BELGRAVIA

MARCH 1873

STRANGERS AND PILGRIMS

BY THE AUTHOR OF LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET,' ETC.

Book the Second.

CHAPTER I.

'Two souls, alas, dwell in my breast: the one struggles to separate itself from the other. The one clings with obstinate fondness to the world, with organs like cramps of steel; the other lifts itself majestically from the mist to the realms of an exalted ancestry.'

AS

SUNNY afternoon in the second week of May, one of those brilliant spring days which cheat the dweller in cities, who has no indications of the year's progress around and about him—no fields of newly-sprouting corn, or hedges where the blackthorn shows silvery-white above mossy banks dappled with violets and primroses -into the belief that summer is at hand. He has no succession of field birds to serve for his time-keepers, but he hears canaries and piping bullfinches carolling in balconies, perhaps sees a flower-girl at a street-corner, and begins to think he is in the month of roses.

It seemed the month of roses in one small drawing-room in Eaton-place-south-a back drawing-room and of the tiniest, with a dark-green fernery artfully contrived to shed a dim religious light upon the chamber, and at the same time mask the view of an adjacent mews-the daintiest possible thing in the way of back drawingrooms, with chairs and dwarf couches of the pouff species, covered with cream-coloured cretonne, and befrilled muslin; a coffee-table or two in convenient corners; the clock on the maroon-velvet-covered mantelpiece, a chubby Cupid in turquoise Sèvres beating a drum; the candelabra, two other chubby blue bantlings struggling under their burden of wax-candles; velvet curtains half screening the fire in the low steel grate and ensconced in the most luxurious of the pouffs, with her feet on the tapestried fender-stool (a joint labour of the four Luttrell girls), and a large green fan between her face and SECOND SERIES, VOL. X. F.S. VOL. XX.

B

the glow, sat Elizabeth Luttrell. She was not alone. Aunt Chevenix was writing letters at her davenport in the front drawing-room; the swift flight of her quill pen might be heard ever and anon in the rearward chamber; and Reginald Paulyn was sitting à cheval upon a smaller pouff, rocking himself softly to and fro, to the endangerment of the castors, as he discoursed.

'Come now, Miss Luttrell, I want you to like Mrs. Cinqmars,' he said, in an argumentative tone. She may not be quite what you'd call good style-'

'I know very little of good or bad style,' interrupted Elizabeth, in a somewhat contemptuous tone; your world is so new to me. But certainly Mrs. Cinqmars has hardly what that French secretary of legation I went into dinner with the other night called l'air du faubourg.'

'Well, no, perhaps not; dresses a little too much, and indulges rather too freely in slang, perhaps. But she's the most kind-hearted creature in the world; gives the best parties out-not your highand-mighty nine-o'clock dinners, with cabinet ministers and ambassadors and foreign princelings, and so forth, but carpet dances, and acting charades, and impromptu suppers, and water parties. You go to her house to amuse yourself, in short, and not to do the civil to a lot of elderly fogies with orders at their button-holes, or to talk politics with some heavy swell whose name is always cropping up in the Times leaders.'

'Who is Mr. Cinqmars ?' inquired Elizabeth with a supercilious air.

'Henri du Châtelet de Cinqmars. Born a Belgian, of a FrenchCanadian father and an English mother-that's his nationality. Made his money upon various stock exchanges, and continues so to make it, only extending his operations now and then by buying up a steamboat line, or something in that way. A man who will burst up some of these days, no doubt, and pay ninepence or so in the pound; but in the mean time he lives very decently at the rate of twenty thousand a year. He has literary proclivities too, and is editor and proprietor of the Turf, a daily paper in the sporting and theatrical interests, with a mild flavour of the Age and the Satirist, which you may or may not have seen.'

'I never look at newspapers,' said Elizabeth; but pray why are you so anxious that I should like your Mrs. du Châtelet de Cinqmars?' she asked, lowering her fan and gratifying the Viscount with an inquiring gaze from her brilliant eyes, more than ever brilliant since she had drunk the sparkling cup of London pleasures.

'Because she's the nicest person you could possibly have for a chaperon. Ah, of course, I know,' answering her glance in the direction of the busy letter-writer, whose substantial form was visible in the distance; your aunt is a plucky old party, and can stand a

good deal of knocking about for a veteran, but I think she'd knock under if she tried Mrs. Cinqmars' work: that blessed little woman shows up at every race in Great Britain-from Pontefract to the Curragh and at every regatta; and in the autumn you find her at Hombourg or Baden, gambling like old boots. Now, if you would only put yourself under her wing,' concluded Lord Paulyn persuasively, you'd stand some chance of seeing life.'

'Thank you very much; but I think I have seen enough in the last five weeks to last me for the remainder of my existence. Mrs. Cinqmars is a most good-natured person, no doubt; she called me "my dear" half an hour after I'd been introduced to her; and I won't be so rude as to say that she's not good style; but she's not my style, and I shouldn't care about knowing her more intimately. Besides, papa wants me at home, and I am really anxious to go back.'

She smiled to herself with a pensive smile; thinking what reason she had for this anxiety; thinking of the quiet country town, the gray old Norman church, with its wide aisles and ponderous square tower the church along whose bare arched roof Malcolm Forde's deep voice echoed resonantly; thinking of that widely-different life, with its sluggish calm, and that it would be very sweet to go back to it, now that life at Hawleigh meant happy triumphant love, and Malcolm for her bond-slave.

But, in the mean time, this other and more mundane existence, with its picture-galleries, and gardens botanical or horticultural putting forth their first floral efforts, its dinners and déjeuners and kettledrums and carpet dances, was something more than tolerable to the soul of Elizabeth. She had made a success in her aunt's circle, which was by no means a narrow one, and had received adulation enough to turn a stronger brain; had found the cup of pleasure filled to overflowing, and new worshippers everywhere she appeared. Had Mrs. Chevenix been a step or two higher on the nicely-graduated platform of society, Miss Luttrell might have been the belle of the season; as it was, people talked of her as the beautiful Miss Luttrell, a country clergyman's daughter, a mere nobody, but a creature whom it was a solecism not to have met.

She accepted this homage with an air of calm indifference, something bordering even upon arrogance or superciliousness, which told well for her; but in her secret soul she absorbed the praises of mankind greedily. She showed herself a very fair adept in the art of flirtation, and had given so much apparent encouragement to Lord Paulyn, that, although she had been only five weeks in town, her engagement to that young nobleman was already an established fact in the minds of people who had seen them together. But she was not the less constant to her absent lover; not the less eager for his brief but earnest letters. She looked forward to her future without a pang of regret with rapturous anticipation, rather, of a little heaven

upon earth with the man she adored; but she thought at the same time that her chosen husband was a peculiarly privileged being, and that he had need to rejoice with a measureless joy in having won so rare a prize.

'If he could see the attention I receive here, he might think it almost strange that I should love him better than all the rest of the world,' she said to herself.

'Going back to Hawleigh!' cried Lord Paulyn aghast. Why, you mustn't dream of such a thing till after the Goodwood week! I have set my heart on showing you Goodwood.'

What is Goodwood?' asked Elizabeth, thinking it might be some new kind of game-an improvement upon croquet perhaps ; 6 and when is the Goodwood week?'

Towards the end of July.'

In July; that would never do. I must go home in a fortnight at the latest.'

Why, your aunt told me you were coming up for the season!' 'My aunt had no right to say anything of the kind.'

'O, but it's positively absurd,' exclaimed the Viscount, going back just when there'll be most people in town, and to such a dingy old hole as Hawleigh. What possible necessity can there be for your returning? Mr. Luttrell has your three sisters to take care of him. He'll do well enough, I should think.'

'O, yes, I daresay he will get on very well,' said Elizabeth, thinking of another person who had written lately to inquire, rather seriously, whether the few weeks were not nearly over, whether she had not had ample time already for her brief survey of a world whose pomps and vanities she was going to renounce for ever, only thereby conforming to the pious promises of her godfathers and godmothers, which her own lips had ratified at her confirmation.

'Come, now,' said Lord Paulyn, returning to the charge, do let me arrange an alliance between you and Mrs. Cinqmars. She's just the kind of person with whom you could enjoy yourself. She has a box on the grand-stand at Epsom and Ascot every year-I shouldn't wonder if she had bought the freehold of them-and always takes a brace of pretty girls with her. If you would only let her drive you down to the Derby now, to-morrow week, I'll be responsible for your having a delightful day; and I'll be in attendance to show you everything and everybody worth seeing.'

'Thanks. I don't think my aunt cares for Mrs. Cinqmars.'

'Your aunt is about a century behind the times; but perhaps Flora-Mrs. C.-hasn't been civil enough to her. Let me drive you and Mrs. Chevenix down to Fulham this afternoon. Tuesday's her day for receiving, and you'll see no end of nice people there. I'll send my groom for the drag, and take you through the Park in good style.'

A four-in-hand seemed to Elizabeth the glory and triumph of

the age; and there was nothing particular in the Eaton-place programme for this afternoon.

'I should like it very well,' she said, brightening, ‘if auntie would consent.'

'O, I'll soon settle that,' replied Lord Paulyn, rising from his pouff, and going into the next room.

Mrs. Chevenix, after a little diplomatic hesitation, consented to everything except the drag.

No young lady, with a proper regard for her reputation, can ride on the box-seat of a four-in-hand, unless the coachman is her brother or her husband.'

'I'm very glad I'm not the first, in this case,' said Lord Paulyn; and I certainly mean to be the second, if I can.'

These were the plainest words the Viscount had yet spoken, and they moved the spirit of aunt Chevenix with exceeding joy, albeit she knew that her niece was engaged to Mr. Forde.

If you really wish us to visit Mrs. Cinqmars-and you know, dear Lord Paulyn, there is very little I would not do to oblige you,' she said, with a maternal air-'I'll take Lizzie down to the Rancho in the brougham, and you can join us there if you like. Mrs. Cinqmars has called upon me several times, and I have not returned her visits. She seems a very good-natured little person; but, you see, I am getting an old woman, and don't care much about cultivating new acquaintance.'

Thus Mrs. Chevenix, who would have run herself into a fever in the pursuit of an unknown countess.

Lord Paulyn waived the question of the drag regretfully.

My horses haven't been as fit as they are to-day since they came from grass,' he said, 'but I'll drive down alone. What time will you start? It's just four; Mrs. Cinqmars is always in full force from five to six.'

If you'll be kind enough to ring the bell, I'll order the carriage for a quarter to five. I shall have time to dress after I've finished my letters for the general post.'

'Can't think how any one can write letters, now we've got the telegraph,' said Lord Paulyn, staring in amazement at aunt Chevenix's bulky despatches; I always wire.'

But if you were in love, and separated from the object of your affections?' suggested Mrs. Chevenix, smiling.

I should wire; or if I had something uncommonly spooney to say, I might spell it backwards in the second column of the Times. I don't know how to write a letter; indeed, I'm not at all clear that I haven't forgotten how to write long-hand altogether. I keep my betting-book in cipher; and when I send a telegram, I always dictate the message to the post-office clerk.'

'But I should have thought now, with respect to your racehorses,