Various - Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 66, No. 408, January 1849

A pressing invitation to spend some days at the castle had been cordially given to all. It was accepted only by myself: I wrote word that I would come.

Yes; I longed to prove the strength of my own self-conquest, and accurately test the nature of the feelings that had disturbed me. That any sentiment which could be called love remained for Lady Castleton, the wife of another, and that other a man with so many claims on my affection as her lord, I held as a moral impossibility. But, with all those lively impressions of early youth still engraved on my heart – impressions of the image of Fanny Trevanion, as the fairest and brightest of human beings – could I feel free to love again? Could I seek to woo, and rivet to myself for ever, the entire and virgin affections of another, while there was a possibility that I might compare and regret? No; either I must feel that, if Fanny were again single – could be mine without obstacle, human or divine – she had ceased to be the one I would single out of the world; or, though regarding love as the dead, I would be faithful to its memory and its ashes. My mother sighed, and looked fluttered and uneasy all the morning of the day on which I was to repair to Compton. She even seemed cross, for about the third time in her life, and paid no compliment to Mr Stultz, when my shooting-jacket was exchanged for a black frock, which that artist had pronounced to be "splendid;" neither did she honour me with any of those little attentions to the contents of my portmanteau, and the perfect "getting up" of my white waistcoats and cravats, which made her natural instincts on such memorable occasions. There was also a sort of querulous pitying tenderness in her tone when she spoke to Blanche, which was quite pathetic; though, fortunately, its cause remained dark and impenetrable to the innocent comprehension of one who could not see where the past filled the urns of the future, at the fountain of life. My father understood me better – shook me by the hand, as I got into the chaise, and muttered, out of Seneca —

"Non tanquam transfuga, sed tanquam explorator!"

'Not to desert, but examine.'

Quite right.

Agreeably to the usual custom in great houses, as soon as I arrived at Compton I was conducted to my room, to adjust my toilet, or compose my spirits by solitude: – it wanted an hour to dinner. I had not, however, been thus left ten minutes, before the door opened, and Trevanion himself, (as I would fain still call him) stood before me. Most cordial were his greeting and welcome; and, seating himself by my side, he continued to converse, in his peculiar way – bluntly eloquent, and carelessly learned – till the half hour bell rang. He talked on Australia, the Wakefield system – cattle – books, his trouble in arranging his library – his schemes for improving his property, and embellishing his grounds – his delight to find my father look so well – his determination to see a great deal of him, whether his old college friend would or no. He talked, in short, of everything except politics, and his own past career – showing only his soreness in that silence. But (independently of the mere work of time,) he looked yet more worn and jaded in his leisure than he had done in the full tide of business; and his former abrupt quickness of manner now seemed to partake of feverish excitement. I hoped that my father would see much of him, for I felt that the weary mind wanted soothing.

Just as the second bell rang, I entered the drawing-room. There were at least twenty guests present – each guest, no doubt, some planet of fashion or fame, with satellites of its own. But I saw only two forms distinctly – first, Lord Castleton, conspicuous with star and garter, somewhat ampler and portlier in proportions, and with a frank dash of gray in the silky waves of his hair, but still as pre-eminent as ever for that beauty – the charm of which depends less than any other upon youth – arising, as it does, from a felicitous combination of bearing and manner, and that exquisite suavity of expression which steals into the heart, and pleases so much that it becomes a satisfaction to admire! Of Lord Castleton, indeed, it might be said, as of Alcibiades, 'that he was beautiful at every age.' I felt my breath come thick, and a mist passed before my eyes, as Lord Castleton led me through the crowd, and the radiant vision of Fanny Trevanion, how altered – and how dazzling! – burst upon me.

I felt the light touch of that hand of snow; but no guilty thrill shot through my veins. I heard the voice, musical as ever – lower than it was once, and more subdued in its key, but steadfast and untremulous – it was no longer the voice that made "my soul plant itself in the ears." 10 10 Sir Philip Sidney. The event was over, and I knew that the dream had fled from the waking world for ever.

"Another old friend!" as Lady Ulverstone came forth from a little group of children, leading one fine boy of nine years old, while one, two or three years younger, clung to her gown. "Another old friend! – and," added Lady Ulverstone, after the first kind greetings, "two new ones, when the old are gone." The slight melancholy left the voice, as, after presenting to me the little viscount, she drew forward the more bashful Lord Albert, who indeed had something of his grandsire's and namesake's look of refined intelligence in his brow and eyes.

The watchful tact of Lord Castleton was quick in terminating whatever embarrassment might belong to these introductions, as, leaning lightly on my arm, he drew me forward, and presented me to the guests more immediately in our neighbourhood, who seemed by their earnest cordiality to have been already prepared for the introduction.

Dinner was now announced, and I welcomed that sense of relief and segregation with which one settles into one's own "particular" chair at your large miscellaneous entertainments.

I stayed three days at that house. How truly had Trevanion said that Fanny would make "an excellent great lady." What perfect harmony between her manners and her position; just retaining enough of the girl's seductive gaiety and bewitching desire to please, to soften the new dignity of bearing she had unconsciously assumed – less, after all, as great lady than as wife and mother: with a fine breeding, perhaps a little languid and artificial, as compared with her lord's – which sprang, fresh and healthful, wholly from nature – but still so void of all the chill of condescension, or the subtle impertinence that belongs to that order of the inferior noblesse , which boasts the name of "exclusives;" with what grace, void of prudery, she took the adulation of the flutterers, turning from them to her children, or escaping lightly to Lord Castleton, with an ease that drew round her at once the protection of hearth and home.

And certainly Lady Castleton was more incontestably beautiful than Fanny Trevanion had been.

All this I acknowledged, not with a sigh and a pang, but with a pure feeling of pride and delight. I might have loved madly and presumptuously, as boys will do; but I had loved worthily; – the love left no blush on my manhood; and Fanny's very happiness was my perfect and total cure of every wound in my heart not quite scarred over before. Had she been discontented, sorrowful, without joy in the ties she had formed, there might have been more danger that I should brood over the past, and regret the loss of its idol. Here there was none. And the very improvement in her beauty had so altered its character — so altered – that Fanny Trevanion and Lady Castleton seemed two persons. And, thus observing and listening to her, I could now dispassionately perceive such differences in our nature as seemed to justify Trevanion's assertion, which once struck me as so monstrous, "that we should not have been happy had fate permitted our union." Pure-hearted and simple though she remained in the artificial world, still that world was her element; its interests occupied her; its talk, though just chastened from scandal, flowed from her lips. To borrow the words of a man who was himself a courtier, and one so distinguished that he could afford to sneer at Chesterfield, 11 11 Lord Hervey's Memoirs of George II. " She had the routine of that style of conversation which is a sort of gold leaf, that is a great embellishment where it is joined to anything else." I will not add, "but makes a very poor figure by itself," – for that Lady Castleton's conversation certainly did not do – perhaps, indeed, because it was not "by itself" – and the gold leaf was all the better for being thin, since it could not cover even the surface of the sweet and amiable nature over which it was spread. Still, this was not the mind in which now, in maturer experience, I would seek to find sympathy with manly action, or companionship in the charms of intellectual leisure.