# Francesca Carrara/Chapter 84

CHAPTER XXV.
"So I hear that his Majesty has granted you the manors of Evelyn," said Lord Avonleigh to the Duke of Buckingham. "Our hunting is very good; and I trust we shall have you for something more than a temporary neighbour."
"I only hope that you will not see too much of me. Human nature never yet resisted temptation. Sylvan shades that boast such a Diana have attractions which might tempt us to realise the visions of 'Old Arcady,'" replied the other, turning to Francesca, whose eyes were fixed on the ground, and whose cheek was suffused with the deepest carnation.
With the vanity of a man whose conquests had lacked one only charm—difficulty, he immediately applied the blush to himself; but Madame de ​Soissons, who, in spite of the lively dialogue which she was carrying on with the King, observed a favourite rule, which was, to allow nothing to escape her notice, marked Francesca's change of countenance also—from its first deadly paleness to its crimson confusion: and her inference was quite opposite to that of the Duke. He, however, was stimulated to complete a conquest so happily commenced: first, because he considered love as a proper compliment, which all women owed him; secondly, because Francesca was a beauty; and, thirdly, an heiress,— the last motive being the most powerful; for, as the worthy biographer of Sir John Parrot justly observes, "nothing doth more stimulate men to action than desire of gain." Holding imitation to be the most delicate of flattery, the Duke usually made it a point of conscience to adopt the tastes of the fair dame to whom, for the time, he devoted himself. "Self-love," as he was wont to observe, "was thus enlisted on his side of the question—she preferred herself in him."
In a moment Francesca recovered herself, and, joining as carelessly as she could in the conversation, said, "As far as my experience has gone, I infinitely prefer the country to the town. There is something to me at once desolate, and yet confined, in a city. The multitude of faces ​continually passing and repassing, all strangers, overwhelm you with a sense of your own nothingness. The brick walls are so dreary, the streets so dirty—all the associations belonging to whatever is most common-place in our existence—that whenever I gaze from the window, I always feel lowered and dispirited. But, in the country, the green fields are so joyous, the pure air so fresh, the blue sky so clear; the fine old trees, redolent of earth's loveliest mythology, when the dryades peopled their green shadows; the fair flowers, at the unfolding of whose leaves some line of delicious poetry springs to mind; the singing of the wind, like a natural lute, plaining amid the leaves, all combine to carry me out of myself. I feel a thousand vague and sweet emotions, and am both better and happier. Yes, I do love the country."
"Well," exclaimed Madame de Soissons, "the fate of our sex and of the country seems to be much the same: we are doomed to have a thousand fine things said of us which nobody means or ever acts upon. Your philosopher talks of the virtue only to be found in rural life, and remains quietly in his arm-chair, and his town lodgings; your lover raves of your cruelty, which he vows he cannot survive, leaves your presence, and orders ​a good supper. Considering how much we say that we do not mean, how fortunate it is that we are not taken at our word! We should then be cautious how we talked of rustic and innocent pleasures, of dying for love, and eternal constancy."
"We deceive ourselves on most subjects," said the Duke; "but I own, especially when I am out of humour, that a vision of some calm retreat, far 'from the busy hum of men,' is apt to rise upon my imagination,—all my poetry takes refuge 'in lonely glade or haunted dell.' I could not love a woman whose image was for ever accompanied in my memory by brick and mortar."
"All our poetical feelings," replied Francesca, "delight to link themselves with natural objects. The leaf, the flower, the star, the dew, are the inexhaustible sources of imagery."
"And one feeling, loveliest of all, delights in such connexion. The poet bears love with him to his own haunted solitude."
"Ah!" exclaimed Francesca, "All the finer mysteries of the spirit vanish in the crowd. Vanity is to the many the stimulus that affection is to the few."
"Yes," answered Buckingham, in a tone of voice so low that it was all but a whisper, "there is nothing so heartless as that hurrying ​intercourse—careless, and yet constrained—which constitutes society. I can imagine—nay, fancy I was meant for an existence so different—an existence where all the deeper feelings would not be wholly wasted, as they are now. But I need the wand of the enchanter to lead me through the weary maze in which habit and indifference soon entangles one hitherto without a dearer aim. Just now," for he perceived Francesca was meditating a retreat—a design which he set down to embarrassment, "my head is full of some exquisite lines I was reading this morning in your library. I hear, Lady Francesca, that it is a favourite room of yours. Do pray join with me in admiring the picturesque tenderness with which the poet invests his dream of futurity." So saying, in a voice low and sweet as just-heard music, he repeated the following lines:—
———"I disdain
All pomp when thou art by: far be the noise
Of kings, and courts, from us, whose gentle souls
Our kinder stars have steered another way.
Free as the forest-birds we'll pair together— Fly to the arbours, grots, and flowery meads And in soft murmurs interchange our souls;
Together drink the crystal of the stream,
Or taste the yellow fruit which autumn yields;
And, when the golden evening calls us home,
Wing to our downy nest, and sleep till morn."
"What a feeling of security," continued he, "is flung round the uncertainty of love, by the calm and gentle images with which it is here invested!—"
But their disquisition was interrupted by Lord Avonleigh, who came to announce that a deputation from Southampton waited without, full of eloquence and loyalty. From the reluctance with which the monarch rose from Madame de Soissons' side, this was evidently not half so attractive as the Parisian anecdotes, whose malice lost nothing in her hands. However, all hastened to the hall, and one half the day was spent in receiving the congratulations of the worthy mayor, and the remainder in ridiculing them.
The Duke of Buckingham, in an old wig which he borrowed from the steward, and his worship's actual red cloak, which had been purloined by his orders, the owner having lost all distinctions—even those of property, to which he was, generally speaking, keenly alive—in the canary which he had drained to the health of his most gracious Majesty;—in this said wig and cloak his Grace gave a most faithful representation of the pompous little magistrate, to the great amusement of the company, who had now no decorum to restrain their mirth. Lord ​Avonleigh's laugh might, perhaps, be rather forced; for, to be candid in our confessions, the deputation had been arranged by himself, and the very speech which the Duke of Buckingham had just mouthed with equal powers of memory and mimicry, had been the joint production of himself and the mayor, the latter having only learnt by heart what the former had concocted. However, as the King laughed, it was his duty, as a loyal subject, to laugh too; and as for his Grace of Buckingham—intending him, as he did, for his son-in-law—he was for the present privileged. All depends upon circumstances—anger as much as any thing else. Interest is your only true cosmetic for smoothing the brow.