Ah! changeful head, and fickle heart!

PROGRESS OF DISCONTENT.

No event is more ordinary in narratives of this nature, than the abduction of the female on whose fate the interest is supposed to turn; but that of Alice Bridgenorth was thus far particular, that she was spirited away by the Duke of Buckingham, more in contradiction than in the rivalry of passion; and that, as he made his first addresses to her at Chiffinch’s, rather in the spirit of rivalry to this Sovereign, than from any strong impression which her beauty had made on his affections, so he had formed the sudden plan of spiriting her away by means of his dependents, rather to perplex Christian, the King, Chiffinch, and all concerned, than because he had any particular desire for her society at his own mansion. Indeed, so far was this from being the case, that his Grace was rather surprised than delighted with the success of the enterprise which had made her an inmate there, although it is probable he might have thrown himself into an uncontrollable passion, had he learned its miscarriage instead of its success.

Twenty-four hours had passed over since he had returned to his own roof, before, notwithstanding sundry hints from Jerningham, he could even determine on the exertion necessary to pay his fair captive a visit; and then it was with the internal reluctance of one who can only be stirred from indolence by novelty.

“I wonder what made me plague myself about this wench,” said he, “and doom myself to encounter all the hysterical rhapsodies of a country Phillis, with her head stuffed with her grandmother’s lessons about virtue and the Bible-book, when the finest and best-bred women in town may be had upon more easy terms. It is a pity one cannot mount the victor’s car of triumph without having a victory to boast of; yet, faith, it is what most of our modern gallants do, though it would not become Buckingham. — Well, I must see her,” he concluded, “though it were but to rid the house of her. The Portsmouth will not hear of her being set at liberty near Charles, so much is she afraid of a new fair seducing the old sinner from his allegiance. So how the girl is to be disposed of — for I shall have little fancy to keep her here, and she is too wealthy to be sent down to Cliefden as a housekeeper — is a matter to be thought on.”

He then called for such a dress as might set off his natural good mien — a compliment which he considered as due to his own merit; for as to anything farther, he went to pay his respects to his fair prisoner with almost as little zeal in the cause, as a gallant to fight a duel in which he has no warmer interest than the maintenance of his reputation as man of honour.

The set of apartments consecrated to the use of those favourites who occasionally made Buckingham’s mansion their place of abode, and who were, so far as liberty was concerned, often required to observe the regulations of a convent, were separated from the rest of the Duke’s extensive mansion. He lived in the age when what was called gallantry warranted the most atrocious actions of deceit and violence; as may be best illustrated by the catastrophe of an unfortunate actress, whose beauty attracted the attention of the last De Vere, Earl of Oxford. While her virtue defied his seductions, he ruined her under colour of a mock marriage, and was rewarded for a success which occasioned the death of his victim, by the general applause of the men of wit and gallantry who filled the drawing-room of Charles.

Buckingham had made provision in the interior of his ducal mansion for exploits of a similar nature; and the set of apartments which he now visited were alternately used to confine the reluctant, and to accommodate the willing.

Being now destined for the former purpose, the key was delivered to the Duke by a hooded and spectacled old lady, who sat reading a devout book in the outer hall which divided these apartments (usually called the Nunnery) from the rest of the house. This experienced dowager acted as mistress of the ceremonies on such occasions, and was the trusty depositary of more intrigues than were known to any dozen of her worshipful calling besides.

“As sweet a linnet,” she said, as she undid the outward door, “as ever sung in a cage.”

“I was afraid she might have been more for moping than for singing, Dowlas,” said the Duke.

“Till yesterday she was so, please your Grace,” answered Dowlas; “or, to speak sooth, till early this morning, we heard of nothing but Lachrym?. But the air of your noble Grace’s house is favourable to singing-birds; and today matters have been a-much mended.”

“Tis sudden, dame,” said the Duke; “and ’tis something strange, considering that I have never visited her, that the pretty trembler should have been so soon reconciled to her fate.”

“Ah, your Grace has such magic, that it communicates itself to your very walls; as wholesome Scripture says, Exodus, first and seventh, ‘It cleaveth to the walls and the doorposts.’”

“You are too partial, Dame Dowlas,” said the Duke of Buckingham.

“Not a word but truth,” said the dame; “and I wish I may be an outcast from the fold of the lambs, but I think this damsel’s very frame has changed since she was under your Grace’s roof. Methinks she hath a lighter form, a finer step, a more displayed ankle — I cannot tell, but I think there is a change. But, lack-a-day, your Grace knows I am as old as I am trusty, and that my eyes wax something uncertain.”

“Especially when you wash them with a cup of canary, Dame Dowlas,” answered the Duke, who was aware that temperance was not amongst the cardinal virtues which were most familiar to the old lady’s practice.

“Was it canary, your Grace said? — Was it indeed with canary, that your Grace should have supposed me to have washed my eyes?” said the offended matron. “I am sorry that your Grace should know me no better.”

“I crave your pardon, dame,” said the Duke, shaking aside, fastidiously, the grasp which, in the earnestness of her exculpation, Madam Dowlas had clutched upon his sleeve. “I crave your pardon. Your nearer approach has convinced me of my erroneous imputation — I should have said nantz — not canary.”

So saying, he walked forward into the inner apartments, which were fitted up with an air of voluptuous magnificence.

“The dame said true, however,” said the proud deviser and proprietor of the splendid mansion —“A country Phillis might well reconcile herself to such a prison as this, even without a skilful bird-fancier to touch a bird-call. But I wonder where she can be, this rural Phidele. Is it possible she can have retreated, like a despairing commandant, into her bedchamber, the very citadel of the place, without even an attempt to defend the outworks?”

As he made this reflection, he passed through an antechamber and little eating parlour, exquisitely furnished, and hung with excellent paintings of the Venetian school.

Beyond these lay a withdrawing-room, fitted up in a style of still more studied elegance. The windows were darkened with painted glass, of such a deep and rich colour, as made the midday beams, which found their way into the apartment, imitate the rich colours of sunset; and, in the celebrated expression of the poet, “taught light to counterfeit a gloom.”

Buckingham’s feelings and taste had been too much, and too often, and too readily gratified, to permit him, in the general case, to be easily accessible, even to those pleasures which it had been the business of his life to pursue. The hackneyed voluptuary is like the jaded epicure, the mere listlessness of whose appetite becomes at length a sufficient penalty for having made it the principal object of his enjoyment and cultivation. Yet novelty has always some charms, and uncertainty has more.

The doubt how he was to be received — the change of mood which his prisoner was said to have evinced — the curiosity to know how such a creature as Alice Bridgenorth had been described, was likely to bear herself under the circumstances in which she was so unexpectedly placed, had upon Buckingham the effect of exciting unusual interest. On his own part, he had none of those feelings of anxiety with which a man, even of the most vulgar mind, comes to the presence of the female whom he wishes to please, far less the more refined sentiments of love, respect, desire, and awe, with which the more refined lover approaches the beloved object. He had been, to use an expressive French phrase, too completely blasé even from his earliest youth, to permit him now to experience the animal eagerness of the one, far less the more sentimental pleasure of the other. It is no small aggravation of this jaded and uncomfortable state of mind, that the voluptuary cannot renounce the pursuits with which he is satiated, but must continue, for his character’s sake, or from the mere force of habit, to take all the toil, fatigue, and danger of the chase, while he has so little real interest in the termination.

Buckingham, therefore, felt it due to his reputation as a successful hero of intrigue, to pay his addresses to Alice Bridgenorth with dissembled eagerness; and, as he opened the door of the inner apartment, he paused to consider, whether the tone of gallantry, or that of passion, was fittest to use on the occasion. This delay enabled him to hear a few notes of a lute touched with exquisite skill, and accompanied by the still sweeter strains of a female voice, which, without executing any complete melody, seemed to sport itself in rivalship of the silver sound of the instrument.

“A creature so well educated,” said the Duke, “with the sense she is said to possess, would, rustic as she is, laugh at the assumed rants of Oroondates. It is the vein of Dorimont — once, Buckingham, thine own — that must here do the feat, besides that the part is easier.”

So thinking, he entered the room with that easy grace which characterised the gay courtiers among whom he flourished, and approached the fair tenant, whom he found seated near a table covered with books and music, and having on her left hand the large half-open casement, dim with stained glass, admitting only a doubtful light into this lordly retiring-room, which, hung with the richest tapestry of the Gobelines, and ornamented with piles if china and splendid mirrors, seemed like a bower built for a prince to receive his bride.

The splendid dress of the inmate corresponded with the taste of the apartment which she occupied and partook of the Oriental costume which the much-admired Roxalana had the brought into fashion. A slender foot and ankle, which escaped from the wide trowser of richly ornamented and embroidered blue satin, was the only part of her person distinctly seen; the rest was enveloped, from head to foot, in a long veil of silver gauze, which, like a feathery and light mist on a beautiful landscape, suffered you to perceive that what it concealed was rarely lovely, yet induced the imagination even to enhance the charms it shaded. Such part of the dress as could be discovered was, like the veil and the trowsers, in the Oriental taste; a rich turban, and splendid caftan, were rather indicated than distinguished through the folds of the former. The whole attire argued at least coquetry on the part of the fair one, who must have expected, from her situation, a visitor of some pretension; and induced Buckingham to smile internally at Christian’s account of the extreme simplicity and purity of his niece.

He approached the lady en cavalier, and addressed her with the air of being conscious, while he acknowledged his offences, that his condescending to do so formed a sufficient apology for them. “Fair Mistress Alice,” he said, “I am sensible how deeply I ought to sue for pardon for the mistaken zeal of my servants, who, seeing you deserted and exposed without protection during an unlucky affray, took it upon them to bring you under the roof of one who would expose his life rather than suffer you to sustain a moment’s anxiety. Was it my fault that those around me should have judged it necessary to interfere for your preservation; or that, aware of the interest I must take in you, they have detained you till I could myself, in personal attendance, receive your commands?”

“That attendance has not been speedily rendered, my lord,” answered the lady. “I have been a prisoner for two days — neglected, and left to the charge of menials.”

“How say you, lady? — Neglected!” exclaimed the Duke. “By Heaven, if the best in my household has failed in his duty, I will discard him on the instant!”

“I complain of no lack of courtesy from your servants, my lord,” she replied; “but methinks it had been but complaisant in the Duke himself to explain to me earlier wherefore he has had the boldness to detain me as a state prisoner.”

“And can the divine Alice doubt,” said Buckingham, “that, had time and space, those cruel enemies to the flight of passion, given permission, the instant in which you crossed your vassal’s threshold had seen its devoted master at your feet, who hath thought, since he saw you, of nothing but the charms which that fatal morning placed before him at Chiffinch’s?”

“I understand, then, my lord,” said the lady, “that you have been absent, and have had no part in the restraint which has been exercised upon me?”

“Absent on the King’s command, lady, and employed in the discharge of his duty,” answered Buckingham without hesitation. “What could I do? — The moment you left Chiffinch’s, his Majesty commanded me to the saddle in such haste, that I had no time to change my satin buskins for riding-boots.* If my absence has occasioned you a moment of inconvenience, blame the inconsiderate zeal of those who, seeing me depart from London, half distracted at my separation from you, were willing to contribute their unmannered, though well-meant exertions, to preserve their master from despair, by retaining the fair Alice within his reach. To whom, indeed, could they have restored you? He whom you selected as your champion is in prison, or fled — your father absent from town — your uncle in the north. To Chiffinch’s house you had expressed your well-founded aversion; and what fitter asylum remained than that of your devoted slave, where you must ever reign a queen?”

* This case is not without precedent. Among the jealousies and fears expressed by the Long Parliament, they insisted much upon an agent for the King departing for the continent so abruptly, that he had not time to change his court dress — white buskins, to wit, and black silk pantaloons — for an equipment more suitable to travel with.

“An imprisoned one,” said the lady. “I desire not royalty.”

“Alas! how wilfully you misconstrue me!” said the Duke, kneeling on one knee; “and what right can you have to complain of a few hours’ gentle restraint — you, who destine so many to hopeless captivity? Be merciful for once, and withdraw that envious veil; for the divinities are ever most cruel when they deliver their oracles from such clouded recesses. Suffer at least my rash hand ——”

“I will save your Grace that unworthy trouble,” said the lady haughtily; and rising up, she flung back over her shoulders the veil which shrouded her, saying, at the same time, “Look on me, my Lord Duke, and see if these be indeed the charms which have made on your Grace an impression so powerful.”

Buckingham did look; and the effect produced on him by surprise was so strong, that he rose hastily from his knee, and remained for a few seconds as if he had been petrified. The figure that stood befo............