Chapter VI

And looking stedfastly at her, she sighed,
As if she pitied her for being there,
A pretty stranger without friend or guide,
And all abash’d, too, at the general stare.
BYRON.

“I have invited a few friends to dine with us,” said Castleton, some little time after the incidents of the last chapter. “I suppose you will wish Lady Gayland to be one.”

“O by all means,” readily answered Lucy. “I always feel so much more at my ease when she is by; not only she is always so kind to me; but wherever _she_ is, every one must be occupied with her, so that if I am awkward or not, no one has leisure to mark it.”

Castleton, whose dinners had always been “_recherché_,” as a batchelor, had hitherto felt nervous as to Lucy’s being able to pass the critical examination of a long London dinner, but at last having for some time not detected any glaring impropriety in her deportment, he became again desirous to collect his friends around him at his own table.

It has been remarked before, that neither politics nor any of the graver avocations of life had ever had much charm for Castleton. Society, which to men of more active pursuits is but a relaxation, was to him an occupation. It was the field in which must be maintained his position as a critic, connoisseur, and man of unrivalled taste. And where society is a _métier_, the man who gives dinners differs as much from one who does not, as the _ins_ from the _outs_ in politics,--one may earn some empty fame, but the other has the real following.

On the evening of Castleton’s first dinner, Lucy had finished her toilet early. Anxious to gratify her husband with a change, she had for the first time adopted a novelty in her costume--abandoning her usual ringlets, she had had her fine hair simply parted across her forehead, adopting this mode, though not so much in the fashion, in imitation of Lady Gayland, on whom she had often admired its effect.

Perhaps, generally speaking, it would be as safe to ape oddity of conversation without the wit which excites it, as to imitate any peculiarity in dress, which might only be becoming to its inventor. But in this instance, Lucy’s attempt was successful, for the same chaste classical setting which added elevation to the thought-thronged brow of her gifted prototype, suited admirably the simplicity of her own pure and innocent countenance.

Lucy’s first glance at the mirror as she entered the drawing-room, convinced her that the effect was favourable, and she waited with the impatience of agreeable expectation for Castleton’s opinion, which she had no doubt he would express at once upon seeing her. It was, therefore, a matter of disappointment to her, that when he entered, it was in one of those absent and pre-occupied moods in which a man looks at all things without seeing any.

Many little harmless artifices did poor Lucy play off to endeavour to attract his attention before any of the company should arrive, and thus prevent his expressing that approbation which she hoped she had earned. She could not help thinking that the more she looked at him, the more he must look at her, and therefore with a gaze that seemed to require reciprocity, kept her eyes fixed on him, through all his fidgetty and evidently uneasy movements.

The cause of this strange deportment on his part, arose from a note he had found, upon his return home, from Sir North Saunders, containing an acceptance of a verbal invitation he had given him somewhat late to dine with him that day.

The party which he had invited was not a large one, though somewhat mixed. The only ladies were Lady Gayland and Mrs. Tudor. He had carefully avoided any practised scoffers, lest a _manque des convenances_, on Lucy’s part, should unhappily furnish them with a ready subject for ridicule on the morrow. But the sight of Sir North addressing Lucy, without the slightest suspicion, as a person he had never seen before, always gave him comfort, as reassuring him as to the impossibility of her ever being recognized as having been connected with the trial at ----. He had, therefore, on meeting Sir North, pressed him to dine with him, and on Sir North regretting that his having asked a friend himself, rendered it impossible, Castleton had rather imprudently extended the invitation to the said friend, to which Sir North demurred at the time, but had since wrote to say--“Proud to present to your more special notice--rising young man--particular friend,--Peter Spencer.”

Now not only did Castleton, from all he had heard, as well as the little he had seen of Peter Spencer, dislike him particularly, but he was also aware, that if ever the identity of Lady Castleton with the Lucy Darnell of the assizes was to be detected, it was most likely to be effected by the prying Peter Spencer, who was also one of the very few people who could recollect her in the former situation. He had, therefore, as much as he could, avoided that individual, which, as Spencer now affected professional practice, and therefore made but rare apparitions in general society, was not difficult. The prospect of having brought upon himself such an intrusion into his own house, was therefore not agreeable, and he was still puzzling himself whether he could with advantage caution Lucy particularly, as to her deportment towards that person, when the opportunity was lost by the first knock at the door, which sound roused him from his abstraction. He looked at Lucy for the first time attentively, and kissed her kindly, saying, “How very much that becomes you! You look so very well, and yet so unlike your usual self, that I should think some might find it difficult to know you again.”

The door opened as he said this, thoroughly expected to see shut in the pompous little person of Peter Spencer; but it was only a punctual artist, a _protégé_ of Castleton’s, who was much struck with the appearance of his patron’s bride, and enchanted with the idea of so fine a subject as a sitter.

The long twilight of a London summer evening had almost ceased to struggle against the artificial darkness of the drawing-room; the company had collected, and the shades of night had gathered round them, before Sir North and Peter Spencer arrived, and attempted to guess their way through an obscure mass of friends and _fauteuils_ to make their obeisance in the direction which Castleton’s voice marked as that where was seated their indistinguishable hostess.

When dinner was announced, and Castleton and Lady Gayland of course headed the downward procession, there ensued a pause in those who were to follow, either arising from the darkness or doubtful precedence, or the want of some one to marshall the order of march: a point in which, of course Lucy was profoundly ignorant.

“How absurd!” said Lady Gayland, “the minute point to which this mummery is studied in England. Men will sometimes draw back in horror from an almost offered arm, and avoid the propinquity which can alone make the party agreeable to him, for fear it should be supposed that he had forgotten that his ancestors only fought at Agincourt, whilst there was another man in the room whose name was connected with Cressy. In that land, where social liberty has survived political restraint, where we have so often met, it is the most recent preference, not the most ancient patent, which places people.”

“I, at least, have no right to complain,” said Castleton, “who have obtained by one system what I should have sought by the other.”

“Meaning me: of course you could not help saying as much, considering how easily such things are said.”

“Mr. Spencer, will you sit next to Lady Gayland?” said Castleton to him, catching him _en passant_, anxious to fix him at a distance from Lucy.

“O no!” said Lady Gayland, “Mr. Mastic, I won’t hear of your deserting me. Mr. Mastic here, is very anxious to study my profile, which Lord Castleton has promised to give him an opportunity of doing by being very agreeable on the other side; so Mr. Spencer, that your presence is impossible--I am in despair;”--and Peter Spencer proceeded upwards, where he found a vacant chair at the other side, within two of Lucy--the party, it was stated, not being a very large one, and the table circular.

“What had I done to deserve that?” asked Lady Gayland; “if you had provided yourself with a silent pendant, _come questo_,” in a lower tone, and glancing at Mr. Mastic, “I might have believed your previous pretty speech; but to fix upon me so active a bore, you must have determined to devote yourself entirely to Mrs. Tudor.”

Castleton could not give his real reason, and therefore merely said, “I always thought Spencer had been rather protected by you.”

“Protected! never; sometimes attacked, but there is no luxury one wears out so soon, as one’s butt. Like a glove, it ought never to be used twice, it becomes so easy.”

Peter Spencer, in the mean time, from his new position, had every opportunity of observing the fair hostess. The first impression was rendered more striking, from the blaze of light by which she was now surrounded, so immediately succeeding the obscurity out of which they had groped their way. He had not even seen her at a distance among the crowd at Lady Delacour’s ball; the only place to which he had been since she came to town. At first view he merely retained some indistinct recollection of its being a face he had somewhere before seen; and it was only when she spoke that a confused idea of the truth broke upon him. She was sitting next Lord Stayinmore, who, to those who did not know him, and could not venture to treat him as Lady Gayland did, was rather a formidable person. In answering his pompous questions, Lucy got rather nervous, and there was something in the tone of her reply, which recalled to Spencer’s mind the young girl at the Assize town, under the examination of his senior, old Mr. Bailey.

Turning to his next neighbour, he addressed him, with

“I can _e_-spy a most extra-_or_dinary res-_em_-blance in our f-_a_cin-_a_ting hostess to an unf_or_tunate fe-_e_male imp_li_cated in a nef-_a_rious tr_an_saction in the course of my prof-_es_s-_io_nal career.”

“Hum,” said his neighbour, whom the communication did not all interest.

Finding no encouragement in this quarter, with the strange coincidence running in his head, though, as yet, without suspecting the identity, he vociferated to Sir North, who sat just opposite to him.

“Sir North, was not Lord Castleton in c_o_u_r_t at that most extra-_or_dinary trial of a case, whose loc-_a_lity was in the neighbourhood of H-_or_nscliff A-bb-_e_y?”

Castleton, even in the midst of one of Lady Gayland’s most brilliant sallies, caught the drawling intonation of Spencer making this _mal-apropos_ inquiry; and before Sir North could even finish his reply, “that he was himself not in court,” he had interposed with, “Mr. Spencer, a glass of wine--champagne?” But this only procured a respite, through the assent, the order, its execution, the bow, and the swallow, which completed the social libation. Peter Spencer then continued, and Castleton could catch just enough of what followed to make him uneasy, without enabling him to ascertain the moment when he could interpose, and yet not bring about the very discovery he wished to avoid.

Who has not sometimes suffered under that worst of conversational penances, the feeling obliged to appear to listen to your next neighbour, when you cannot help catching from a distance disjointed words of some topic your peculiar favourite, on which you are most anxious either to listen or amuse. But Castleton’s position was even worse than this; for it was Lady Gayland, in her most winning mood, who was his next neighbour, and it was her he was obliged to neglect, in attempting to catch indistinctly the most unwelcome tones of Mr. Spencer’s disagreeable voice.

“But, Sir North, though s-_a_tisf_a_ctory proof could not be then el-_i_c_i_ted, I _o_-pine we shall have the h-_a_nging y_e_t of that f_e_llow. D_a_rnell was his name; I have no doubt he made away with the _u_-nkn-_o_wn. A blood-thirsty cut-throat from his birth.”

“O no, that he was not!” exclaimed Lucy vehemently, “he was the kindest boy that ever breathed, and I have no doubt he will still live to do honour to those who are kind to him.”

“Your ladyship, then, was personally acquainted with him?” inquired Spencer.

“No, not I--Lord Castleton. Yes--why should I deny it? No! how should I know? I was only joking--Ha! ha! ha! O dear, I’m very ill,” cried she, again relapsing into a sort of hysterical laugh.

Her nerves being very much excited by her attempt to suppress any appearance of interest in the conversation she had overheard; and then having been incautiously betrayed into an imprudent speech, by her desire to defend George from so harsh a sentence, she at last got completely bewildered between her innate desire to speak the truth when asked, and her horror at having unintentionally committed herself, in a manner which she knew would, of all others, be most displeasing to her husband.

Castleton, to whose painfully excited attention all this last scene had been but too audible, was hardly withheld, even by the imminent danger of an _esclandre_, which such a proceeding might entail, from starting up, and, under the plea of illness, which Lucy’s own expression had rendered plausible, inducing her at once to retire. Yet he was afraid that sufficient clue had already been given to the pettifogging intellect of Peter Spencer to enable him to connect that sudden illness, which would of course become the subject of conversation, with his own acute suspicion. Whilst Castleton was still hesitating, Lucy not yet attempting to recover herself,--general attention concentrating upon her, and wonderment spreading, as to the cause of her strange state,--Lady Gayland stretched her beautiful arm towards one of those tall, rickety, pagoda-like bonbonnieres, which were here, as elsewhere, dotted about the circle of the table at certain intervals, and lightly touching it with her finger, the top-heavy machine tipped over with exactly the impetus she intended, and both its circular and globular contents rolled far and near, and scattered themselves all over the table, and from the direction in which they were slily propelled, they particularly abounded in the neighbourhood of Peter Spencer.

“If that had been done on purpose, the mischief could not have been more complete. Lord Castleton can you pardon my awkwardness?” said Lady Gayland, who had watched the progress of Lucy’s dilemma, knew much more of its origin than any of the principal parties believed, and had on the spur of the moment devised this expedient to divert attention, and relieve Lucy’s difficulties.

“Good comes of evil though,” said she; “I am rewarded for my clumsiness by a full view of Mr. Spencer, who was hitherto under an eclipse to me, and now does he not rise upon me in all his grandeur! Since Marius, in the ruins of Carthage, there never was anything so stern or sublime, as he looks amongst the _debris_ of scattered sugar-plums, and broken _bon-bons_.”

That is a happy expression of the French _saisir la ridicule_. But no one knew so well as she did exactly the moment to bring into play that faculty which must be innate, for no art can teach _saisir la ridicule_.

She had, in this instance, both a motive for exertion and an object on which to exercise it, and she certainly did not spare Peter Spencer. The consequence of which was, that not only Lucy had time to recover herself, but that her previous confusion was forgotten by the company in the impression of the amusement furnished by Lady Gayland; and even Spencer himself departed with, to the full, as distinct an idea that he had made himself ridiculous, as that he had made Lady Castleton uncomfortable.