A FASHIONABLE EASTER.
The season was approaching when, in good old times, the heads of great
families left the metropolis, and in the retirement of their country
seats or villas devoted the precious hours of the solemn festival of
Easter to reflection, apart from busy scenes of public life in the
bosoms of their families--thus setting an example worthy of imitation:
and overcoming, in some degree, the difficulty with which we know a
rich man shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
How widely different is it at the present day with those who call
themselves _The Ton_. They go indeed, at this holy season, to villas,
and country seats, but take with them there all the follies, and vices,
and habits of that daily idleness and dissipation which can suffer no
pause in its riot, no diminution in its intoxication.
Lady Ellersby had invited to Restormel Lady Tilney and the more select
of her coterie. Some there were, the subalterns of their _corps élite_,
who, however subservient and ready they had proved themselves to
adopt the follies of exclusiveness, had as yet failed in establishing
themselves in its full rights and prerogatives, and who, after the
sacrifice of their own true dignity, still found themselves but as
tools in the hands of others. These, often overlooked in the more
_recherché_ amusements, _heard_ of the party at Restormel, but only
_heard_, and were not among the invited. To be excluded on such an
occasion was a mortification of the severest kind, and it became a
matter of the greatest importance to have their names inserted, if
possible, on the select list. To obtain this point, the infinite pains
and ingenuity employed were worthy of a better cause. The Baskervilles
were of the number overlooked; and, addressing his wife on the subject
with as much eagerness as it was permitted one of his dignified
refinement to display, Lord Baskerville said:
"Imagine what Boileau has just told me; Lady Ellersby has a party at
Restormel next week! I do think _we_ had a right to be asked; don't
you?"
"Oh certainly, _love_," replied Lady Baskerville, a sweet-sounding
epithet of affection which but on few occasions passed between them:
"Certainly: and if we are not, I shall think it quite rude; but _I
will_ arrange the matter."
That night Lady Baskerville went to the Opera with Lady Boileau; as
soon as an opportunity presented itself, Lady Baskerville turned
suddenly round, and said, "Oh, there is Lady Ellersby, I see, in her
box: how well she looks--of _course you_ are going to Restormel at
Easter?" and she kissed her hand the while, in her most smiling manner,
to the lady of whom she spoke.
"No, I am not invited," replied Lady Boileau. "Are you?"
"Yes," rejoined Lady Baskerville, (determined to hazard the lie at
all events, and trust to chance, or her own devices, to make it true
afterwards.) "But how very odd she should have left you out; it must be
some mistake."
"Oh, no, it is not a mistake--it cannot be; for Lady Ellersby, you
know, makes all her invitations on these occasions _de vive voix_."
Lady Baskerville almost betrayed herself as she _felt_ Lady Boileau's
penetrating eyes fixed upon her's, with a scrutiny she did not wish to
prolong; however she rallied dexterously, and turned off the discourse
into some other channel; but Lady Boileau returned to the charge,
saying:
"Well, my dear Lady Baskerville, as _you are_ asked, do you not think
you could get us invited also? You know I hardly ever break my rule of
running the risk of compromising a friend by tormenting her to procure
invitations, but for this once I think I may venture, considering
our long friendship, to entrust you with the secret (for you know I
would not have it said for the world), that I wish to be of the number
of the _Priées_ to Restormel--now as I intend giving my first ball
immediately after Easter, I shall consult her to-night about certain
persons whom I am rather doubtful whether I shall ask or not, and then
by appealing to you, throw the conversation into your hands, and give
you an opportunity of naming those who are invited to Restormel, which
will bring about the subject in such a natural way, that either I must
be asked or she will commit herself by a rudeness which she generally
avoids."
Lady Baskerville sat on thorns, but during the length of this speech
she had leisure to collect her scattered senses, and began a reply
equally elaborate, professing herself to be exceedingly attached and
obliged to Lady Boileau, and for _that very reason_ declining all
interference on the present occasion--"for you know," she said, "it
makes one so very _nervous_ to put a friend under the unpleasant
predicament of being refused. Besides, the moment one lets the
world know that one has a friend who wants any thing, people begin
immediately to conclude that they may want many things, and directly
look shy, and make an excuse, and get off, and probably cut both the
_asker_ and the person for whom they ask. However _you know_ I will do
what _I can do_, but only I entreat you will leave me at liberty to
chuse the mode of managing this business."
"Yes," rejoined Lady Boileau, "most certainly; but perhaps the best way
of all will be to say nothing about it, beforehand, and then for me to
arrive unexpectedly, and say _you_ had asked me, and had forgotten to
mention to Lady Ellersby that you had done so."
"Oh! _not for the world_, my dearest Lady Boileau, not for the
world,--besides,--I just recollect--Lord Baskerville had some idea
we should not go at all;"--at that instant arrives Lord Baskerville
himself, and forgetting his acquired manner, he opened the box-door
somewhat abruptly, and in his natural gay agreeable way, such as is his
own when he ceases to remember he is an exclusive, he said, addressing
Lady Baskerville,
"I have this instant had an invitation for you, which I am sure you
will accept with pleasure: it is from Lady Ellersby to go to Restormel."
"Dear! la! Lord Baskerville, how odd you are--that is so like you--to
have forgot--and Lady Ellersby too, she must have forgotten, don't you
know _we were_ asked a fortnight ago."
"Ah--hem! very true," and taking the hint which Lady Baskerville had
given him by an expressive glance, "hem! I _had_ really forgotten, I
always forget _those sort of things_, hem!"
"Yes, and you said then, _if you_ remember, that _you_ would not go,
for that you thought of visiting Tunbridge, as you always conceived
Restormel to be a dull, damp place, and so unwholesome, with its
quantity of trees and stagnant water."
"Ay--so I did,--hem! very true, and so it is, and now you put me in
mind, I rather suppose _we_, that is _I_, shall not go, for of course
_your_ ladyship will do as you chuse."
Lady Boileau, though young in years, was too old a bird of fashion
to be caught with chaff, she saw through this matrimonial manœuvre,
but was too prudent to let her perception be seen; and in regard to
Lady Baskerville's refusal on the subject of Restormel, she pretended
to take it as the latter intended it should be taken, and her outward
appearance remained unruffled, but at the same time it was marked
in the tablets of her memory, as a token of friendship _not to be
forgotten_.
"Indeed," replied Lady Boileau, in answer to Lord Baskerville's last
remark, "you are both quite right, Restormel _is_ a _dull_ place, and
I advise you to secure a party for Tunbridge, in which I shall be most
happy to join you."
"I will think about it, hem!" replied Lord Baskerville, "and consult
the Comtesse Leinsengen," and thus he bowed out of the box. Shortly
after, Lady Baskerville feigned a very bad head-ache and retired before
the end of the ballet. Not so Lady Boileau; she watched Lady Ellersby's
movements, and contrived to meet her in the room just at the very
moment when the crowd prevented her escaping.
"What do you think I have been doing all night?" Lady Boileau asked?
"Not listening to the Opera," replied Mr. Spencer Newcomb, who was
handing Lady Ellersby.
"As if any body ever really came to attend to or listen to it!" she
observed; "it is the very last thing one comes to the Opera for,"
yawning.
"I have been much better employed," rejoined Lady Boileau, "for I
have been defending the _agrémens_ of Restormel against Lord and Lady
Baskerville's assertion of its being the dullest place in the world;
they both declared it always gave them the vapours."
"So it does me," replied Lady Ellersby, again yawning, "and that is
precisely the reason why I take such special care never to go there,
without having it well filled. But then all places in the country are
alike, and one _must_ go out of town at Easter."
"Well, Lady Ellersby, that may be true enough: all country places are
insufferably dull except it be to give a fête during the lilac and
laburnum season; but I think your friends might make some distinction
between _you_ and your _place_, and as far as I could observe there was
none made by the Baskervilles."
"Oh was there _not_, he, he! Oh if such _is_ the case I am sorry I
asked them to-night."
"To-night! did you not make Lady Baskerville the invitation long
before to-night? you will pardon my asking the question; I have a
particular reason, which I will explain to you hereafter, for doing so."
"La, dear, no," yawning, "I never thought of asking any body _long
ago_." This, though in contradiction to her former declaration of
taking care to _secure_ a party, she was obliged to say in order to
avoid a marked rudeness to Lady Boileau, "and," she continued, "now
I have the good fortune to meet you, dear Lady Boileau, will you
and Lord Boileau have the charity to join us; and, notwithstanding
Lady Baskerville's terrific account of Restormel, venture to come
and _egayer_ its melancholy bowers; at all events it will be better
than remaining in town, and we will try to do what we can to render
ourselves agreeable to you."
"I shall be delighted; we shall have the greatest pleasure in waiting
upon you, and am certain we shall be extremely well amused."
The great object of Lady Boileau's day was now successfully attained,
and doubtless she laid her head upon her pillow that night with all the
satisfaction which such success ought to confer. Lady Baskerville, on
her part rejoiced in having as she thought so completely outmanœuvred
her friend, and enjoyed the triumph which her superior skill in the
management of such matters, as well as her superior knowledge of _the
world_, had afforded her. Yet these women called each other _friends_!
How is that sacred name profaned, that name which can have no embodied
existence, but with the sincere and good, yet which is polluted in the
world's mouth at every instant.
Restormel was, as it had been described by Lady Baskerville, an
exceedingly gloomy place, but all within the house was luxury; beyond
its walls, however, there were none of those moral circumstances which
can give interest even to the dullest spot. The scenery was monotonous
and insipid; but there might have been an enlivening character thrown
over the gloom, in the happy countenances and cheerful looks of
dependents and retainers, if such had been the will of the possessors
of Restormel. But this was not the case, the cold calculating system
of employment of the poor, merely when the purpose of keeping up the
grounds or other improvements made it necessary, and then taking no
further charge whatever of the beings so employed, regarding them only
as the labourers of the hour, conspired to give the place a moral, as
well as a natural gloom.
No peasant's abode in these domains was ever cheered by Lady Ellersby's
presence; no sufferer in sickness or distress alleviated beyond the
donation of money, and that but seldom;--none of those heart-interests
in short were ever evinced, on her, or her Lord's part, which confer a
mutual delight on those who receive, and on those who bestow them, and
which maintain that link between the higher and lower classes, which
is at once so beautiful and so beneficial, and without which all the
luxuries in the world will never produce any thing but a melancholy and
unsatisfying grandeur.
There certainly, however, were the means, if they had been resorted
to, for every laudable gratification of interest and entertainment at
Restormel. And where is the country place in which, if its possessor
fulfil the various duties the possession entails on him, the means are
wanting; and even as it was, if that sickly appetite for excitement
which characterised its present inhabitants could ever have been
satisfied, it must have been here, where every thing connected with
their system of life was found in profusion; but the factitious smiles
which gild the exterior of such a circle as was generally to be met
with at Restormel is not the sunshine of real happiness.
Easter was now arrived and the party assembled at Restormel, consisted
of the Tilneys, the Tenderdens, the Baskervilles, the Leinsengens,
Luttermannes, Lord Tonnerre, Lady Hamlet Vernon, Lord Albert D'Esterre
(who was asked _on trial_), Lord and Lady Boileau, by the manœuvre
which has been described, and one or two single men like Mr. Leslie
Winyard, Mr. Spencer Newcomb, &c. &c.
These persons all met on the first night of their arrival at an eight
o'clock dinner. Lord Albert D'Esterre had been invited at Lady Tilney's
suggestion, who considered a country house a good stage for the display
of a new _debutant_, and as affording no unpropitious opportunity of
forwarding her wishes in regard to Lord Albert's political bias. These
wishes, however, were soon doomed to disappointment; Lord Albert had
accepted the invitation under the impression that in the country there
was more leisure and tranquillity than the hurry of a London life
allowed; but whether in the country or town, he might have known, had
not the fatal mist of delusion which comes over all who enter on a
tortuous path began to blind him, that reflection and serenity of mind
do not depend on time or place; that power, that calm, may be destroyed
or may be nurtured in cities, as in lonely wilds, it is true; but had
he thought for a moment, he would have felt that the gay assemblage in
which he was to mix at Restormel, was not calculated to restore him to
that state of mind which he believed himself anxious to regain.
In the course of Lord Albert D'Esterre's acquaintance with Lady Hamlet
Vernon, he had discovered much to charm, to dazzle, and to lead a mind
so young as his into a maze of error. Sophistry had gradually drawn
its veil before his perception of truth; through this he viewed her
character; and under the same delusive influence, he persuaded himself
that the interest he took in her arose from the purest motive, namely
that of endeavouring to free from error, one whose nature was naturally
endowed with capabilities for becoming truly estimable. He listened to
all her dangerous and seductive opinions, while he gazed on her beauty,
bewildered with the false conviction that he did so to prove to her the
error of the one, and to point out the peril which, with such unfixed
tenets, the other would most probably lead her into.
What a melancholy prospect, he inwardly exclaimed, lies before that
beautiful creature, whose principles have never been formed to virtue,
and who has been cast among those whose every axiom is contrary to the
laws of purity and truth! What delight in the reflection, what a good
action it will be, to disentangle such a being from the snares that
surround her, and restore her to a life of usefulness and happiness. My
heart aches for her, when I think how in early youth, before she could
know her own wishes, she was married to an unprincipled husband, one
who could never have known her worth; she must not be abandoned without
an effort to save her. Thus did Lord Albert parley with himself, till
a dangerous admixture of evil glided in with his better feelings, and
prevented that clear perception between right and wrong, which under
his engagements should have made him at once fly from Lady Hamlet
Vernon. It was _not_ so, however, and Lady Hamlet Vernon was more the
object that led him to Restormel, than any wish for, or sense of, the
necessity of retirement and reflection.
The mode of living at Restormel was what Spencer Newcomb wittily
called the _foreign system_, that is, every pleasure-giving
circumstance was throughout the daily routine cultivated to the utmost
point which art could reach. To give an account of it in detail would
be a work of supererogation; for it was a transfer of London to the
country, only with this difference, that the post town and high road
took place of the streets of the metropolis; and the shrubberies and
gardens of Restormel, of those of Kensington and the Park; with the
exception, too, of a rather animated discussion between Lady Tilney and
Lord Tonnerre on the subject of female influence; and which brought the
parties into closer collision, than was consistent with the outward
harmony of exclusive _ton_.
Little occurred during the first few days of the retreat to Restormel
to vary the monotony of the scene. With reference to this latter
subject, Lady Tilney remarked to Lady Baskerville, as they left the
dining-room, on the evening when the affair alluded to had taken place,
"I am very sorry, my dear Lady Baskerville, very sorry indeed, that
what I said should have taken such a desperate effect on your friend
Lord Tonnerre; however, it does every body good to hear the truth now
and then, and as he seldom if ever hears it, I think I have done him
service in sounding that tocsin in his ears for once in his life, don't
you, my dear?"
"He, he, he!" tittered Lady Baskerville, who did not like to offend
the speaker, though she was really angry with her in her heart; "I
dare say you are quite right--but for my part, I never wish to teach
any body any thing; I was so tired of being taught myself, that
whatever reminds me of the dull days of being a good girl, and having a
governess, quite overcomes me."
"Oh," observed the Comtesse Leinsengen, "what sinnify, whether dat Lord
is in a passion or not, nothing will ever change him. He knows but two
phrases in the dictionary, _I will_ and _I won't_, you _shall_ and
you _shan't_, and he do tink himself, and all dat belong to himself,
quite perfect, _c'est une ignorance crasse a tout prendre_, but what
_sinnify_ it? He was alway Milor Tonnerre, he _is_ Milor Tonnerre, he
will alway _be_ Milor Tonnerre; _laisser le grogner, c'est son métier;
en qualité de Tonnerre il grognera toujours, quesque ça nous fait? il
n'est pas notre mari laisse-le là de grâces_," and she looked at Lady
Baskerville as she spoke.
This affair, however, did not pass over quite so easily as Lady
Tilney would have had it; and it ended in Lord Tonnerre's going
suddenly to town; and Lady Baskerville remaining in exceedingly bad
humour: for to be without an _attaché quelconque_ was as bad as to be
without a hat from Herbot's.