DISAPPOINTMENT.
“Bitterest to the lip of pride,
When hopes presumptuous fade and fall.”
KEBLE.
“Save me alike from foolish pride,
Or impious discontent
For what Thy wisdom hath denied,
Or what Thy goodness lent!”
POPE.
The Countess of Dashleigh sat in her boudoir, surrounded by all the
luxuries which art can devise or wealth procure. But she paid little
attention to anything around her, for her thoughts were absorbed in her
occupation,—to a young authoress a very delightful occupation,—that of
revising the proof-sheets of her first romance. “Egeria” was now taking
a flight above the columns of a periodical; she was about to present to
the world a volume in violet and gold! How to give her ideas the richest
setting, how to display her talent to most advantage, was now the one
prevailing thought which occupied her mind from morning till night.
Annabella was like a mother rejoicing over a first-born child; and she
examined the rough proofs with the interest and delight which a young
parent might feel in surveying the little elegancies of the wardrobe of
her darling babe.
“Egeria” smiled to herself as she imagined the various reviews of her
work which would doubtless appear in the papers and periodicals of the
day. She fancied what passages would be extracted, what characters
praised; what might possibly be censured, what must be admired. In the
midst of her enjoyment of this feast of imagination, she was interrupted
by the entrance of the earl. Alas! that the presence of a husband should
ever be felt unwelcome!
“Annabella, my love, I have just received a letter, which I should be
obliged by your answering for me. I am glad to find you with a pen in
your hand.”
“Presently, Reginald; I will answer it presently,” said the countess, a
slight frown of impatience passing over her brow; “I am most exceedingly
busy at present.”
“What are you doing?” inquired the earl, who was not in the secret of his
lady’s occupation, though aware that she devoted much time to her pen.
“May I see?” he added, taking up one of the dirty proof-sheets which had
just received Annabella’s corrections.
“Are you to be my first critic?” said the countess playfully; “if so, I
hope that you will be an indulgent one.”
The earl looked for a few minutes a little embarrassed, as if a subject
had been suddenly brought before him on which he had not had time to
make up his mind. He then seated himself on the sofa, and twisting the
paper about in his fingers as he addressed his wife without looking at
her, he began in his somewhat formal style:—“It seems to me, Annabella,
that authorship is not what is most exactly suitable for one who holds
the position of a countess.”
“Are countesses then supposed to be more stupid than other people?” asked
Annabella.
The earl made no direct reply to a question which appeared to him rather
impertinent. He was desirous to avoid an argument, and rather to have
recourse to persuasion. “You have so many other resources,” he began, “so
many pleasures—”
“Not one of them,—not all of them together to be compared to this!”
exclaimed Annabella with animation. “I value the smallest bay-leaf from
Parnassus more than the strawberry-leaves on a ducal coronet!”
The Earl of Dashleigh was offended. “I am aware, madam,” he said stiffly,
“that you take a pride in disparaging the advantages of high social
standing. A lofty position has no charms for you.”
“I have known the time, Dashleigh,” said his wife, laughing, but with
something of bitterness in her mirth, “when a lofty position had no
charms for you. When you stood upon a certain Swiss mountain, able
neither to get upwards nor downwards, and glad of the assistance of my
little hand—”
“That has nothing on earth to do with the question!” cried the earl,
colouring and looking angry.
“Oh! I beg your lordship’s pardon; I was going to draw an analogy, as
the learned say; I was going to make a metaphor of a fact. I looked at
snowy peaks, deep abysses, awful chasms, and was transported with a sense
of their grandeur, as you are with that of hereditary rank! Mont Blanc
seemed to me loftier—more sublime—than the woolsack appears to you! You,
on the contrary, grew a little dizzy,—you only considered the fatigue of
the climbing, and the danger—”
“This is idle talk!” cried the earl impatiently. “I happened to be
taken with a fit of vertigo, and—and of course you have no intention of
publishing?” he inquired, making a very abrupt turn in the conversation.
“Of course I have,” replied Annabella.
“You do not mean to—to let me infer for a moment that you, the Countess
of Dashleigh, have ever dreamed of deriving any pecuniary advantage—” The
words appeared almost to choke him, so he left the sentence incomplete.
“You do not suppose that I intend to make a present to the publisher of
the effusions of my genius,” said the lady. “No, I have the pleasure of
working for a good cause. The new gallery of our church is to be propped
up by this little pen!” and with some pride Annabella held upright on
the table the small instrument of her literary power.
“Really, madam, you astonish me!” exclaimed the peer, rising in surprise
and indignation. “The Countess of Dashleigh to enter the lists with Grub
Street penny-a-liners,—the Countess of Dashleigh to receive payment from
a publisher, to earn a miserable pittance like any wretched mechanic—”
“To do what Shakspeare, Milton, Johnson, did before her.”
“They were not of the peerage,” interrupted Dashleigh.
“No, they were something more!” exclaimed Annabella. “They were ‘below
the good how far; but _far above the great_!’ I should be only too proud
to follow in their steps!”
“I tell you it is impossible,—utterly impossible,” repeated the earl. “My
wife to work for hire! I could never show my face again in the House of
Lords if I submitted to such a degradation!”
Poor Annabella was like a child whose high-built house of cards has been
suddenly dashed to the ground. Her eyes filled fast with tears, but she
was too proud to let them overflow.
The earl was not a hard man. He saw that he had given pain, and hastened
to smoothe down his young wife’s disappointment.
“Since writing gives you such amusement,” he said, “I will not altogether
discourage it. You may print that work for private circulation—I have
no great objection to that—and as for the gallery of the church, I will
support that by a handsome donation.”
Dashleigh thought that this concession must entirely satisfy Annabella,
but in this he showed little knowledge of the peculiar ambition
of his wife. What! was she never to see a review of her work in a
leading paper,—was she to limit its circulation,—were a few friends
and acquaintance alone to enjoy what she had expected would excite a
sensation throughout the literary world! This would be clipping the wings
of her Pegasus indeed, and making him the mere carriage-horse of a peer!
“I would rather burn my volume at once,” she said pettishly, “than have
it merely printed for private circulation. I should be ashamed to send it
round like a begging-box to my acquaintance, with an understood petition
of ‘compliments thankfully received!’”
“You could not endure to see your book hawked about, sold on miserable
stalls, thumbed in circulating libraries!”
The idea was shocking to the earl, but very delightful to Annabella. “I
could endure it very well,” she said coldly; “I see no harm in the thing.”
“But I see it, madam,” exclaimed Dashleigh, “and what’s more, I will not
suffer it to be done! Your dignity is connected with my own; it may be
nothing to you, but it is something to me. If my wishes have no effect,
you will at least listen to my commands.”
“Tyrant!” whispered the demon Pride; and the heart of Annabella echoed
the treasonous word ‘tyrant!’
The earl was satisfied with having taken a step so decided. He had no
wish to prolong a discussion with his wife, in which, as he knew by
experience, she generally had the advantage. Having uttered his mandate
he quitted the room, leaving Annabella in a state of angry excitement.
“Private circulation! I may print for private circulation! most
condescending concession from my lord!” she muttered to herself, as she
sat gloomily surveying the proofs which had lately afforded her such
keen delight. Then a thought seemed at once to strike the countess, her
over-cast countenance lighted up with a gleam as if of triumph. “Yes;
I will write something for private circulation,” she cried, “something
which my lord will find so very amusing, so highly diverting, that he
will be glad to compound for its suppression by letting me do what I like
with my book. Mine shall be a little romance in real life, an incident in
the life of a peer of the realm!” and, dashing the drops from her eyes,
Annabella at once sat down to her desk.
She wrote in a fit of resentment, and what she penned naturally took
the colour of her feelings. The countess wrote a ludicrous account of a
little adventure which had occurred to the Earl of ——, the dash serving
as a transparent veil which every one could see through. She recounted
how the earl, accompanied by his wife, who was fired with the ambition
of emulating the feats which Albert Smith has rendered famous, ascended
part of the way up a Swiss mountain. She described how, long ere the
snowy region was reached, the nobleman had been seized with giddiness
and nervous fear; how he had stood on a steep slope, with a precipice on
either hand, clutching tremblingly at the rock-plants which gave way in
his grasp, calling out in alarm for aid, and thankful at last to catch
hold of the end of a boa which his more active and fearless partner
extended from the summit of a cliff. It was a relief to Annabella to
give vent to her anger and malice in this little, humorous sketch. She
wrote without any deliberate intention of ever showing it to a human eye;
her paper took to her the place of a female confidante, that too often
mischievous companion to a woman who is not happily married.
Having finished her little piece the countess descended to the
drawing-room, to pass a sullen, uncomfortable evening in the society of
her aristocratic husband.