Then she plots, then she ruminates, then she devises; and what they
think in their hearts they may effect, they will break their hearts
but they will effect.
SHAKSPEARE.
The intercourse of society is maintained by a sort of tacit compact
between the few who are determined to have their own way, and the
many who consent to allow it them. If it were not thus, there would
be numberless contests about things very little worth the trouble of
contention. Of course, in these two classes there are various degrees,
and he who leads in one society will follow in another. But I am
alluding only to that temper of mind which disposes a man, when among
his equals, to drive or be driven; as one of these relative positions
sounds much pleasanter than the other, one would imagine that it would
be desired by every one who could attain it.
This, however, is far from being the case. Nor is the right to have
one’s own way, and the power of making others acknowledge it, founded
on any well-grounded claim. It is generally a matter of unaccountable
assumption on the one part, and concurrent concession on the other.
To be such a privileged person seems to depend merely upon a man’s
own taste and temper; and to the success of the attempt it is only
necessary that some sort of passport should be possessed which secures
admission into society, and prevents another’s power of “cutting dead,”
an alternative that would, if possible, be gladly adopted by all; but
this danger avoided, the enjoyments of sheer selfishness seem manifold.
Wherever such a person goes, the ninety and nine easily satisfied
guests are neglected, to study the price of him who is hard to please;
he may indulge uncontradicted in infinite paradox, any thing being
considered preferable to endless dispute. If after a course of such
studied indulgence, he should condescend to be agreeable, every one is
at once in ecstacies of gratitude, exclaiming, “How very delightful Mr.
So-and-so, can be!” whereas, if a systematically good-natured man is
ever provoked, by an unlucky concurrence of circumstances, to commit
himself by losing his temper, he is sure never to hear the last of it.
But the privileged person is not without some little drawbacks upon the
advantages of his situation, sitting as he does like an incubus upon
the spirits of society: he finds himself artfully omitted from any very
pleasant party; and if chance should ever cause him to linger near an
open door, or any such social trap for sincerity, he is not unlikely
to hear himself talked of without that restraint which the love of a
quiet life, and the dislike of a needless quarrel, felt by all prudent
people, may have caused in his presence.
Oakley was as yet by no means sufficiently known to have established
himself irrevocably in either of these classes, but the character which
he had acquired at college, and rather confirmed by the report of the
few persons whom he did not succeed in avoiding at Paris, was that of
“a stiff sort of fellow, whom it was very difficult to make out; clever
enough, certainly, but with nothing off-hand about him.”
This opinion, which had originally been thus elegantly expressed by
some jolly companions, for whom he had not attempted to conceal his
contempt, had been substantially repeated with some variation in the
terms, whenever his name was subsequently mentioned; and it was on this
that the general expectation in the minds of the party at Boreton Hall,
who were awaiting his arrival, was founded. The importance attached to
his adventitious acquisitions prevented his being allowed to drop in as
an indifferent item in the party; it became necessary either to reckon
upon him as a valuable addition, or to dread him as a bugbear, and the
latter alternative was generally adopted.
It was in consequence of this, and the disposition it produced, rather
to avoid his neighbourhood, that accident placed him, on the first day
of his arrival, by the side of Miss Mordaunt. He had not heard her
name, and the resemblance to his uncle, which had he done so could not
have failed to strike him, was not strong enough at once to explain
itself to him as the cause of the interest he felt in addressing her.
The young lady, though as usual, much engrossed by her other neighbour
Fitzalbert, whose ever-ready rattle still amused her, would not agree
with him afterwards, that Oakley had by any means, a forbidding
countenance, or that his smile at all partook of the nature of a sneer;
perhaps this difference of opinion may have arisen from that which
passed by the common name of smile, not having been a precisely similar
movement of the lips towards these two different persons.
Oakley hastened to inquire of Germain, the name of the young lady who
had been sitting next him.
“Oh,” said Germain, “it’s Miss--, Lady Latimer always calls her Helen;
Miss----let me see--one never remembers a name when one is asked.
Don’t you think Lady Latimer a most beautiful woman?”
“Very handsome, certainly; but for my part, I admire much more the lady
she is talking to; there is a great likeness between them, the one
without any thing in her hair.”
“That’s her sister, Lady Jane; a very pretty, and a very delightful
person, but not to be compared to Lady Latimer. There is no accounting
for tastes. There’s Fitzalbert, who sometimes takes strange fancies
into his head, says, that he doesn’t think either of them as pretty as
that Miss Mordaunt.”
“Miss Mordaunt?” eagerly inquired Oakley.
“That’s the young lady you were inquiring about--Miss Mordaunt; she
came here with Lady Latimer, who----”
“One word, Mr. Oakley,” said Lady Boreton, coming up between the two
friends, and interrupting the opportunity they would otherwise have
had, the one of talking about Lady Latimer, the other of thinking
about Helen Mordaunt. If Oakley had been better acquainted with Lady
Boreton, he would have had a more adequate horror of the interminable
nature of her “one word,” but as it was, he quietly submitted to follow
her to a sofa in a remote corner of the gallery, and to confine, as
far as possible, his attention to her ladyship’s somewhat digressive
confidences on the subject of county politics.
At length, her “one word” having proceeded at the rate of half a word
an hour, he was released for the evening; and then, when he retired
to his own apartment, the impressions made by the really important
communications on the subject of the coming election, which he had
been able to extract from Lady Boreton’s somewhat chaffy reasoning,
occasionally gave place to the pleasure he felt at thus unexpectedly
meeting one with whom circumstances had already somewhat mysteriously
connected him, and whose appearance seemed so well calculated to
confirm the predetermined favourable bent of his imagination.
The next morning, after breakfast, Lady Flamborough, having first
contrived some occupation for her two unmarried daughters, which should
prevent their being in the way, led Lady Latimer to her boudoir, being
anxious to have a private interview with her, which she meant should
partake of the mixed character of asking advice and giving a lecture.
For since Louisa’s marriage, and the consequent abrogation of maternal
authority on the part of Lady Flamborough, the usual relations between
mother and daughter had become a little confused, and the mother was
certainly the most to blame for any failure of that filial respect
which might have been hers, had she not herself shown that she
considered her own claims on that score as inferior to the deference
due to Lady Latimer’s artificial position in the world.
She had also lost much of her influence over her daughter, from the
latter having afterwards discovered some of the little manœuvres by
which her mother had attempted to promote her union with Lord Latimer,
and as, whatever her other faults might be, she was herself sincere and
single-hearted even to an extreme, she could not but feel dislike at
the means her mother had employed, even before she became sensible that
the end thus attained had far from contributed to her own happiness.
Not that one can therefore defend the playful malice with which she
sometimes endeavoured to defeat her mother’s management for her
sisters, for if her opinion of the mischievous effect it was likely to
produce, would not justify her in being the person thus to interfere,
it must also be confessed, that her own eager love of admiration was
sometimes not without its share in inducing her to make the attempt.
In spite, however, of the little annoyances of this description which
she sometimes gave her mother, Lady Flamborough was well aware, that
the brilliant éclat of her eldest daughter cast a reflected lustre
upon her sisters, and that if she could persuade her, which she had
often in vain attempted, to assist her in procuring for them suitable
establishments, she would be a most valuable auxiliary in any such
scheme.
It was to make one more effort of this kind, as well as to hint, if
possible, that she ought not herself to take possession of Germain,
that she had summoned her to her boudoir.
“I wished to consult you, my dear,” she began; “but, first let me look
at that beautiful cap--Herbault’s I perceive. I am not sure, that I
quite like the colour of those ribbons.”
“It’s quite new, however, and aptly entitled, _feu d’enfer_,” said Lady
Latimer.
“Well, you are certainly looking remarkably well, quite a different
thing since I saw you in London;” kissing a cheek, the brilliancy of
whose hue, even the trying neighbourhood of _feu d’enfer_ could not
injure. “But,” added she, “I wished to consult you about Sir Gregory
Greenford’s attentions to Caroline; his following her here certainly
must mean something.”
“Do you think so? He is generally most inexplicably void of meaning.
But, how do you know he followed her?”
“Oh, who can doubt it? He must have known that Lady Boreton would never
have asked him on any other account: he is not at all in her line.
But what I wished to say is this--that as Sir Gregory is soon going to
Newmarket with Lord Latimer, I thought a word, a hint from him on the
subject, might do great good.”
“My dear mamma, depend upon it, if Latimer takes that opportunity of
trying upon Sir Gregory his talents at match-making, it won’t be in
the _matrimonial_ line; and as I don’t perceive the advantages of any
description that I am to gain from having such a fraternal fool for the
rest of my life, you must excuse my interfering in the business.”
“Surely you cannot be indifferent to the prospect of such an
advantageous establishment for Caroline; for you must recollect,
that she is only two years younger than you; and years count quite
differently in a girl,” added she, observing from a glance Lady Latimer
cast at the glass, she did not think her mother’s mode of reckoning
judicious. “Besides, she is not near so generally admired as Jane, who
grows more like you every-day. As to her, though you do not approve of
Sir Gregory Greenford for Caroline, I think you will not have the same
objection to Mr. Germain for Jane.”
“Mr. Germain for Jane!” repeated Lady Latimer, in a tone in which was
meant to be expressed that this surpassed even the usual latitude of
improbability taken by her mother in these speculations.
“Yes, before you came every one remarked the evident attention he paid
her; and when I asked him last night if he did not see the strong
resemblance between you two, you can’t think how confused he was,
as he replied that Oakley had just observed it to him. Now, though
most worldly mothers would think differently, I would rather see Jane
married to Mr. Germain than Mr. Oakley, with all his wealth. There is
something singularly disagreeable to me in that young man. I merely
told him, that I had heard so much of the splendour of the late Lord
Rockington’s jewels, that I should be delighted to see them. ‘When they
are for sale or rather barter, you shall have the earliest notice,’ was
his answer. Now, it was not so much what he said, for I don’t exactly
know what he meant, but there was something in the tone of his voice
that was offensive. Your new protégée, Miss Mordaunt, however, did not
seem to think so. You know, I never can find fault with any conduct of
yours, or else I might say, that it was not very kind to your sisters
to bring that girl to a party of this kind as a rival to them. And
Fitzalbert, who is certainly losing his good taste, crying her up so
ridiculously, is sure to have its effect with all those young men who
allow him the trouble of thinking for them.”
“Helen wants no such panegyrist,” said Lady Latimer warmly; “but
make yourself easy, mamma, it shall be my task to take care she does
not engross Germain; and as for Mr. Oakley, she is a great deal too
good for him. I quite agree with you, that he is one of those whose
concurrence is even more grating than some people’s contradiction.
Latimer wished me to be civil to him, on account of some estate which
he wants him to exchange about Peatburn Lodge. Dear pretty Peatburn,
shall I ever see you again?” added she, with something approaching to a
sigh, “and my poor neglected rosebuds too! Alas! they contained not the
only hopes which then blossomed but to fade;” and she paused a moment,
as if cherishing the recollection of the sole semblance of domestic
happiness she had ever enjoyed.
They had retired there for the shooting season soon after the
expiration of their honeymoon; and though Lord Latimer was out upon
the moors all the morning, he always appeared to return with as much
eagerness as he went out; and if she might then have expected more, she
certainly had since experienced less. The unsophisticated sameness of
the simple recreations with which she had then contrived to while away
his absence, had in her remembrance acquired a charm from all that had
since intervened.
“How happily could I pass all the rest of my life in that secluded
dell, only that----” she paused, but she might have added, “only that
one half of it is predestined to social dissipation in London, the
other to dissipated society in the country.” If, however, a year should
ever be made with thirteen months, she thought she would pass the
thirteenth at Peatburn Lodge.
“And now, mamma, as you have no more daughters to marry, you must let
me leave you, for Helen will be lost in this strange house, and be
wondering what has become of me.”
But Helen was not one who ever found any difficulty in occupying
herself, and she had been employing the morning very much to her
satisfaction in writing to her mother an account of all that had
happened since her arrival. And as she never had any concealment from
her, she meant to be perfectly explicit in the detail of all her own
impressions and feelings, as well as the manners and appearance of
others.
In furtherance of this intention, she had certainly recorded many
more of Fitzalbert’s bad jokes than with a little more knowledge of
the world she would have thought worth communicating; nor was it her
fault if she was not quite so candid in all she thought of Oakley: for
how could she put upon paper that she fancied, in addressing her, his
smile was softer and kinder than that he bestowed upon the rest of the
world?--And this was all she had to tell.