FRESH TOUCHES TO THE THREE VIGNETTES FOR THE BOOK OF BEAUTY.
Weeks passed--the London season was beginning--Darrell had decided
nothing--the prestige of his position was undiminished,--in politics,
perhaps higher. He had succeeded in reconciling some great men; he had
strengthened--it might be saved--a jarring cabinet. In all this he had
shown admirable knowledge of mankind, and proved that time and disuse had
not lessened his powers of perception. In his matrimonial designs,
Darrell seemed more bent than ever upon the hazard--irresolute as ever on
the choice of a partner. Still the choice appeared to be circumscribed
to the fair three who had been subjected to Colonel Morley's speculative
criticism--Lady Adela, Miss Vipont, Flora Vyvyan. Much pro and con might
be said in respect to each. Lady Adela was so handsome that it was a
pleasure to look at her; and that is much when one sees the handsome face
every day,--provided the pleasure does not wear off. She had the
reputation of a very good temper; and the expression of her countenance
confirmed it. There, panegyric stopped; but detraction did not commence.
What remained was inoffensive commonplace. She had no salient attribute,
and no ruling passion. Certainly she would never have wasted a thought
on Mr. Darrell, nor have discovered a single merit in him, if he had not
been quoted as a very rich man of high character in search of a wife, and
if her father had not said to her: "Adela, Mr. Darrell has been greatly
struck with your appearance--he told me so. He is not young, but he is
still a very fine looking man, and you are twenty-seven. 'Tis a greater
distinction to be noticed by a person of his years and position, than by
a pack of silly young fellows, who think more of their own pretty faces
than they would ever do of yours."
"If you did not mind a little disparity of years, he would make you a
happy wife; and, in the course of nature, a widow, not too old to enjoy
liberty, and with a jointure that might entitle you to a still better
match."
Darrell thus put into Lady Adela's head, he remained there, and became an
/idee fixe/. Viewed in the light of a probable husband, he was elevated
into an "interesting man." She would have received his addresses with
gentle complacency; and, being more the creature of habit than impulse,
would no doubt, in the intimacy of connubial life, have blest him, or any
other admiring husband, with a resaonable modicum of languid affection.
Nevertheless, Lady Adela was an unconscious impostor; for, owing to a
mild softness of eye and a susceptibility to blushes, a victim ensnared
by her beauty would be apt to give her credit for a nature far more
accessible to the romance of the tender passion than, happily perhaps for
her own peace of mind, she possessed; and might flatter himself that he
had produced a sensation which gave that softness to the eye and that
damask to the blush.
Honoria Vipont would have been a choice far more creditable to the good
sense of so mature a wooer. Few better specimens of a young lady brought
up to become an accomplished woman of the world. She had sufficient
instruction to be the companion of an ambitious man-solid judgment to fit
her for his occasional adviser. She could preside with dignity over a
stately household--receive with grace distinguished guests. Fitted to
administer an ample fortune, ample fortune was necessary to the
development of her excellent qualities. If a man of Darrell's age were
bold enough to marry a young wife, a safer wife amongst the young ladies
of London he could scarcely find; for though Honoria was only three-and-
twenty, she was as staid, as sensible, and as remote from all girlish
frivolities, as if she had been eight-and-thirty. Certainly had Guy
Darrell been of her own years, his fortunes unmade, his fame to win, a
lawyer residing at the back of Holborn, or a pretty squire in the petty
demesnes of Fawley, he would have had no charm in the eyes of Honoria
Vipont. Disparity of years was in this case no drawback but his
advantage, since to that disparity Darrell owed the established name and
the eminent station which made Honoria think she elevated her own self in
preferring him. It is but justice to her to distinguish here between a
woman's veneration for the attributes of respect which a man gathers
round him, and the more vulgar sentiment which sinks the man altogether,
except as the necessary fixture to be taken in with general valuation.
It is not fair to ask if a girl who entertains a preference for one of
our toiling, stirring, ambitious sex, who may be double her age or have a
snub nose, but who looks dignified and imposing on a pedestal of state,
whether she would like him as much if stripped of all his accessories,
and left unredeemed to his baptismal register or unbecoming nose. Just
as well ask a girl in love with a young Lothario if she would like him as
much if he had been ugly and crooked. The high name of the one man is as
much a part of him as good looks are to the other. Thus, though it was
said of Madame de la Valliere that she loved Louis XIV: for himself and
not for his regal grandeur, is there a woman in the world, however
disinterested, who believes that Madame de la Valliere would have liked
Louis XIV. as much if Louis XIV. had been Mr. John Jones; Honoria would
not have bestowed her hand on a brainless, worthless nobleman, whatever
his rank or wealth. She was above that sort of ambition; but neither
would she have married the best-looking and worthiest John Jones who ever
bore that British appellation, if he had not occupied the social position
which brought the merits of a Jones within range of the eyeglass of a
Vipont.
Many girls in the nursery say to their juvenile confidants, "I will marry
the man I love." Honoria had ever said, "I will only marry the man I
respect." Thus it was her respect for Guy Darrell that made her honour
him by her preference. She appreciated his intellect--she fell in love
with the reputation which the intellect had acquired. And Darrell might
certainly choose worse. His cool reason inclined him much to Honoria.
When Alban Morley argued in her favour, he had no escape from
acquiescence, except in the turns and doubles of his ironical humour.
But his heart was a rebel to his reason; and, between you and me, Honoria
was exactly one of those young women by whom a man of grave years ought
to be attracted, and by whom, somehow or other, he never is; I suspect,
because the older we grow the more we love youthfulness of character.
When Alcides, having gone through all the fatigues of life, took a bride
in Olympus, he ought to have selected Minerva, but he chose Hebe.
Will Darrell find his Hebe in Flora Vyvyan? Alban Morley became more and
more alarmed by the apprehension. He was shrewd enough to recognise in
her the girl of all others formed to glad the eye and plague the heart of
a grave and reverend seigneur. And it might well not only flatter the
vanity, but beguile the judgment, of a man who feared his hand would be
accepted only for the sake of his money, that Flora just at this moment
refused the greatest match in the kingdom, young Lord Vipont, son of the
new Earl of Montfort, a young man of good sense, high character, well-
looking as men go--heir to estates almost royal; a young man whom no girl
on earth is justified in refusing. But would the whimsical creature
accept Darrell? Was she not merely making sport of him, and if, caught
by her arts, he, sage and elder, solemnly offered homage and hand to that
/belle dedaigneuse/ who had just doomed to despair a comely young magnet
with five times his fortune, would she not hasten to make hirer the
ridicule of London.
Darrell had perhaps his secret reasons for thinking otherwise, but he did
not confide them even to Alban Morley. This much only will the narrator,
more candid, say to the reader: If out of the three whom his thoughts
fluttered round, Guy Darrell wished to select the one who would love him
best--love him with the whole fresh unreasoning heart of a girl whose
childish forwardness sprang from childlike innocence, let him dare the
hazard of refusal and of ridicule; let him say to Flora Vyvyan, in the
pathos of his sweet deep voice: "Come and be the spoiled darling of my
gladdened age; let my life, ere it sink into night, be rejoiced by the
bloom and fresh breeze of the morning."
But to say it he must wish it; he himself must love--love with all
the lavish indulgence, all the knightly tenderness, all the grateful
sympathising joy in the youth of the beloved, when youth for the lover
is no more, which alone can realise what we sometimes see, though loth
to own it--congenial unions with unequal years. If Darrell feel not that
love, woe to him, woe and thrice shame if he allure to his hearth one who
might indeed be a Hebe to the spouse who gave up to her his whole heart
in return for hers; but to the spouse who had no heart to give, or gave
but the chips of it, the Hebe indignant would be worse than Erinnys!
All things considered, then, they who wish well to Guy Darrell must range
with Alban Morley in favour of Miss Honoria Vipont. She, proffering
affectionate respect--Darrell responding by rational esteem. So,
perhaps, Darrell himself thought, for whenever Miss Vipont was named he
became more taciturn, more absorbed in reflection, and sighed heavily,
like a man who slowly makes up his mind to a decision, wise, but not
tempting.