Charles Lever - Sir Jasper Carew - His Life and Experience

“Is the danger over? Are we safe?” was her exclamation, as she arose from her knees.

“The wind is abating, madam, – the worst is over; and now to my question.”

“She is yours, sir,” said the Duchess, with a deep obeisance. “His Royal Highnesses orders were, not to leave her till she reached England. Heaven grant that we are to see that hour! This is Mademoiselle de Courtois,” continued she, as at the same instant the young lady entered the cabin.

The graceful ease and unaffected demeanor with which she received my father at once convinced him that she at least knew nothing of the terrible compact in which she was involved. Habituated as he was to all the fascinations of beauty, and all the blandishments of manner, there was something to him irresistibly charming in the artless tone with which she spoke of her voyage, and all the pleasure she anticipated from a tour through England.

“You see, sir,” said the Duchess, when they were once more alone together, “Mademoiselle Josephine is a stranger to the position in which she stands. None could have undertaken the task of breaking it to her. Let us trust that she is never to know it.”

“How so, madam? Do you mean that I am to relinquish my right?” cried my father.

“Nothing could persuade me that you would insist upon it, sir.”

“You are wrong, then, madam,” said he, sternly. “To the letter I will maintain it. Mademoiselle de Courtois is mine; and within twenty-four hours the law shall confirm my title, for I will make her my wife.”

I have heard that however honorable my father’s intentions thus proclaimed themselves, the Duchess only could see a very lamentable mésalliance in such a union; nor did she altogether disguise from my father that his Royal Highness was very likely to take the same view of the matter. Mademoiselle’s mother was of the best blood of France, and illegitimacy signified little if Royalty but bore its share of the shame. Fortunately the young lady’s scruples were more easily disposed of: perhaps my father understood better how to deal with them; at all events, one thing is certain, Madame de Sargance left Dover for Calais on the same day that my father and his young bride started for London, – perhaps it might be exaggeration to say the happiest, but it is no extravagance to call them – as handsome a pair as ever journeyed the same road on the same errand. I have told some things in this episode which, perhaps, second thoughts would expunge, and I have omitted others that as probably the reader might naturally have looked for. But the truth is, the narrative has not been without its difficulties. I have had to speak of a tone of manners and habits now happily bygone, of which I dare not mark my reprehension with all the freedom I could wish, since one of the chief actors was my father, – its victim, my mother.

“Marry in haste,” says the adage, and we all know what occupation leisure will bring with it; unhappily, my father was not to prove the exception to the maxim. It was not that his wife was wanting in any quality which can render married life happy; she was, on the contrary, most rarely gifted with them all. She was young, beautiful, endowed with excellent health and the very best of tempers. The charm of her manner won every class with whom she came into contact. But – alas that there should be a but! – she had been brought up in habits of the most expensive kind. Living in royal palaces, waited on by troops of menials, with costly equipages and splendid retinues ever at her command, only mingling with those whose lives were devoted to pleasure and amusement, conversant with no other themes than those which bore upon gayety and dissipation, she was peculiarly unsuited to the wear and tear of a social system which demanded fully as much of self-sacrifice as of enjoyment. The long lessons my father would read to her of deference to this one, patient endurance of that, how she was to submit to the tiresome prosings of certain notorieties in respect of their political or social eminence, – she certainly heard with most exemplary resignation; but by no effort of her reason, nor, indeed, of imagination, could she attain to the fact why any one should associate with those distasteful to them, nor ever persuade herself that any worldly distinction could possibly be worth having at such a price.

She was quite sure – indeed, her own experience proved it – “that the world was full of pleasant people.” Beauty to gaze on and wit to listen to, were certainly not difficult to be found; why, then, any one should persist in denying themselves the enjoyment derivable from such sources was as great a seeming absurdity as that of him who, turning his back on the rare flowers of a conservatory, would go forth to make his bouquet of the wild flowers and weeds of the roadside. Besides this, in the world wherein she had lived, her own gifts were precisely those which attracted most admiration and exerted most sway; and it was somewhat hard to descend to a system where such a coinage was not accepted as currency, but rather regarded as gilded counters, pretty to look at, but, after all, a mere counterfeit money, unrecognized by the mint.

My father saw all this when it was too late; but he lost no time in vain repinings. On the contrary, having taken a cottage in a secluded part of North Wales, by way of passing the honeymoon in all the conventional isolation that season is condemned to, he devoted himself to that educational process at which I have hinted, and began to instil those principles, to the difficulty of whose acquirement I have just alluded.

I believe that his life at this period was one of as much happiness as ever is permitted to poor mortality in this world; so, at least, his letters to his friends bespeak it. It may be even doubted if the little diversities of taste and disposition between himself and my mother did not heighten the sense of his enjoyment; they assuredly averted that lassitude and ennui which are often the results of a connubial duet unreasonably prolonged. I know, too, that my poor mother often looked back to that place as to the very paradise of her existence. My father had encouraged such magnificent impressions of his ancestral house and demesne that he was obliged to make great efforts to sustain the deception. An entire wing had to be built to complete the symmetry of the mansion. The roof had also to be replaced by another, of more costly construction. In the place of a stucco colonnade, one of polished granite was to be erected. The whole of the furniture was to be exchanged. Massive old cabinets and oaken chairs, handsome enough in their way, were but ill-suited to ceilings of fretted gold, and walls hung in the rich draperies of Lyons. The very mirrors, which had been objects of intense admiration for their size and splendor, were now to be discarded for others of more modern pretensions. The china bowls and cups which for centuries had been regarded as very gems of virtu were thrown indignantly aside, to make place for Sèvres vases and rich groupings of pure Saxon. In fact, all the ordinary comforts and characteristics of a country gentleman’s house were abandoned for the sumptuous and splendid furniture of a palace. To meet such expenses large sums were raised on loan, and two of the richest mines on the estate were heavily mortgaged. Of course it is needless to say that preparations on such a scale of magnificence attracted a large share of public attention. The newspapers duly chronicled the increasing splendor of “Castle Carew.” Scarcely a ship arrived without some precious consignment, either of pictures, marbles, or tapestries; and these announcements were usually accompanied by some semi-mysterious paragraph about the vast wealth of the owner, and the great accession of fortune he had acquired by his marriage. On this latter point nothing was known, beyond the fact that the lady was of an ancient ducal family of France, of immense fortune and eminently beautiful. Even my father’s most intimate friends knew nothing beyond this; for, however strange it may sound to our present-day notions, my father was ashamed of her illegitimacy and rightly judged what would be the general opinion of her acquaintances, should the fact become public. At last came the eventful day of the landing in Ireland; and, certainly, nothing could be more enthusiastic nor affectionate than the welcome that met them.