It was the night Lady Glencore received; and, as usual, the street
was crowded with equipages, which somehow seemed to have got into
inextricable confusion,--some endeavoring to turn back, while others
pressed forward,--the court of the palace being closely packed with
carriages which the thronged street held in fast blockade. As the
apartments which faced the street were not ever used for these
receptions, the dark unlighted windows suggested no remark; but they who
had entered the courtyard were struck by the gloomy aspect of the vast
building: not only that the entrance and the stairs were in darkness,
but the whole suite of rooms, usually brilliant as the day, were now in
deep gloom. From every carriage window heads were protruded, wondering
at this strange spectacle; and eager inquiries passed on every side
for an explanation. The explanation of “sudden illness” was rapidly
disseminated, but as rapidly contradicted, and the reply given by
the porter to all demands quickly repeated from mouth to mouth, “Her
Ladyship will not receive.”
“Can no one explain this mystery?” cried the old Princess Borinsky, as,
heavy with fat and diamonds, she hung out of her carriage window.
“Oh, there 's Major Scaresby; he is certain to know, if it be anything
malicious.”
Scaresby was, however, too busy in recounting his news to others to
perceive the signals the old Princess held out; and it was only as
her chasseur, six feet three of green and gold, bent down to give her
Highness's message, that the Major hurried off, in all the importance of
a momentary scandal, to the side of her carriage.
“Here I am, all impatience. What is it, Scaresby? Tell me quickly,”
cried she.
“A smash, my dear Princess,--nothing more or less,” said he, in a voice
which nature seemed to have invented to utter impertinences, so harsh
and grating, and yet so painfully distinct in all its accents,--“as
complete a smash as ever I heard of.”
“You can't mean that her fortune is in peril?”
“I suppose that must suffer also. It is her character--her station as
one of us--that's shipwrecked here.”
“Go on, go on,” cried she, impatiently; “I wish to hear it all.”
“All is very briefly related, then,” said he. “The charming Countess,
you remember, ran away with a countryman of mine, young Glencore, of the
8th Hussars; I used to know his father intimately.”
“Never mind his father.”
“That 's exactly what Glencore did. He came over here and fell in
love with the girl, and they ran off together; but they forgot to get
married, Princess. Ha--ha--ha!” And he laughed with a cackle a demon
could not have rivalled.
“I don't believe a word of it,--I'll never believe it,” cried the
Princess.
“That's exactly what I was recommending to the Mar-quesa Guesteni. I
said, you need n't believe it. Why, how do we go anywhere, nowadays,
except by 'not believing' the evil stories that are told of our
entertainers.”
“Yes, yes; but I repeat that this is an infamous calumny. She, a
Countess, of a family second to none in all Italy; her father a Grand
d'Espagne. I 'll go to her this moment.”
“She'll not see you. She has just refused to see La Genori,” said the
Major, tartly. “Though, if a cracked reputation might have afforded any
sympathy, she might have admitted _her_.”
“What is to be done?” exclaimed the Princess, sorrowfully.
“Just what you suggested a few moments ago,--don't believe it. Hang
me, but good houses and good cooks are growing too scarce to make one
credulous of the ills that can be said of their owners.”
“I wish I knew what course to take,” muttered the Princess.
“I'll tell you, then. Get half a dozen of your own set together
to-morrow morning, vote the whole story an atrocious falsehood, and
go in a body and tell the Countess your mind. You know as well as I,
Princess, that social credit is as great a bubble as commercial; we
should all of us be bankrupts if our books were seen. Ay, by Jove! and
the similitude goes farther too; for when one old established house
breaks, there is generally a crash in the whole community around it.”
While they thus talked, a knot had gathered around the carriage, all
eager to hear what opinion the Princess had formed on the catastrophe.
Various were the sentiments expressed by the different speakers,--some
sorrowfully deploring the disaster; others more eagerly inveighing
against the infamy of the man who had proclaimed it. Many declared that
they had come to the determination to discredit the story. Not one,
however, sincerely professed that he disbelieved it.
Can it be, as the French moralist asserts, that we have a latent sense
of satisfaction in the misfortunes of even our best friends; or is it,
as we rather suspect, that true friendship is a rarer thing than
is commonly believed, and has little to do with those conventional
intimacies which so often bear its name?
Assuredly of all this well-bred, well-dressed, and wellborn company, now
thronging the courtyard of the palace and the street in front of it, the
tone was as much sarcasm as sorrow, and many a witty epigram and smart
speech were launched over a disaster which might have been spared such
levity. At length the space slowly began to thin. Slowly carriage after
carriage drove off,--the heaviest grief of their occupants often being
over a lost _soirée_, an unprofited occasion to display toilette and
jewels; while a few, more reflective, discussed what course was to be
followed in future, and what recognition extended to the victim.
The next day Florence sat in committee over the lost Countess. Witnesses
were heard and evidence taken as to her case. They all agreed it was a
great hardship,--a terrible calamity; but still, if true, what could be
done?
Never was there a society less ungenerously prudish, and yet there were
cases--this, one of them--which transgressed all conventional rule.
Like a crime which no statute had ever contemplated, it stood out
self-accused and self-condemned. A few might, perhaps, have been
merciful, but they were overborne by numbers. Lady Glencore's beauty and
her vast fortune were now counts in the indictment against her, and many
a jealous rival was not sorry at this hour of humiliation. The despotism
of beauty is not a very mild sway, after all; and perhaps the Countess
had exercised her rule right royally. At all events, it was the young
and the good-looking who voted her exclusion, and only those who could
not enter into competition with her charms who took the charitable
side. They discussed and debated the question all day; but while they
hesitated over the reprieve, the prisoner was beyond the law. The gate
of the palace, locked and barred all day, refused entrance to every one;
at night, it opened to admit the exit of a travelling-carriage. The next
morning large bills of sale, posted over the walls, declared that all
the furniture and decorations-were to be sold.
The Countess had left Florence, none knew whither.
“I must really have those large Sèvres jars,” said one.
“And I, the small park phaeton,” cried another.
“I hope she has not taken Horace with her; he was the best cook in
Italy. Splendid hock she had,--I wonder is there much of it left?”
“I wish we were certain of another bad reputation to replace her,”
grunted out Scaresby; “they are the only kind of people who give good
dinners, and never ask for returns.”
And thus these dear friends--guests of a hundred brilliant
fêtes--discussed the fall of her they once had worshipped.
It may seem small-minded and narrow to stigmatize such conduct as this.
Some may say that for the ordinary courtesies of society no pledges of
friendship are required, no real gratitude incurred. Be it so. Still,
the revulsion, from habits of deference and respect, to disparagement,
and even sarcasm, is a sorry evidence of human kindness; and the
threshold, over which for years we had only passed as guests, might well
suggest sadder thoughts as we tread it to behold desolation.
The fair Countess had been the celebrity of that city for many a day.
The stranger of distinction sought her, as much as a matter of course
as he sought presentation to the sovereign. Her _salons_ had the double
eminence of brilliancy in rank and brilliancy in wit; her entertainments
were cited as models of elegance and refinement; and now she was gone!
The extreme of regret that followed her was the sorrow of those who were
to dine there no more; the grief of him who thought he should never have
a house like it.
The respectable vagabonds of society are a large family, much larger
than is usually supposed. They are often well born, almost always well
mannered, invariably well dressed. They do not, at first blush, appear
to discharge any very great or necessary function in life; but we must
by no means, from that, infer their inutility. Naturalists tell us
that several varieties of insect existence we rashly set down as mere
annoyances, have their peculiar spheres of usefulness and good; and,
doubtless, these same loungers contribute in some mysterious manner to
the welfare of that state which they only seem to burden. We are told
that but for flies, for instance, we should be infested with myriads of
winged tormentors, insinuating themselves into our meat and drink, and
rendering life miserable. Is there not something very similar performed
by the respectable class I allude to? Are they not invariably devouring
and destroying some vermin a little smaller than themselves, and making
thus a healthier atmosphere for their betters? If good society only knew
the debt it owes to these defenders of its privileges, a “Vagabonds'
Home and Aged Asylum” would speedily figure amongst bur national
charities.
We have been led to these thoughts by observing how distinctly different
was Major Scaresby's tone in talking of the Countess when he addressed
his betters or spoke in his own class. To the former he gave vent to all
his sarcasm and bitterness; they liked it just because they would n't
condescend to it themselves. To his own he put on the bullying air of
one who said, “How should _you_ possibly know what vices such great
people have, any more than you know what they have for dinner? _I_ live
amongst them,--_I_ understand them,--_I_ am aware that what would be
very shocking in _you_ is quite permissible to _them_. _They_ know
how to be wicked; _you_ only know how to be gross.” And thus Scaresby
talked, and sneered, and scoffed, making such a hash of good and evil,
such a Maelstrom of right and wrong, that it were a subtle moralist who
could have extracted one solitary scrap of uncontaminated meaning from
all his muddy lucubrations.
He, however, effected this much: he kept the memory of her who had
gone, alive by daily calumnies. He embalmed her in poisons, each morning
appearing with some new trait of her extravagance, till the world, grown
sick of himself and his theme, vowed they would hear no more of either;
and so she was forgotten.
Ay, good reader, utterly forgotten! The gay world, for so it likes to be
called, has no greater element of enjoyment amongst all its high gifts
than its precious power of forgetting. It forgets not only all it
owes to others,--gratitude, honor, and esteem,--but even the closer
obligations it has contracted with itself. The Palazzo della Torre was
for a fortnight the resort of the curious and the idle. At the sale
crowds appeared to secure some object of especial value to each;
and then the gates were locked, the shutters closed, and a large,
ill-written notice on the door announced that any letters for the
proprietor were to be addressed to “Pietro Arretini, Via del Sole.”