We are here (in the country) among the vast and noble scenes
of Nature; we are there (in the town) among the pitiful
shifts of policy. We walk here in the light and open ways of
the divine bounty,--we grope therein the dark and confused
labyrinths of human malice; our senses are here feasted with
all the clear and genuine taste of their objects, which are
all sophisticated there, and for the most part overwhelmed
with their contraries: here pleasure, methinks, looks like a
beautiful, constant, and modest wife; it is there an
impudent, fickle, and painted harlot.--COWLEY.
Draw up the curtain! The scene is the Opera.
The pit is crowded; the connoisseurs in the front row are in a very ill
humour. It must be confessed that extreme heat is a little trying to the
temper of a critic.
The Opera then was not what it is now, nor even what it had been in a
former time. It is somewhat amusing to find Goldsmith questioning,
in one of his essays, whether the Opera could ever become popular in
England. But on the night--on which the reader is summoned to that
“theatre of sweet sounds” a celebrated singer from the Continent made
his first appearance in London, and all the world thronged to “that
odious Opera-house” to hear, or to say they had heard, the famous
Sopraniello.
With a nervous step, Clarence proceeded to Lady Westborough’s box; and
it was many minutes that he lingered by the door before he summoned
courage to obtain admission.
He entered; the box was crowded; but Lady Flora was not there. Lord
Borodaile was sitting next to Lady Westborough. As Clarence entered,
Lord Borodaile raised his eyebrows, and Lady Westborough her glass.
However disposed a great person may be to drop a lesser one, no one of
real birth or breeding ever cuts another. Lady Westborough, therefore,
though much colder, was no less civil than usual; and Lord Borodaile
bowed lower than ever to Mr. Linden, as he punctiliously called him.
But Clarence’s quick eye discovered instantly that he was no welcome
intruder, and that his day with the beautiful marchioness was over. His
visit, consequently, was short and embarrassed. When he left the box,
he heard Lord Borodaile’s short, slow, sneering laugh, followed by Lady
Westborough’s “hush” of reproof.
His blood boiled. He hurried along the passage, with his eyes fixed upon
the ground and his hand clenched.
“What ho! Linden, my good fellow; why, you look as if all the ferocity
of the great Figg were in your veins,” cried a good-humoured voice.
Clarence started, and saw the young and high-spirited Duke of
Haverfield.
“Are you going behind the scenes?” said his grace. “I have just come
thence; and you had much better drop into La Meronville’s box with me.
You sup with her to-night, do you not?
“No, indeed!” replied Clarence; “I scarcely know her, except by sight.”
“Well, and what think you of her?”
“That she is the prettiest Frenchwoman I ever saw.”
“Commend me to secret sympathies!” cried the duke. “She has asked
me three times who you were, and told me three times you were the
handsomest man in London and had quite a foreign air; the latter
recommendation being of course far greater than the former. So,
after this, you cannot refuse to accompany me to her box and make her
acquaintance.”
“Nay,” answered Clarence, “I shall be too happy to profit by the taste
of so discerning a person; but it is cruel in you, Duke, not to feign
a little jealousy,--a little reluctance to introduce so formidable a
rival.”
“Oh, as to me,” said the duke, “I only like her for her mental, not
her personal, attractions. She is very agreeable, and a little witty;
sufficient attractions for one in her situation.”
“But do tell me a little of her history,” said Clarence, “for, in spite
of her renown, I only know her as La belle Meronville. Is she not living
en ami with some one of our acquaintance?”
“To be sure,” replied the duke, “with Lord Borodaile. She is
prodigiously extravagant; and Borodaile affects to be prodigiously fond:
but as there is only a certain fund of affection in the human heart, and
all Lord Borodaile’s is centred in Lord Borodaile, that cannot really be
the case.”
“Is he jealous of her?” said Clarence.
“Not in the least! nor indeed, does she give him any cause. She is very
gay, very talkative, gives excellent suppers, and always has her box at
the Opera crowded with admirers; but that is all. She encourages many,
and favours but one. Happy Borodaile! My lot is less fortunate! You
know, I suppose, that Julia has deserted me?”
“You astonish me,--and for what?”
“Oh, she told me, with a vehement burst of tears, that she was convinced
I did not love her, and that a hundred pounds a month was not sufficient
to maintain a milliner’s apprentice. I answered the first assertion by
an assurance that I adored her: but I preserved a total silence with
regard to the latter; and so I found Trevanion tete-a-tete with her the
next day.”
“What did you?” said Clarence.
“Sent my valet to Trevanion with an old coat of mine, my compliments,
and my hopes that, as Mr. Trevanion was so fond of my cast-off
conveniences, he would honour me by accepting the accompanying trifle.”
“He challenged you, without doubt?”
“Challenged me! No: he tells all his friends that I am the wittiest man
in Europe.”
“A fool can speak the truth, you see,” said Clarence, laughing.
“Thank you, Linden; you shall have my good word with La Meronville for
that: mais allons.”
Mademoiselle de la Meronville, as she pointedly entitled herself, was
one of those charming adventuresses, who, making the most of a
good education and a prepossessing person, a delicate turn for
letter-writing, and a lively vein of conversation, came to England for
a year or two, as Spaniards were wont to go to Mexico, and who return
to their native country with a profound contempt for the barbarians whom
they have so egregiously despoiled. Mademoiselle de la Meronville was
small, beautifully formed, had the prettiest hands and feet in the
world, and laughed musically. By the by, how difficult it is to laugh,
or even to smile, at once naturally and gracefully! It is one of
Steele’s finest touches of character, where he says of Will Honeycombe,
“He can smile when one speaks to him, and laughs easily.”
In a word, the pretty Frenchwoman was precisely formed to turn the head
of a man like Lord Borodaile, who loved to be courted and who required
to be amused. Mademoiselle de la Meronville received Clarence with a
great deal of grace, and a little reserve, the first chiefly natural,
the last wholly artificial.
“Well,” said the duke (in French), “you have not told me who are to be
of your party this evening,--Borodaile, I suppose, of course?”
“No, he cannot come to-night.”
“Ah, quel malheur! then the hock will not be iced enough: Borodaile’s
looks are the best wine-coolers in the world.”
“Fie!” cried La Meronville, glancing towards Clarence, “I cannot endure
your malevolence; wit makes you very bitter.”
“And that is exactly the reason why La belle Meronville loves me so:
nothing is so sweet to one person as bitterness upon another; it is
human nature and French nature (which is a very different thing) into
the bargain.”
“Bah! my Lord Duke, you judge of others by yourself.”
“To be sure I do,” cried the duke; “and that is the best way of forming
a right judgment. Ah! what a foot, that little figurante has; you don’t
admire her, Linden?”
“No, Duke; my admiration is like the bird in the cage,--chained here,
and cannot fly away!” answered Clarence, with a smile at the frippery of
his compliment.
“Ah, Monsieur,” cried the pretty Frenchwoman, leaning back, “you have
been at Paris, I see: one does not learn those graces of language in
England. I have been five months in your country; brought over the
prettiest dresses imaginable, and have only received three compliments,
and (pity me!) two out of the three were upon my pronunciation of ‘How
do you do?’”
“Well,” said Clarence, “I should have imagined that in England, above
all other countries, your vanity would have been gratified, for you know
we pique ourselves on our sincerity, and say all we think.”
“Yes? then you always think very unpleasantly. What an alternative!
which is the best, to speak ill or to think ill of one?”
“Pour l’amour de Dieu,” cried the duke, “don’t ask such puzzling
questions; you are always getting into those moral subtleties, which
I suppose you learn from Borodaile. He is a wonderful metaphysician, I
hear; I can answer for his chemical powers: the moment he enters a room
the very walls grow damp; as for me, I dissolve; I should flow into
a fountain, like Arethusa, if happily his lordship did not freeze one
again into substance as fast as he dampens one into thaw.”
“Fi donc!” cried La Meronville. “I should be very angry had you not
taught me to be very indifferent--”
“To him!” said the duke, dryly. “I’m glad to hear it. He is not worth
une grande passion, believe me; but tell me, ma belle, who else sups
with you?”
“D’abord, Monsieur Linden, I trust,” answered La Meronville, with a look
of invitation, to which Clarence bowed and smiled his assent, “Milord
D----, and Monsieur Trevanion, Mademoiselle Caumartin, and Le Prince
Pietro del Ordino.”
“Nothing can be better arranged,” said the duke. “But see, they are just
going to drop the curtain. Let me call your carriage.”
“You are too good, milord,” replied La Meronville, with a bow which
said, “of course;” and the duke, who would not have stirred three paces
for the first princess of the blood, hurried out of the box (despite
of Clarence’s offer to undertake the commission) to inquire after the
carriage of the most notorious adventuress of the day.
Clarence was alone in the box with the beautiful Frenchwoman. To
say truth, Linden was far too much in love with Lady Flora, and too
occupied, as to his other thoughts, with the projects of ambition, to
be easily led into any disreputable or criminal liaison; he therefore
conversed with his usual ease, though with rather more than his usual
gallantry, without feeling the least touched by the charms of La
Meronville or the least desirous of supplanting Lord Borodaile in her
favour.
The duke reappeared, and announced the carriage. As, with La Meronville
leaning on his arm, Clarence hurried out, he accidentally looked up,
and saw on the head of the stairs Lady Westborough with her party (Lord
Borodaile among the rest) in waiting for her carriage. For almost the
first time in his life, Clarence felt ashamed of himself; his cheek
burned like fire, and he involuntarily let go the fair hand which was
leaning upon his arm. However, the weaker our course the better face we
should put upon it, and Clarence, recovering his presence of mind, and
vainly hoping he had not been perceived, buried his face as well as he
was able in the fur collar of his cloak, and hurried on.
“You saw Lord Borodaile?” said the duke to La Meronville, as he handed
her into her carriage.
“Yes, I accidentally looked back after we had passed him, and then I saw
him.”
“Looked back!” said the duke; “I wonder he did not turn you into a
pillar of salt.”
“Fi donc!” cried La belle Meronville, tapping his grace playfully on the
arm, in order to do which she was forced to lean a little harder upon
Clarence’s, which she had not yet relinquished--“Fi donc! Francois, chez
moi!”
“My carriage is just behind,” said the duke. “You will go with me to La
Meronville’s, of course?”
“Really, my dear duke,” said Clarence, “I wish I could excuse myself
from this party. I have another engagement.”
“Excuse yourself? and leave me to the mercy of Mademoiselle Caumartin,
who has the face of an ostrich, and talks me out of breath! Never, my
dear Linden, never! Besides, I want you to see how well I shall behave
to Trevanion. Here is the carriage. Entrez, mon cher.”
And Clarence, weakly and foolishly (but he was very young and very
unhappy, and so, longing for an escape from his own thoughts) entered
the carriage, and drove to the supper party, in order to prevent the
Duke of Haverfield being talked out of breath by Mademoiselle Caumartin,
who had the face of an ostrich.