CHAPTER VII.

The smile that on thy lips erewhile So kindly wont to play-- That could each idle care beguile Of Love's first golden day,-- Now, when lone Fancy rules the hour, At evening's lingering close, Comes o'er my soul with mightier power, To soothe my real woes.

_Unpublished Poems._

Lord and Lady Falkingham were seated, one on each side of the fireplace, awaiting the result of the conference which was taking place in the apartment within. They had been pathetically lamenting the folly with which Blanche was resolved to throw away the most desirable establishment in the world; and they had been indulging in unpleasant anticipations of what the world would say when it was known that a daughter of theirs was an avowed jilt. The door of the breakfast-room opened, and Blanche entered: Lord Glenrith followed close behind. Lady Falkingham perceived, at a glance, that the unacknowledged hope, which she had still cherished, of Lord Glenrith's eloquence prevailing at the last, was doomed to annihilation!

During their absence the tea had been brought in, and the urn was smoking and boiling upon the table. Lady Blanche sat down before it, and rejoiced in her mother's old-fashioned fancy for having the tea made in the drawing-room.

Lady Falkingham and her daughter took the earliest opportunity of retiring for the night. Lord Glenrith lighted their candles, and opened the door for them. As they passed, Lady Falkingham pressed his hand with an expressive look of sorrow and of regret. Lady Blanche held out hers, and uttered in a low voice,--"We part friends!" He took her hand, and turned away.

When the door was closed, Lord Falkingham addressed him:--

"I am afraid, Glenrith, you have had a very unpleasant conversation with my daughter. I need not tell you how much my wife and myself regret the foolish fancy the girl has taken into her head. But what can we do? We cannot, in justice to you, urge her to fulfil her engagement."

"I should be the last man to wish Lady Blanche's affections to be controlled; and I hope I know sufficiently what is due to myself, not to wish any woman to be forced into a marriage with me."

After a few more words of regret and kindness on the part of Lord Falkingham, they also parted for the night.

The next morning all the jewels and trinkets which he had presented to Blanche were restored to him, and before the family were assembled round the breakfast-table he was several miles on his road to Wentnor Castle.

Lord Glenrith felt his disappointment keenly, for he loved Blanche. He felt his mortification keenly; for although not vain (if by vanity we understand a desire to show off in the eyes of others), still he entertained no mean opinion of himself. He had never in his life before met with anything but success. He had been accustomed to the admiring affection of his parents, the devotion of his dependants, the good-fellowship of his equals, the attention of his inferiors; and he had been early warned by his mother to be guarded in his manner towards young ladies, lest he should excite hopes which he could not realise--hopes which he found them, generally speaking, only too ready to entertain. Astonishment, therefore, almost equalled the other emotions to which we have alluded. He turned and turned in his head how he should break to his parents the result of the preceding evening's conversation, and he felt that he equally dreaded their pity, and their indignation.

By degrees, as he got farther from Temple Loseley and nearer to Wentnor Castle, he found his love and his grief diminish, and his mortification and disappointment increase, till, by the time he reached the lodge, he thought he could have endured the latter, provided the publicity of his engagement had not exposed him, while writhing under the former, to the pity, the stare, and the jest, of great and small, rich and poor, old and young.

Blanche's first sensation, upon retiring to her room, was that of relief and freedom. She felt as though a weight of guilt and deceit was removed from her bosom, and she resolved she would now indulge herself in thinking of De Molton as much as she pleased. But the mortified expression of Lord Glenrith's countenance would rise up to her mind's eye; and she found herself more occupied with him, and less with the image of De Molton, than at any other moment since their meeting at Cransley. She scarcely knew, whether satisfaction at having now done that which was decidedly honest, sincere, and unworldly, or self-reproach for having so wronged Lord Glenrith by ever entering into an engagement with him, ought to preponderate,--and, upon the whole, she found herself less happy than she expected.

The ensuing weeks passed drearily enough. Lady Falkingham was under the necessity of announcing to her friends and relations that her daughter's marriage was broken off; an occupation which did not raise her spirits, or smooth her temper. Of course the true reason could not be openly divulged, or all hope must be relinquished of Blanche's ever forming any other alliance. It is strange, but it is an undoubted fact, that a girl loses half her attraction if her maiden affections are supposed to have been in any degree touched; while there is a peculiar charm attached to the idea of a widow, although it may be presumed she has known what it is to inspire, and to experience, all the emotions attendant upon love.

Blanche herself wrote to her sisters; and as she felt that her rejection of Lord Glenrith bound her fate in some measure to that of Captain De Molton, she made no mystery of the prepossession which had rendered her incapable of doing justice to Lord Glenrith's good qualities.

She had scarcely despatched these letters, when she read in the newspapers the departure of De Molton with his regiment for the East Indies. He had sailed the very day of her final interview with Lord Glenrith. She experienced a blank sensation nearly allied to mortification; forgetting what were the motives which induced him to seek safety and repose in another hemisphere.

Still, when she rejected Lord Glenrith, she did not quite anticipate that there was to be an end of everything. She had not precisely looked forward to sitting down quietly in deep retirement with her father and mother, till the arrival of another spring should summon them to London, there to be dragged the weary round of insipid entertainments, without the hope or the possibility of seeing the only face she wished to see. Her home was no longer what it had been. Lord Falkingham's vanity was mortified in the daughter of whom he had hitherto been exceedingly proud. Lady Falkingham, although not absolutely unkind, was cold and reserved, and never encouraged her to speak of feelings, which she always treated as a silly, unreasonable, youthful whim. On all occasions, the attachments of young people were spoken of in a slighting and contemptuous manner, which confirmed Blanche in her resolution to prove, that hers was not a passing fancy--but a real, sincere, and respectable attachment.

Captain De Molton, after a prosperous voyage, had arrived at Calcutta just about the time when the meeting of parliament called Lord Falkingham to London; and Blanche with pain and disgust saw the bracelets, the trinkets, the jewels, which her various friends had given her upon her expected nuptials, packed up to adorn her person during the ensuing season. She felt she never could bring herself to wear these tokens; for although it had been impossible to return any, except those which had been presented by Lord Glenrith's family, it seemed to her as if they had all been obtained under false pretences.

De Molton had struggled hard to bring his mind to a state of calm acquiescence in his fate. He had tried to accustom himself to the idea of Lady Blanche as the wife of Lord Glenrith; he had used all possible means to divert his thoughts from his unfortunate passion; he had occupied himself during his voyage with studying some of the Eastern languages, with learning everything connected with Eastern warfare; and although the renown to be gained in India at the expense of health, if not of life, falls far short of that gained in an European campaign, still he resolved that Fame should now become his mistress.

He had not been more than three weeks at Calcutta, when a letter reached him from his mother, which overturned all the good resolutions he had formed, and rendered him almost incapable of profiting by the opportunities which now offered themselves of perfecting his knowledge of Hindostanee or Sanscrit, or of putting in practice the tactics he had studied.

His mother informed him that the marriage between Lord Glenrith and Lady Blanche de Vaux was suddenly broken off, and that no cause was assigned for the event except that the lady "had changed her mind." She tried to persuade him that the case was as hopeless as ever for himself, and she resisted the temptation of telling him it was whispered that a preference for himself was the true cause of the rupture. Although she longed to communicate what she knew must give him pleasure, even she was aware that it would be weakness and folly to keep alive a passion to which no prosperous termination could be anticipated.

Her intelligence, however, was sufficient to inspire De Molton with an ardent desire to return to England. Lady Blanche was free: honour no longer called upon him to avoid her; on the contrary, honour seemed to demand that he should now profess his anxiety to devote himself to her for life; and he bitterly lamented having so rashly banished himself from his native land. Yet, upon his first arrival in India, he could not in decency apply for leave of absence. He suffered tortures of perplexity, doubt, and anxiety. At one time, he thought he would write to Lady Blanche, and regularly make her an offer of himself and of his fortunes. Then he shrank from doing so; for what were the fortunes he was able to offer her? and, moreover, such a proceeding would be assuming that it was for his sake she had broken off her marriage with Lord Glenrith,--a conclusion he had in fact no right to draw.

The news contained in his mother's letter was already six months old. Before his answer could reach England, another six months must have elapsed. What events might not have taken place in that time! Lady Blanche would have passed through another season in London: with her beauty, she must have been surrounded by admirers. It was possible, nay probable, that his letter might find her married, or on the eve of marriage with some one else. How ridiculous then would his conceited assumption appear in her eyes! No--he would wait, at all events, for further information; at the same time fully resolved to let slip no opportunity of returning home, when he might easily judge for himself whether an offer on his part would or would not be esteemed presumption.--Then again he thought, if for his sake Glenrith had indeed been rejected, how cold and how ungrateful must he appear, not instantly to avail himself of the chance afforded him.--Fortunately for him, his thoughts were necessarily in some measure withdrawn from his own annoyances, by his regiment being marched up the country, and by being engaged in some slight but animating skirmishes with the Pindarries.

The prospect of active service rendered his applying for leave of absence absolutely out of the question. All doubt upon that subject was thereby set at rest. It also seemed to set at rest the question whether he should or should not address Lady Blanche herself:--it was impossible to hint at her plighting her troth to him in a foreign land, from which he might never return, or of her keeping herself disengaged in the hope, at some future indefinite period, of following the drum with him from country quarter to country quarter.

He relieved his mind by writing to his mother a full statement of his perplexed feelings, and by imploring her, if possible, to convey them to Lady Blanche; and having done so, he resolutely bent all his energies to the discharge of his professional duties; while his heart beat high with the cheering hope of returning to her feet, his name coupled with deeds of valour, and illustrated by feats of military prowess.