_Her_ "only labour was to kill the time;
And labour dire it is, and weary woe."
_Castle of Indolence._
YEARS had rolled on amidst heartless pleasures and joyless amusements,
but Lady Juliana was made neither the wiser nor the better by added
years and increased experience. Time had in vain turned his glass
before eyes still dazzled with the gaudy allurements of the world, for
she took "no note of time" but as the thing that was to take her to the
Opera and the Park, and that sometimes hurried her excessively, and
sometimes bored her to death. At length she was compelled to abandon her
chase after happiness in the only sphere where she believed it was to be
found. Lord Courtland's declining health unfitted him for the
dissipation of a London life; and, by the advice of his physician, he
resolved upon retiring to a country seat which he possessed in the
vicinity of Bath. Lady Juliana was in despair at the thoughts of this
sudden wrench from what she termed "life;" but she had no resource; for
though her good-natured husband gave her the whole of General Cameron's
allowance, that scarcely served to keep her in clothes; and though her
brother was perfectly willing that she and her children should occupy
apartments in his house, yet he would have been equally acquiescent had
she proposed to remove from it. Lady Juliana had a sort of instinctive
knowledge of this, which prevented her from breaking out into open
remonstrance. She therefore contented herself with being more than
usually peevish and irascible to her servants and children, and talking
to her friends of the prodigious sacrifice she was about to make for her
brother and his family, as if it had been the cutting off of a hand or
the plucking out of an eye. To have heard her, anyone unaccustomed to
the hyperbole of fashionable language would have deemed Botany Bay the
nearest possible point of destination. Parting from her fashionable
acquaintances was tearing herself from all she loved; quitting London
was bidding adieu to the world. Of course there could be no society
where she was going, but still she would do her duty; she would not
desert dear Frederick and his poor children! In short, no martyr was
ever led to the stake with half the notions of heroism and self-devotion
as those with which Lady Juliana stepped into the barouche that was to
conduct her to Beech Park. In the society of piping bullfinches, pink
canaries, gray parrots, goldfish, green squirrels, Italian greyhounds,
and French poodles, she sought a refuge from despair. But even these
varied charms, after a while, failed to please. The bullfinches grew
hoarse; the canaries turned brown; the parrots became stupid; the gold
fish would not eat; the squirrels were cross; the dogs fought; even a
shell grotto that was constructing fell down; and by the time the aviary
and conservatory were filled, they had lost their interest. The children
were the next subjects for her Ladyship's ennui to discharge itself
upon. Lord Courtland had a son some years older, and a daughter nearly
of the same age as her own. It suddenly occurred to her that they must
be educated, and that she would educate the girls herself. As the first
step she engaged two governesses, French and Italian; modern treatises
on the subject of education were ordered from London, looked at,
admired, and arranged on gilded shelves and sofa tables; and could their
contents have exhaled with the odours of their Russia leather bindings,
Lady Juliana's dressing-room would have been what Sir Joshua Reynolds
says every seminary of learning _is,_ "an atmosphere of floating
knowledge." But amidst this splendid display of human lore, THE BOOK
found no place. She _had_ heard of the Bible, however, and even knew it
was a book appointed to be read in churches, and given to poor people,
along with Rumford soup and flannel shirts; but as the rule of life, as
the book that alone could make wise unto salvation, this Christian
parent was ignorant as the Hottentot or Hindoo.
Three days beheld the rise, progress, and decline of Lady Juliana's
whole system of education; and it would have been well for the children
had the trust been delegated to those better qualified to discharge it.
But neither of the preceptresses was better skilled in the only true
knowledge. Signora Cicianai was a bigoted Catholic, whose faith hung
upon her beads, and Madame Grignon was an _esprit forte,_ who had no
faith in anything but _le plaisir._ But the Signora's singing was
heavenly, and Madame's dancing was divine, and what lacked there more?
So passed the first years of beings training for immortality. The
children insensibly ceased to be children, and Lady Juliana would have
beheld the increasing height and beauty of her daughter with extreme
disapprobation, had not that beauty, by awakening her ambition, also
excited her affection, if the term affection could be applied to that
heterogeneous mass of feelings and propensities that "shape had none
distinguishable." Lady Juliana had fallen into an error very common with
wiser heads than hers that of mistaking the _effect_ for the _cause._ She
looked no farther than to her union with Henry Douglas for the
foundation of all her unhappiness; it never once occurred to her that
her marriage was only the _consequence_ of something previously wrong;
she saw not the headstrong passions that had impelled her to please
herself--no matter at what price. She thought not of the want of
principle, she blushed not at the want of delicacy, that had led her to
deceive a parent and elope with a man to whose character she was a total
stranger. She therefore considered herself as having fallen a victim to
love; and could she only save her daughter from a similar error she might
yet by her means retrieve her fallen fortune. To implant principles of
religion and virtue in her mind was not within the compass of her own;
but she could scoff at every pure and generous affection; she could
ridicule every disinterested attachment; and she could expatiate on the
never-fading joys that attend on wealth and titles, jewels and
equipages; and all this she did in the belief that she was acting the
part of a most wise and tender parent! The seed, thus carefully sown,
promised to bring forth an abundant harvest. At eighteen Adelaide
Douglas was as heartless and ambitious as she was beautiful and
accomplished; but the surface was covered with flowers, and who would
have thought of analysing the soil?
It sometimes happens that the very means used with success in the
formation of one character produce a totally opposite effect upon
another. The mind of Lady Emily Lindore had undergone exactly the same
process in its formation as that of her cousin; yet in all things they
differed. Whether it were the independence of high birth, or the pride
of a mind conscious of its own powers, she had hitherto resisted the
sophistry of her governesses and the solecisms of her aunt. But her
notions of right and wrong were too crude to influence the general tenor
of her life, or operate as restraints upon a naturally high spirit and
impetuous temper. Not all the united efforts of her preceptresses had
been able to form a manner for their pupil; nor could their authority
restrain her from saying what she thought, and doing what she pleased;
and, in spite of both precept and example, Lady Emily remained as
insupportably natural and sincere as she was beautiful and _piquante._
At six years old she had declared her intention of marrying her cousin
Edward Douglas, and at eighteen her words were little less equivocal.
Lord Courtland, who never disturbed himself about anything, was rather
diverted with this juvenile attachment; and Lady Juliana, who cared
little for her son, and still less for her niece, only wondered how
people could be such fools as to think of marrying for love, after she
had told them how miserable it would make them.