And pray what is the Duenna like, for as she was the daughter, I think I have heard you say, of the Spanish Vice-Consul at Marseilles, I suppose she has a touch of her nation about her.' 1 If you mean poor Mrs. Griffith, she is a quiet, in offensive, and very respectable woman, whose chief characteristics are, or at least used to be, her devo tion to her daughter, and her reverence for the memory of her departed husband.' ' Well, I am dying to see our Celadon and his Amelia,' rejoined Marchmont with a sarcastic smile, ' and I cordially hope we shall meet them to-day.' Ilminster now changed the subject by calling upon his companion to admire the view which burst upon them from the summit of the hill they had been for some time ascending.

But scenery even of the most romantic description had little charms for Marchmont. ' Capital covers these,' he exclaimed. ' Thank goodness we are near the first of September. As long as I live, Ilminster, you shall never tempt me again from the Highlands during this weary7 month of August.' His companion did not feel highly flattered at the complimentary insinuation contained in this last remark of Marchmont's, nor was he better pleased at the general tone of his feelings and conversation ; but the reflections to which they gave birth only confirmed his previous conviction, that in spite of the accidental and temporary intimacy occasioned by present circumstances, they were totally unsuited by the dissimilarity of all their tastes and opinions, for the more lasting intercourse and closer ties of friendship.

It was not long, however, before these silent medi tations were interrupted by the termination of the drive, and the arrival of our guests at the door of their host Mr. Langton. As Lord Ilminster and Marchmont entered the room, they were met at the door by Mr. Langton and his portly lady7, a roundabout bustling body, whose ruby complexion and shining forehead excited a suspicion that in her anxiety to do honour to her guests the culinary pre parations had not been wholly left to the care of her maidens, but that they had benefited by the super intendence of an experienced and diligent mistress, whose ample proportions defied alike in the pursuit of her avocations, the melting rays of the noonday sun and the yet more dissolving properties of a kitchen fire ; and, indeed, when she shortly after wards seated herself at the head of her table, with a magnificent piece de resistance before her, could her guests have known the degree of heat to which she had that morning exposed herself in their service, they would doubtless have looked upon her as a most satisfactory proof, of the capacity of living bodies to resist an intensity of power in the fiery elements, which soon reduces the already slaughtered victims of the turnspit, to the metamorphosed condition of the ponderous joint, which her indefatigable energies had now undertaken to carve.

But however impa tient our hostess may have been to do the honours of her table, and however the calls of hunger may have disturbed or stimulated the less sentimental part of the company who composed that dinner party, I must detain my readers a few moments, to inform them that Lord Ilminster had scarcely glanced his eye round the room, before he ascertained that his prophecies as to the guests he should meet had been perfectly accurate, and that with one exception alone, all the persons he had named to his friend were now collected together. He immediately with his usual courtesy, renewed his acquaintance with all the party assembled, and received their congratulations on his return, but when amongst the rest Mrs. Griffith accosted him, and presented to him her daughter as an old acquaintance, he was indeed struck with the change, which the lapse of four years had produced in the pretty little Julia of former days.

By this time, Marchmont's wandering eyes had found an object on which to rest, and which so com pletely riveted his attention, that it was with difficulty he could submit to the innumerable introduc tions inflicted upon him by Mrs. Langton, but his active hostess would not rest, till her visitor had duly bowed in turn to the bright pea-green satin of Mrs. Oldfield, the unassuming scratch-wig of her passive husband, and the starch buckram figure in bright yellow, which stood beside them, and was announced as Miss Oldfield, to the averted gaze of the impatient guest. Mr. Turnbull, and the Rev. Mr. Dewster, Mrs. Dewster, and their niece Miss Letitia Linnet, were all severally destined to claim his notice before he was at length allowed to rest from his labours, and have his curiosity gratified by an introduction to Mrs. Griffith and her daughter Julia, whose singu larly beautiful form and face had so rapidly fixed his admiring gaze.

But his curiosity7, alas ! was the only feeling destined to be gratified by the object of his admiration, for in spite of all his efforts to ' win her favour or to wake her smiles ' she appeared most provokingly indifferent to all his attractions, scarcely conscious of any of the fine compliments he was pleased to bestow on her; and from time to time, as any7 distant sound caught her ear, turning her anxious gaze towards the door of the apartment, and watching with evident and almost breathless impatience for the arrival of some addition to the party assembled. Unused to meet with so disen couraginga reception, Marchmont at length retreated to the opposite side of the room, from whence he could at least indulge his own eyes by gazing on such transcendent beauty without betraying to others the mortifying conviction, that the impression it had produced on his feelings was by no means reciprocal.

And now, as he marked her raven locks parted over a forehead of purest white, the classical toumure of her head and throat, those snowy shoulders, and that delicately rounded bust, he felt that if the country were indeed peopled with beings such as the lovely vision now before him, even he could willingly resign the attractions of his former existence to court the rural shades, and unhesitatingly exchange the pale wan beauties of Almack's for this Hebe of the desert, this combination of all the various charms which the beauties of southern climates can add to the match less brilliancy of complexion peculiar to Britain's fairest daughters. But it was not long before Marchmont's silent rhapsody was destined to meet with interruptions of a nature always unpleasing to a vain man. A loud ring at the door bell had power to call up the deepest tint of carnation into the lovely cheek on which he gazed, and as the sound of ap proaching footsteps gained the ear of the beauteous listener, her colour came and went, the delicate hand that rested on the arm of her chair trembled, and as the door opened for the entrance of the visitor, her averted head and downcast eye betrayed even more sensibly than every other symptom to the experienced eye of one accustomed to penetrate the hidden mysteries of a female heart, the profound emotion which pervaded her whole frame at the name of Algernon Graham, and the absolute mastery with which he reigned over every feeling of her heart.

A sensation scarcely intelligible to himself, a sensation compounded of jealousy, anger, and something like envy of Algernon, took possession of Marohmont, but he was too much a man of the world to betray his feelings to the observation of others. In a moment he had resumed his ready smile, and met Algernon's shake of the hand with all the cor diality of an old acquaintance. Lord Ilminster sprang forward to greet his friend, and Algernon met him with equal warmth ; but the first salutations over, he became evidently embar rassed, and it was clear to Ilminster that the con straint of his friend was occasioned by his own un expected appearance in that circle. For a time he attempted to conceal his perplexity, and made an effort to attend to Lord Hminster's questions, but ere long, his answers became so confused, and his manner so distrait, that his friend soon released him from any further interrogatories ; but it was not without deep regret, that he observed him silently glide towards the recess in the window, where stood the beautiful and conscious Julia, and where in a few moments, deeply engaged in earnest conversation, Algernon had no eyes, no ears, no thoughts for anyone but herself; and when at length dinner was announced he seemed to be enabled by the tacit consent of the whole party to seat himself by her side, and devote his undivided attention to her throughout the whole of the repast.

Lord Hminster's rank inflicted on him the post of honour by the side of his hostess, where, with his usual courtesy and good humour, he endeavoured to lead the conversation to such subjects as best suited the tastes and capacities of the party assembled, and succeeded in giving general satisfac tion to all. Marchmont's claim as younger son of a peer, would have entitled him to figure on the other side as a supporter of the hostess, but his instinctive dread of a fat woman, made him shrink like a sensitive plant from the distinction she would fain have pressed upon him, and her strict notions of etiquette were much disturbed at seeing him take refuge between Mrs. Turnbull and Miss Oldfield, near the other end of the table — a position he selected partly to save himself the mortification of feeling totally neglected by the only object whose vicinity could have afforded him the slightest satisfaction.

The starch and forbidding expression of Miss Oldfield's rigid and angular features afforded so little promise of conversational intercourse, that Marchmont turned in despair to his neighbour on the left, and however indifferent he might be to the charms of scenery himself, for want of a better topic hazarded some commonplace remarks on the beauty of the scenery through which he had passed. ' I dare say,' replied Mrs. Turnbull, ' a stranger may admire it, but I see it every7 day, so I never think about it.' He then mentioned some of the most popular novels of the day. ' Oh, sir, I never read,' said the lady. ' Perhaps you are fond of a garden then,' added Marchmont, half fatigued with his unsuccessful en deavours to rouse his apathetic neighbour into some thing like conversation. ' No, I cannot say I care about flowers.' ' What on earth do you care for ? ' was on March mont's lips, but he with difficulty suppressed the question.

A glance at her better half, the long lanky red-haired youth who sate opposite to them, did not seem to solve the doubt. He was more actively than gracefully engaged, in swallowing with astonishing rapidity gigantic masses of boiled beef, which had the power of checking for the time his tide of eloquence ; but it did not appear quite fair to his audience when at last he recovered the use of his speech, that one who had done so much towards creating a famine in the land, should begin to inveigh so bitterly against the danger of starvation, to which the poor were exposed under the new syrtem which he described as oppressive and cruel to the last degree. But as Mr. Turnbull, though loud and lengthy in declamation, was neither gifted with eloquence of language nor originality of ideas, his audience, who had to all appearance not unfrequently writhed under similar inflictions, were not anxious by the stimulus of contradiction, to encourage the oratorical propensities of this rural politician.

Mr. Turnbull, however, was not easily to be silenced. Finding all his efforts fruitless, to encourage the gentlemen of the party in his favourite subject of discussion, he resolved by a dexterous policy to enlist the sympathy7 of the ladies at least on his side, by enlarging upon the cruelty of separating the husbands from their wives in the workhouses. ' Oh, how shocking ! ' exclaimed Mrs. Oldfield. "Mrs. Tunbull shook her head. ' Abominable ! ' cried Mrs. Langton from behind the boiled beef, which in spite of Mr. Turnbull's inroads was still vast enough to conceal all but the uplifted eyebrows of the hostess from the lower end of the table. Miss Letitia Linnet joined in the chorus with pathetic enquiry if such separations ever took place before the expiration of the honeymoon, at which Miss Oldfield's habitual frown grew darker and darker ALG ERNON GRAIIAM, still, whilst she muttered something scarcely audible about ' forward misses ' and ' a gross breach of decorum.' But I fear my readers must by this time begin to share Marchmont's impatience, and I will therefore hasten to release both them and him, from their present position as unwilling detenus at Mrs. Langton's table.

Suffice it to say, that when the ladies retired, the only subjects of discussion in the drawing-room were vaccination, and the precise age at which the children of every mother present, had cut its first tooth. Even Mrs. Turnbull here chimed in, for she had four babies, and each baby had cut its teeth unusually early. But now it was Julia's turn to be silent, and even Miss Letitia Linnet's imitations of Grisi fell powerless on her ear. At the entrance of the gentlemen, Algernon resumed his post by her side, and retained it till Lord Hminster's carriage was announced, and he and his companion took their departure. On the way home Marchmont vented his ill humour in a sweeping abuse of the whole party7, and railed at Algernon's folly for making so public a display of his passion for Julia. Lord Ilminster said but little, but his observations that evening, had created the deepest anxiety in his mind for the future happiness of Algernon, and convinced him that not a moment was to be lost, if indeed it were yet time, to rouse his friend from his present state of delusion, and urge him to sacrifice his romantic attachment, to a sense of all that duty to his father, to Julia, and himself required of him.

Chapter II

Lord Ilminster passed a sleepless night, revolving in his mind a thousand different schemes, by7 which to save his friend from the imminent peril to which he saw him exposed. Young as he was, Lord Hminster had more than once felt, but had always triumphed over the seductions of passion. The firmness of his principles, grounded on a truly Christian education, had taught him to look on human nature and the temptations with which it is assailed, in a very different manner from the light, in which they are viewed by the generality of the world. The duty which he now imposed upon himself was a painful one, but once convinced of its necessity, he fearlessly7 resolved to follow the dictates of conscience. He was never hasty in decision, he weighed well the consequences of the line of conduct he was about to pursue, but as soon as he felt satisfied that such a step was the right one, he felt no longer timid or irresolute, but acted at once with energy and self-possession.

Accordingly he had now determined to write with out delay to Algernon, and with the earnest zeal which their early intimacy had warranted, to point out to him and warn him against the fatal abyss into which he was about to fall. He reminded him of all his father Colonel Graham's deep-rooted prejudices c in favour of ancient family and high descent, of his own expectations as heir presumptive to an earldom, of the hopelessness of his ever gaining his father's consent to a marriage with a girl of obscure birth, however virtuous, or richly endowed by nature. He added that he well knew how vainly he might talk of prudence or the possibility of a change of sentiment to one, who was at present the slave of passion, and he admitted that the beauty and amiability of the object of his attachment, rendered the strict path of duty the more difficult for Algernon to pursue; but he contended that those very charms, that very amiability and tenderness of disposition which now enthralled him, were or ought to be, so many claims on his generosity not to trifle with the happiness of one, evidently devoted to him, but one to whom his most ardent attachment could only bring misery in return for the purest affections of her heart. ' Do not mistake me, Algernon,' he added in con clusion. ' I know you to be as incapable of deliberate unkiudness as of a dishonourable action, but believe me the very force of passion blinds men to its selfishness — nay, more, to its cruelty.

They feel how painful it is to themselves to resist its influence : they have not the courage, as they term it, to expose the object of their affections to the same struggle. But what is the alternative to which their weakness leads ? They cruelly undermine the happiness of an innocent being, whose ignoiauce of the world, and of the very nature of her own feelings but renders her too easy a dupe, by raising hopes which it never will be in their power to fulfil. For I beseech you, Algernon, to remember that any change in your father's determination is the vainest of all hopes ; that he is comparatively yet a young man ; that it will probably be many years before you are your own master, and that were you for a moment to harbour the idea of a -marriage of this nature against his consent, a heart like yours would sink beneath the misery such conduct would entail upon yourself, upon your kind indulgent father, and above all upon the unhappy cause of this rebellion against parental authority, this total disregard of your position in society, and of the opinion of the world at large.' In short, Lord Ilminster left no argument untried to rouse his friend to a sense of duty, and to point out the absolute necessity of flying from the presence of one, whose attractions he had not the power to resist.