In the evening we talked over our little adventure with Sir John, who
entered warmly into the distresses of Fanny and was inclined to adopt
our opinion, that if her character and attainments stood the test of a
strict inquiry, she might hereafter be transplanted into their family as
governess. We were interrupted in the formation of this plan by a visit
from Lady Melbury, the acknowledged queen of beauty and of ton. I had
long been acquainted with her character, for her charms and her
accomplishments were the theme of every man of fashion, and the envy of
every modish woman.
She is one of those admired but pitiable characters, who, sent by
Providence as an example to their sex, degrade themselves into a
warning. Warm-hearted, feeling, liberal on the one hand; on the other
vain, sentimental, romantic, extravagantly addicted to dissipation and
expense, and with that union of contrarieties which distinguishes her,
equally devoted to poetry and gaming, to liberality and injustice. She
is too handsome to be envious, and too generous to have any relish for
detraction, but she gives to excess into the opposite fault. As Lady
Denham can detect blemishes in the most perfect, Lady Melbury finds
perfections in the most depraved. From a judgment which can not
discriminate, a temper which will not censure, and a hunger for
popularity, which can feed on the coarsest applause, she flatters
egregiously and universally, on the principle of being paid back
usuriously in the same coin. Prodigal of her beauty, she exists but on
the homage paid to it from the drawing-room at St. James's, to the mob
at an election. Candor in her is as mischievous as calumny in others,
for it buoys up characters which ought to sink. Not content with being
blind to the bad qualities of her favorites, she invents good ones for
them, and you would suppose her corrupt "little senate" was a choir of
seraphims.
A recent circumstance related by Sir John was quite characteristical.
Her favorite maid was dangerously ill, and earnestly begged to see her
lady, who always had loaded her with favors. To all company she talked
of the virtues of the poor Toinette, for whom she not only expressed,
but felt real compassion. Instead of one apothecary who would have
sufficed, two physicians were sent for; and she herself resolved to go
up and visit her, as soon as she had finished setting to music an elegy
on the death of her Java sparrow. Just as she had completed it, she
received a fresh entreaty to see her maid, and was actually got to the
door in order to go up stairs, when the milliner came in with such a
distracting variety of beautiful new things, that there was no
possibility of letting them go till she had tried every thing on, one
after the other. This took up no little time. To determine which she
should keep and which return, where all was so attractive, took up still
more. After numberless vicissitudes and fluctuations of racking thought,
it was at length decided she should take the whole. The milliner
withdrew; the lady went up--Toinette had just expired.
I found her manners no less fascinating than her person. With all her
modish graces, there was a tincture of romance and an appearance of
softness and sensibility which gave her the variety of two characters.
She was the enchanting woman of fashion, and the elegiac muse.
Lady Belfield had taken care to cover her work-table with Fanny's
flowers, with a view to attract any chance visitor. Lady Melbury admired
them excessively. "You must do more than admire them," said Lady
Belfield, "you must buy and recommend." She then told her the affecting
scene we had witnessed, and described the amiable girl who supported the
dying mother by making these flowers. "It is quite enchanting,"
continued she, resolving to attack Lady Melbury in her own sentimental
way, "to see this sweet girl twisting rose-buds, and forming hyacinths
into bouquets." "Dear, how charming!" exclaimed Lady Melbury, "it is
really quite touching. I will make a subscription for her, and write at
the head of the list a melting description of her case. She shall bring
me all her flowers, and as many more as she can make. But no, we will
make a party, and go and see her. You shall carry me. How interesting to
see a beautiful creature making roses and hyacinths! her delicate hands
and fair complexion must be amazingly set off by the contrast of the
bright flowers. If it were a coarse-looking girl spinning hemp, to be
sure one should pity her, but it would not be half so moving. It will be
delightful. I will call on you to-morrow, exactly at two, and carry you
all. Perhaps," whispered she to Lady Belfield, "I may work up the
circumstances into a sonnet. Do think of a striking title for it. On
second thoughts, the sonnet shall be sent about with the subscription,
and I'll get a pretty vignette to suit it."
"That fine creature," said Sir John, in an accent of compassion, as she
went out, "was made for nobler purposes. How grievously does she fall
short of the high expectations her early youth had raised! Oh! what a
sad return does she make to Providence for his rich and varied
bounties. Vain of her beauty, lavish of her money, careless of her
reputation; associating with the worst company, yet formed for the best;
living on the adulation of parasites, whose understanding she despises!
I grieve to compare what she is with what she might have been, had she
married a man of spirit, who would prudently have guided and tenderly
have restrained her. He has ruined her and himself by his indifference
and easiness of temper. Satisfied with knowing how much she is admired
and he envied, he never thought of reproving or restricting her. He is
proud of her, but has no particular delight in her company, and trusting
to her honor, lets her follow her own devices, while he follows his. She
is a striking instance of the eccentricity of that bounty which springs
from mere sympathy and feeling. Her charity requires stage effect;
objects that have novelty, and circumstances which, as Mr. Bayes says,
'elevate and surprise.' She lost, when an infant, her mother, a woman of
sense and piety; who, had she lived, would have formed the ductile mind
of the daughter, turned her various talents into other channels, and
raised her character to the elevation it was meant to reach."
"How melancholy a consideration is it," said I, "that so superior a
woman should live so much below her high destination! She is doubtless
utterly destitute of any thought of religion."
"You are much mistaken," replied Sir John, "I will not indeed venture to
pronounce that she entertains much _thought_ about it; but she by no
means denies its truth, nor neglects occasionally to exhibit its outward
and visible signs. She has not yet completely forgotten
All that the nurse and all the priest have taught.
I do not think that, like Lady Denham, she considers it as a
commutation, but she preserves it as a habit. A religious exercise,
however, never interferes with a worldly one. They are taken up in
succession, but with this distinction, the worldly business is to be
done, the religious one is not altogether to be left undone. She has a
moral chemistry which excels in the amalgamation of contradictory
ingredients. On a Sunday at Melbury castle if by any strange accident
she and her lord happen to be there together, she first reads him a
sermon, and plays at cribbage with him the rest of the evening. In town
one Sunday when she had a cold she wrote a tract on the sacrament, for
her maids, and then sat up all night at deep play. She declared if she
had been successful she would have given her winnings to charity; but as
she lost some hundreds, she said she could now with a safe conscience
borrow that sum from her charity purse, which she had hoped to add to
it, to pay her debt of honor."
Next day, within two hours of her appointed time, she came, and was
complimented by Sir John on her punctuality. "Indeed," said she, "I _am_
rather late, but I met with such a fascinating German novel, that it
positively chained me to my bed till past three. I assure you, I never
lose time by not rising. In the course of a few winters I have exhausted
half Hookham's catalogue, before some of my acquaintance are awake, or I
myself out of bed."
We soon stopped at the humble door of which we were in search. Sir John
conducted Lady Melbury up the little winding stairs. I assisted Lady
Belfield. We reached the room, where Fanny was just finishing a
beautiful bunch of jonquils. "How picturesque," whispered Lady Melbury
to me. "Do lend me your pencil; I must take a sketch of that sweet girl
with the jonquils in her hand. My dear creature," continued she, "you
must not only let me have these, but you must make me twelve dozen more
flowers as fast as possible, and be sure let me have a great many sprigs
of jessamine and myrtle." Then snatching up a wreath of various colored
geraniums--"I must try this on my head by the glass." So saying she ran
into an adjoining room, the door of which was open; Lady Belfield having
before stolen into it to speak to the poor invalid.
As soon as Lady Melbury got into the room, she uttered a loud shriek.
Sir John and I ran in, and were shocked to find her near fainting. "Oh,
Belfield," said she, "this is a trick, and a most cruel one! Why did you
not tell me where you were bringing me? Why did you not tell me the
people's name?" "I have never heard it myself," said Sir John, "on my
honor I do not understand you." "You know as much of the woman as I
know," said Lady Belfield. "Alas, much more," cried she, as fast as her
tears would give her leave to speak. She retired to the window for air,
wringing her hands, and called for a glass of water to keep her from
fainting. I turned to the sick woman for an explanation; I saw her
countenance much changed.
"This sir," said she, "is the lady, whose debt of seven hundred pounds
ruined me, and was the death of my husband." I was thunderstruck, but
went to assist Lady Melbury, who implored Sir John to go home with her
instantly, saying, her coach should come back for us. "But, dear Lady
Belfield, do lend me twenty guineas, I have not a shilling about me."
"Then, my dear Lady Melbury," said Lady Belfield, "how _could_ you order
twelve dozen expensive flowers?" "Oh," said she, "I did not mean to have
paid for them till next year." "And how," replied Lady Belfield, "could
the debt which was not to have been paid for a twelvemonth have relieved
the pressing wants of a creature who must pay ready money for her
materials? However, as you are so distressed we will contrive to do
without your money." "I would pawn my diamond necklace directly,"
returned she, but speaking lower, "to own the truth, it is already in
the jeweler's hands, and I wear a paste necklace of the same form."
Sir John knowing I had been at my banker's that morning, gave me such a
significant look as restrained my hand, which was already on my
pocket-book. In great seeming anguish, she gave Sir John her hand, who
conducted her to her coach. As he was leading her down stairs, she
solemnly declared she would never again run in debt, never order more
things than she wanted, and above all, would never play while she lived.
She was miserable, because she durst not ask Lord Melbury to pay this
woman, he having already given her money three times for the purpose,
which she had lost at Faro. Then retracting, she protested, if ever she
_did_ touch a card again, it should be for the sole purpose of getting
something to discharge this debt. Sir John earnestly conjured her not to
lay "that flattering unction to her soul," but to convert the present
vexation into an occasion of felicity, by making it the memorable and
happy era of abandoning a practice which injured her fortune, her fame,
her principles, and her peace. "Poor thing," said Sir John, when he
repeated this to us,
"Ease will recant
Vows made in pain, as violent and void."
"In an interval of weeping, she told me," added he, "that she was to be
at the opera to-night. To the opera Faro will succeed, and to-morrow
probably the diamond earrings will go to Grey's in pursuit of the
necklace."
Lady Belfield inquired of Fanny how it happened that Lady Melbury, who
talked with _her_, without surprise or emotion, discovered so much of
both at the bare sight of her mother. The girl explained this by saying,
that she had never been in the way while they lived in Bond-street when
her ladyship used to come, having been always employed in an upper room,
or attending her masters.
Before we parted, effectual measures were taken for the comfortable
subsistence of the sick mother, and for alleviating the sorrows, and
lightening the labors of her daughter, and next morning I set out on my
journey for Stanley Grove, Sir John and Lady Belfield promising to
follow me in a few weeks.
* * * * *
As soon as I got into my post-chaise, and fairly turned my back on
London, I fell into a variety of reflections on the persons with whom I
had been living. In this soliloquy, I was particularly struck with that
discrepancy of characters, all of which are yet included under the broad
comprehensive appellation of _Christians_. I found that though all
differed widely from each other, they differed still more widely from
that rule by which they professed to walk. Yet not one of these
characters was considered as disreputable. There was not one that was
profane or profligate. Not one who would not in conversation have
defended Christianity if its truth had been attacked. Not one who
derided or even neglected its forms; and who in her own class would not
have passed for religious. Yet how little had any one of them adorned
the profession she adopted! Of Mrs. Ranby, Mrs. Fentham, Lady Bab
Lawless, Lady Denham, Lady Melbury, which of them would not have been
startled had her Christianity been called in question? Yet how merely
speculative was the religion of even the most serious among them! How
superficial, or inconsistent, or mistaken, or hollow, or hypocritical,
or self-deceiving was that of all the others! Had either of them been
asked from what source she drew her religion, she would indignantly have
answered, from the Bible. Yet if we compare the copy with the model,
the Christian with Christianity, how little can we trace the
resemblance! In what particular did their lives imitate the life of Him
_who pleased not himself_, who _did the will of his Father_; who _went
about doing good_? How irreconcilable is their faith with the principles
which He taught! How dissimilar their practice with the precepts He
delivered! How inconsistent their lives with the example He bequeathed!
How unfounded their hope of heaven, if an entrance into heaven be
restricted to those who are _like minded with Christ_!