----At first
I stuck my choice upon her, ere my heart
Durst make too bold a herald of my tongue:
Where the impression of mine eye enfixing,
Contempt his scornful perspective did lend me,
Which warp’d the line of every other favour;
Scorn’d a fair colour, or express’d it stol’n;
Extended or contracted all proportions
To a most hideous object.
SHAKSPEARE.
Germain and Fitzalbert remained some time at ----, not knowing exactly
where to transport themselves. Most of the friends of the latter, of
whose hospitality he meant to avail himself during the dead months, had
not yet established themselves in their country quarters.
Fitzalbert now passed all his mornings in bed, having a happy facility
of sleeping in the absence of every other amusement, and this he
enjoyed in spite of the situation of his bed, which was so near the
window that he could, from his pillow, command the whole range of
bathing-machines, and might, if he pleased, trace the entrance of the
well-flounced petticoat at one door, and the exit of the somewhat
tighter fitting bathing-dress at the other.
Germain, who was habitually an early riser, determined to avail himself
of this independence of the companionship of his friend, to ease his
conscience of the promised visit to the Dormers.
Of all the minor social sins, none entails so acute a sense of shame as
a past and repented-of flirtation--and it was with very uncomfortable
feelings of guilty embarrassment, that Germain approached the lodging
of his former mistress, to whom he had once paid attentions so
assiduous. Not but that he must be acquitted of any legal offence:
he never had involved himself in any engagement, or even committed
himself by a declaration--he had never indeed been guilty of any thing
more definite and positive than exchanging awkward and sheepish looks
across the pew, when her father published the Sunday’s banns. However,
the apothecary’s wife had long settled that the parson’s pupil and
his daughter would make a sweet pair, and were likely to have a fine
family; and the attorney’s lady hinted that Mr. Dormer knew where good
settlements were to be had.
There were many local associations about the place, where they had
formerly met, which had conspired to excite Germain’s tender feelings.
The parsonage itself was pretty and pastoral--with the early morning
his eye would wander from his book to follow the form of Fanny,
watering the rose-beds under his window; and after the studies of the
day, they used to drink tea together in a woodbine arbour. Add to all
this, that he was but eighteen; and if there ever was a youth of that
age who could resist the perpetual propinquity of a liquid blue eye,
and a fair fresh skin, he is a monster whom the whole sex will have
given up in despair before he is five-and-twenty.
But three years had since elapsed, and in the meantime Germain’s mind
had been as much enlarged as Fanny Dormer’s person. The place of
meeting, too, instead of reviving the charm of consistent propriety,
was incongruous and inconvenient; and whilst waiting in the narrow
passage of the paper-built lodging-house, it was in vain that he
endeavoured to fortify himself with souvenirs of beds of roses and
woodbine bowers, against the overpowering smell of fried sole which
arose from the intrusive kitchen below. The small side parlour into
which he was shown, and into which were crowded Mr. Dormer, Fanny,
and her multitudinous occupations, presented the appearance of
confusion without comfort. Mr. Dormer was stuck in an easy chair in one
corner--his attention agreeably divided between his lumbago and the
county paper.
There was nothing extraordinary in Fanny’s reception of her visitor;
but as Germain’s eye fell upon the out-stretched hand which accompanied
the greeting, he remarked that her fingers (unlike Aurora’s) were
tipped with ink--no very singular consequence of writing most of the
morning, but one that would never have been remarked by a lover.
“I hope I don’t interrupt you,” said Germain.
“Always a welcome interruption,” replied Mr. Dormer; “but you would be
puzzled to time your visit so as to find Fanny idle.”
And, indeed, that indefatigable young lady, besides the usual
allowance of scribbling, which had produced the disfiguring effects
upon her fingers noted above, had been employed in sorting Scotch
pebbles and sand-stones, spreading dried sea-weed, and was now engaged
in preparing sundry articles for a Ladies’ Repository--an ingenious
establishment, for which many ladies waste more money in purchasing
materials, than industrious work-women would charge for the finished
articles, in order to have the pleasure of seeing charity distributed,
and the needy relieved, not in proportion as food is wanted, but as
fire-screens are fancied. To this Fanny was a zealous but a thrifty
contributor, and she was now occupied in rounding emery strawberries,
the foliage of which was to be formed of scraps of her light green
cloth pelisse.
Germain commenced the conversation by attempting some awkward
compliments upon her notable pursuits, but as he felt himself in a
false position, he was relieved by Mr. Dormer’s addressing him.
“Upon my word, Mr. Germain, you do no credit to your keep since you
left us--you have not fared so well in those meagre countries where you
have been, as you used to do, upon my fattened cuyleys and seven years
old moor-mutton, and some of Fanny’s firmity for supper.”
The fact was, that the mode of life Germain had been lately leading at
Paris, was not near so much calculated for the promotion of “too solid
flesh,” as the vegetating state of existence at Rosedale Rectory, where
even sentiment was rather soporific.
“I suppose,” continued Mr. Dormer, “that they half starved you in those
Catholic countries with their fast days.”
But Germain protesting that he never had suffered any positive
privation, Mr. Dormer, by a natural transition from body to soul,
turned to the other subject, almost as constantly in his mind; and
after folding in an important manner the newspaper he held in his hand,
he began.
“Pray, Mr. Germain, might I ask whether in those popish parts you have
lately visited, you were ever unfortunate enough to be present at any
of those sacrifices to superstition--those auto-da-fès--those burnings
of heretics?”
“No, indeed,” replied Germain, rather surprised: “nor was I aware that
any events of the kind had taken place within the memory of man. This
is the first I ever heard of it.”
“I am sorry, my young friend,” rejoined Mr. Dormer, with an air of
reproach, “to find that you have made so little use of your time--that
you have not been a more observant traveller.”
Then again unfolding the county paper, he read aloud, with earnest
emphasis, the words in italics.
“_Characteristics of Catholicism--Burning of a Jew._ It is, we are
proud to say, not a little owing to _our_ unceasing efforts in the
_good Protestant cause_, that these burning piles are seen only as
a warning beacon from afar--that the flames are not now kindled in
Smithfield, or the crackling faggots heard in the market-place beneath
our own office-window. For if such is the treatment of the papists
towards an unoffending _Israelite_, what might we expect, if they had
the power, towards the objects of their unceasing detestation--the
_loyal Protestants_ of these most _religious realms_? Yet there are
amongst us those infatuated enough to wish to open wide our doors to
them. What doors? and to whom?--why the very doors of those two houses
of parliament which, never let it be forgotten, they conspired to blow
to atoms with their hellish popish plot.”
Germain, perceiving that his worthy friend was not in a state of mind
for serious argument, simply asked: “Do you think, sir, the Catholics
would be so much more likely to blow up the parliament, if they had
seats in it themselves?”
“God forbid we should ever try!” ejaculated the Rev. Mr. Dormer;
in which short question and answer is contained the epitome of the
arguments on either side, which are sometimes diluted into many
successive nights’ debate on this somewhat threadbare subject.
“But come, Mr. Germain,” said Mr. Dormer, after a pause, “music
has charms, and Fanny shall delight you with ‘Home, sweet Home.’”
Accordingly Fanny posted herself obediently at a jingling upright
piano-forte, and began.
It is a penalty upon the popularity of a piece of music in England,
that in six months every hand-organist grinds it, and every ostler
whistles it; and the attraction which in this instance it originally
owed to one person alone, is perpetually weakened by its being screamed
or slurred over by every young lady who has a single note in her voice,
and most of those who have none.
“It is not so much,” said Mr. Dormer, “Fanny’s musical talent, as that
she sings it with so much depth of true domestic feeling.”
Germain bowed an extorted assent to the paternal puff, and repeated
mechanically, “So much depth of true domestic feeling.”
The extremes of art and nature sometimes touch each other, and even
Lady Flamborough, with all her manœuvring, could not have attempted
a more home thrust, as a maternal manager, than Mr. Dormer, in the
simplicity of his heart, gave utterance to, in this mere ebullition
of natural affection. But Germain was at present proof against the
remaining charms of Fanny Dormer--he felt triply armed against a
relapse by the consciousness of a vast foot, thick waist, and inky
fingers; and not a little ashamed of his former weakness, he brought
his visit to an abrupt conclusion.
Upon Germain’s return to his lodgings, he found Oakley’s letter,
announcing the death of their uncle; but as this letter had followed
him from place to place, resting by the way at sundry country
post-offices, it did not forestall the regular notice of the event in
the London papers.
Germain was not a little surprised at Oakley’s dwelling much more, in
the first part of his letter, upon the loss he had sustained in the
death of a relation he had never known, than upon the acquisition of a
fortune which he had always expected. From this turning to the concerns
of his friend, Oakley continued--
“I can assure you, my dear Germain, that neither this important change
in my own fortune, nor the agitation of the unexpected event which
caused it, has prevented me from reflecting much and seriously on your
future prospects, such as I think I am able to foresee them, from the
insight that long intimacy has given me into your disposition, and
however unwelcome to you it may be, I cannot but repeat, that the
unhappy facility of your temper which renders it an impossibility to
you to say, ‘No,’ will open your purse to every sharper, and surrender
your heart to the first flirt you meet. This last is a danger, however,
against which it is quite out of my province to guard you; but as
to the first, though I cannot prevent it, I may postpone its evil
consequences to you; and as you are always in want of money, and I have
now more than I shall ever know what to do with, I have desired my
banker, without limitation, to answer your drafts.”
“Generous fellow! his conclusion is admirable, though his reasoning is
somewhat defective,” thought Germain, calling to mind, with consolatory
consciousness, what had passed since they parted, and that he had
escaped being either Fitzalbert’s dupe, or Fanny Dormer’s victim.
He found Fitzalbert still _en robe de chambre_, at the breakfast-table,
over muffins and shrimps.
“Nothing in the newspaper,” said he; “I have just finished it. Let
me see; ‘Marriages.--Mr. John Smith to Miss Jane Brown, both of
this town.’--Important. ‘Birth.--At Little Warren, the lady of the
Rev. Peter Parsley was brought to bed of twins, being her nineteenth
and twentieth.’--More inconvenient to the Rev. Peter Parsley than
interesting to us. But, what is this?--‘Died, on Thursday last, at
Rockington Castle, George James, Lord Viscount Rockington;--by his
lordship’s demise, the ancient title becomes extinct, but all his ample
fortunes descend to his nephew, Ernest Oakley, Esq.’ Did you know this,
Germain?”
“I have just heard from Oakley, announcing the event.”
“Oakley! well, I wish it had been you.--I hope, however, he will make a
proper use of it. By the bye, Béchamel is now out of place: he should
write about him; he is quite a _cordon bleu_ for the first course; and
though he knows nothing about _pâtisserie_, of course Oakley will have
a confectioner.”
“All in good time,” said Germain; “he writes me word that he is about
to leave Rockington Castle for his other place, Goldsborough Park,
where he is wanted on business, by the late Lord Rockington’s agent for
that property. I think I shall go over and see him there.”
“I can drop you then, at the park-gate; for I have received a very
pressing summons from Lady Boreton, to join the party she has just
collected. You must meet me again at the Boretons: you are included in
the invitation, all in due form: ‘Know your family well’--‘old friend
of your mother’s;’--and so forth.”
Germain, to whom a long _tête-à-tête_ with Oakley in his present
temper, had few attractions, and who was also anxious as soon as
possible to establish himself in the world, caught readily at this
proposal of Fitzalbert’s.
“Will there,” said he, “be a large party at the Boretons?”
“Of that you may always feel yourself pretty sure; a little mixed,
sometimes; but I own that is no great objection to me--my taste is
become so depraved that I rather relish a tiger. From long usage, the
regular routine of the exclusives appears to me, ‘weary, flat,’ et
cetera. More than I envy Oakley the fulness of his purse, do I envy you
the freshness of your feelings. For after all, of what use are riches
but as the capital with which to purchase pleasure--the real free trade
which is all over at five-and-twenty? Then are our ports honestly open
for the reception of every agreeable sensation from without, but after
that we are subject to all the drawbacks of our artificial situation,
and fastidiousness is the protecting duty with which we starve our
senses.”
Germain, who had never heard Fitzalbert utter a serious sentence
before, was rather puzzled to know whether he was quizzing or not. To
avoid the awkwardness of mistaking his vein, he asked him: “Of what
species are the tigers we are to meet at Lady Boreton’s--physical or
intellectual--bucks or bores?”
“Principally the latter, for her ladyship is rather blue, and has
generally some hangers-on who dabble in literature, or skim the surface
of science. But don’t be alarmed--you will also meet Lady Latimer and
her two unmarried sisters--and these among them secure the attendance
of all the best men, whether marrying or otherwise, who can get
themselves invited. What would I give that Lady Latimer should be as
new to me as she is to you! Gladly would I suffer, as you will, from
the first fear of her frowns, to be rewarded with a faint hope of her
smiles--but, alas! we have long settled for life into easy intimacy and
friendly indifference. I am on this, as on every thing else--perfectly
_blasé_. Why is that phrase as exclusively French as the feeling is
English? It is long since any thing to my taste has seemed _fresh_,
except, indeed, these shrimps,” added he, changing his tone suddenly,
and adding another to the hecatomb of shells which crowded his
plate; after which he rose from the breakfast-table, and they made
arrangements for their departure on the morrow for Boreton Park, where
Germain was to join Fitzalbert, after having spent a night by the way
with his friend Oakley.
Lest the reader, however, should have as great a dread as Germain
himself of a _tête-à-tête_ with Oakley in his present gloomy temper,
we will not intrude beyond the park-gate where Fitzalbert deposited
his fellow-traveller with, “By the bye, Germain, you may as well see
if you can do any thing with Oakley about an exchange of that property
which joins Latimer Moors--you may remember I showed it to you at a
distance, from the top of that hill when I brought down both those two
old birds you had just missed.”