ROSE, BLANCHE,
AND
VIOLET.
BY
G. H. LEWES, ESQ.
AUTHOR OF "RANTHORPE,"
"BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY," ETC. ETC.
Il n'y a point de vertu proprement dite, sans victoire sur
nous-mêmes, et tout ce qui ne nous coûte rien, ne vaut rien.
DE MAISTRE.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
LONDON:
SMITH, ELDER AND CO., 65, CORNHILL.
----
1848.
London:
Printed by STEWART and MURRAY,
Old Bailey.
DÉDICACE.
----
A MONSIEUR BENJAMIN MOREL
(DE DUNKERQUE),
COMME UN
AFFECTUEUX SOUVENIR
DE L' AUTEUR,
G. H. LEWES.
PREFACE.
When a distinct Moral presides over the composition of a work of
fiction, there is great danger of its so shaping the story to suit a
purpose, that human nature is falsified by being coerced within the
sharply defined limits of some small dogma.
So conscious of this did I become in the progress of my story, that I
was forced to abandon my original intention, in favour of a more
natural evolution of incident and character; accordingly, the Moral
has been left to shift for itself. It was a choice between truth of
passion and character, on the one hand, and on the other, didactic
clearness. I could not hesitate in choosing the former.
And yet, as Hegel truly says, "in every work of Art there is a Moral;
but it depends on him who draws it." If, therefore, the reader
insists upon a Moral, he may draw one from the passions here
exhibited; and the value of it will depend upon his own sagacity.
From Life itself I draw one great moral, which I may be permitted to
say is illustrated in various ways by the present work; and it is
this:--
Strength of Will is the quality most needing cultivation in mankind.
Will is the central force which gives strength and greatness to
character. We over-estimate the value of Talent, because it dazzles
us; and we are apt to underrate the importance of Will, because its
works are less shining. Talent gracefully adorns life; but it is
Will which carries us victoriously through the struggle. Intellect
is the torch which lights us on our way; Will, the strong arm which
rough hews the path for us. The clever, weak man sees all the
obstacles on his path; the very torch he carries, being brighter than
that of most men, enables him, perhaps, to see that the path before
him may be directest, the best,--yet it also enables him to see the
crooked turnings by which he may, as he fancies, reach the goal
without encountering difficulties. If, indeed, Intellect were a sun,
instead of a torch,--if it irradiated every corner and crevice--then
would man see how, in spite of every obstacle, the direct path was
the only safe one, and he would cut his way through by manful labour.
But constituted as we are, it is the clever, weak men who stumble
most--the strong men who are most virtuous and happy. In this world,
there cannot be virtue without strong Will; the weak "know the right,
and yet the wrong pursue."
No one, I suppose, will accuse me of deifying Obstinacy, or even mere
brute Will; nor of depreciating Intellect. But we have had too many
dithyrambs in honour of mere Intelligence; and the older I grow, the
clearer I see that Intellect is not the highest faculty in man,
although the most brilliant. Knowledge, after all, is not the
greatest thing in life: it is not the "be-all and the end-all here."
Life is not Science. The light of Intellect is truly a precious
light; but its aim and end is simply to shine. The moral nature of
man is more sacred in my eyes than his intellectual nature. I know
they cannot be divorced--that without intelligence we should be
brutes--but it is the tendency of our gaping wondering dispositions
to give pre-eminence to those faculties which most astonish us.
Strength of character seldom, if ever, astonishes; goodness,
lovingness, and quiet self-sacrifice, are worth all the talents in
the world.
KENSINGTON, _March_ 1848.
[Transcriber's note: In the Book II section of the Contents, there
was no entry for Chapter IX, nor was there a chapter by that number
in the source book. The book's actual text appears to be complete.]
CONTENTS.
PROLOGUE
BOOK I.
CHAPTER
I.--Four Years Later
II.--Rose Writes to Violet
III.--The Happy School-days
IV.--Rose and Blanche at Home
V.--Marmaduke meets Mrs. Vyner
VI.--How Rose became acquainted with our Ugly Hero
VII.--Rose Vyner Writes to Fanny Worsley
VIII.--Mrs. Langley Turner, and her Friends
IX.--Two Portraits
X.--Declaration of War
XI.--One of our Heroes
BOOK II.
CHAPTER
I.--Cecil Chamberlayne to Frank Forrester
II.--Rose to Fanny Worsley
III.--Cecil is Smitten
IV.--Cecil Exhibits Himself
V.--A Trait of Julius St. John
VI.--Hidden Meanings
VII.--Mutual Self-Examination
VIII.--The Disadvantages of Ugliness
X.--The Great Commentator
XI.--Cecil again Writes to Frank
XII.--Cecil put to the Test
XIII.--How a Lover Vacillates
XIV.--Jealousy
XV.--The Lovers Meet
XVI.--The Discovery
XVII.--The Sacrifice
XVIII.--Cecil in his True Colours
XIX.--The Perils of One Night
XX.--Captain Heath Watches over Blanche
ROSE, BLANCHE, AND VIOLET.
PROLOGUE.
1835.
It was a sultry day in July, and the sun was pouring down from a
cloudless heaven intense rays upon the High-street of * * * * * The
heat made the place a desert; more indeed of a desert than even
High-streets of country towns usually are. There was a burnt odour
in the atmosphere, arising from the scorched pavement, and rayed
forth from the garish brick houses. Silence and noon-day heat
reigned over the scene. The deep stillness was brought out into
stronger relief by the occasional bark of a dog, or rumbling of a
solitary cart.
A few human beings dotted the street, at wide intervals. There was a
groom standing at the stable-yard entrance of the Royal George,
indolently chewing a blade of grass. The clergyman's wife, hot,
dusty, and demure, was shopping. A farmer had just dismounted from a
robust white cob, which he left standing at the door of a dismal
red-brick house, on the wire blinds of which was painted the
word--BANK. Higher up, three ragged urchins were plotting mischief,
or arranging some game. A proud young mother was dandling her infant
at a shop door, as if desirous that the whole street should be aware
of the important fact of her maternity--to be sure, there never was
such a beautiful baby before! In the window of that shop--it was a
grocer's--a large black cat was luxuriously sleeping on a bed of
moist sugar, sunning herself there, too lazy even to disturb the
flies which crowded to the spot.
To one who, a stranger to the place, merely cast his eyes down that
street, nothing could appear more lifeless--more devoid of all human
interest--more unchequered by the vicissitudes of passion. It had
the calm of the desert, without the grandeur. In such a place, the
current of life would seem monotonously placid; existence itself
scarcely better than vegetation. It is not so, however. To those
who inhabited the place, it was known that beneath the stillness a
stratum of boiling lava was ever ready to burst forth. Every house
was really the theatre of some sad comedy, or of some grotesque
tragedy. The shop which to an unfamiliar eye was but the depository
of retail goods, with John Smith as the retailer, was to an
inhabitant the well-known scene of some humble heroism, or ridiculous
pretension. John Smith, smirking behind his counter, is not simply
an instrument of commerce; he is a husband, a father, and a citizen;
he has his follies, his passions, his hopes, and his opinions; he is
the object of unreckoned scandals.
To the eye of the stranger who now leisurely paced the street, the
town was dull and lifeless, because it had not the incessant noise of
a capital, and because he knew nothing of the dramas which were being
enacted within its walls. Yet even he was soon to learn that sorrow,
"not loud but deep," was weeping ineffectually over a tragedy which
touched him nearly.
He was a man of about thirty years of age, with the unmistakeable
look of a gentleman, and, to judge from his moustaches and erect
bearing, an officer in the army. As he passed her, the proud young
mother ceased for a moment to think only of her child, and followed
with admiring eyes his retreating form. The echo of his sharp,
decisive tread rang through the silent street; and soon he
disappeared, turning up towards a large house which fronted the sea.
He knocked at the door, and with an unconscious coquetry smoothed his
dark moustache while waiting. The door was opened by a grey-haired
butler.
"How d' ye do, Wilson? Are they at home--eh! what's this? you in
mourning?"
"Yes, sir. What! don't you know, sir?"
"Good God! what has happened? Is Mrs. Vyner----?"
"Yes, sir, yes," replied the butler, shaking his head sorrowfully.
"It has been a dreadful blow, sir, to master, and to the young
ladies. She was buried Monday week."
The stranger was almost stupefied by this sudden shock.
"Dead!" he exclaimed; "dead! Good God!--So young, so
young.--Dead!--So beautiful and good.--Dead!"
"Ah, sir, master will never get over it. He does take on so. I
never saw any one, never; and the young ladies----"
"Dead!"
"Will you please to walk up, sir? Master would like to see you."
"No, no, no."
"It will comfort him; indeed, sir, it will. He likes to talk to any
one, sir, about the party that's gone."
The tears came into the old man's eyes as he thus alluded to his lost
mistress, and the stranger was too much affected to notice the
singular language in which the butler spoke of "the party."
After a few moments' consideration, the stranger walked up into the
drawing-room, while the servant went to inform Mr. Vyner of the
visit. Left to himself, and to the undisturbed indulgence of those
feelings of solemn sadness by which we are always affected at the
sudden death of those we know, especially of the young--shaking us as
it does in the midst of our own security, and bringing terribly home
the conviction of that fact which health and confidence keep in a dim
obscurity, that "in the midst of life we are in death"--the stranger,
whom we shall now name as Captain Heath, walked up to a miniature of
the deceased, and gazed upon it in melancholy curiosity.
Captain Heath had lost a dear friend in Mrs. Vyner, with whom he had
been a great favourite. To his credit be it said, that, although the
handsome wife of a man much older than herself, he had never for an
instant misinterpreted her kindness towards him; and this, too,
although he was an officer in the Hussars. Theirs was truly and
strictly a friendship between man and woman, as pure as it was firm;
founded upon mutual esteem and sympathy. Some malicious whispers
were, indeed, from time to time ventured on--for who can entirely
escape them?--but they never gained much credence. Mrs. Vyner's
whole life was an answer to calumny.
Meredith Vyner, of Wytton Hall, Devonshire, was the kindest if not
the most fascinating of husbands. A book-worm and pedant, he had the
follies of his tribe, and was as open to ridicule as the worst of
them; but, with all his foibles, he was a kind, gentle, weak,
indolent creature, who made many friends, and, what is more, retained
them.
There was something remarkable though not engaging in his appearance.
He looked like a dirty bishop. In his pale puffy face there was an
ecclesiastical mildness, which assorted well with a large forehead
and weak chin, though it brought into stronger contrast the pugnacity
of a short blunt nose, the nostrils of which were somewhat elevated
and garnished with long black hairs. A physiognomist would at once
have pronounced him obstinate, but weak; loud in the assertion of his
intentions, vacillating in their execution. His large person was
curiously encased in invariable black; a tail-coat with enormous
skirts, in which were pockets capacious enough to contain a stout
volume; the waistcoat of black silk, liberally sprinkled with grains
of snuff, reached below the waist, and almost concealed the
watch-chain and its indefinite number of gold seals which dangled
from the fob; of his legs he was as proud as men usually are who have
an ungraceful development of calf; and hence, perhaps, the reason of
his adhering to the black tights of our fathers. Shoes, large,
square, and roomy, with broad silver buckles, completed his
invariable and somewhat anachronical attire.
People laughed at Meredith Vyner for his dirty nails and his love of
Horace (whom he was always quoting, without regard to the probability
of his hearers understanding Latin--for the practice seemed
involuntary); but they respected him for his integrity and goodness,
and for his great, though ill-assorted, erudition. In a word, he was
laughed at, but there was no malice in the laughter.
As Captain Heath stood gazing on the miniature of his lost friend, a
heavy hand was placed upon his shoulder; and on turning round he
beheld Meredith Vyner, on whose large, pale face sorrow had deepened
the lines: his eyes were bloodshot and swollen with crying. In
silence, they pressed each other's hands for some moments, both
unable to speak. At last, in a trembling voice, Vyner said, "Gone,
gone! She's gone from us."
Heath responded by a fervent pressure of the hand.
"Only three weeks ill," continued the wretched widower; "and so
unexpected!"
"She died without pain," he added, after a pause; "sweetly resigned.
She is in heaven now. I shall follow her soon: I feel I shall. I
cannot survive her loss."
"Do not forget your children."
"I do not; I will not. Is not one of them her child? I will
struggle for its sake. So young to be cut off!"
There was another pause, in which each pursued the train of his sad
thoughts. The hot air puffed through the blinds of the darkened
room, and the muffled sounds of distant waves breaking upon the shore
were faintly heard.
"Come with me," said Vyner, rising.
He led the captain into the bed-room.
"There she lay," he said, pointing to the bed: "you see the mark of
the coffin on the coverlet? I would not have it disturbed. It is
the last trace she left."
The tears rolled down his cheek as he gazed upon this frightful
memento.
"In this room I sat up a whole night when they laid her in the
coffin, and all night as I gazed upon those loved features, placid in
their eternal repose, I was constantly fancying that she breathed,
and that her bosom heaved again with life. Alas! it was but the
mockery of my love. She remained cold to my kiss--insensible to the
tenderness which watched over her. Yet I _could_ not leave her. It
was foolish, perhaps, but it was all that remained to me. To gaze
upon her was painful, yet there was pleasure in that pain. The face
which had smiled such sunshine on me, which had so often looked up to
mine in love, that face was now cold, lifeless--but it was _hers_,
and I could not leave it. My poor, poor girl!"
His sobs interrupted him. Captain Heath had no disposition to check
a grief which would evidently wear itself away much more rapidly by
thus dwelling on the subject, than by any effort to drive it from the
mind. To say the truth, Heath was himself too much moved to speak.
The long, sharply-defined trace of the coffin on the coverlet was to
him more terrible than the sight of the corpse could have been; it
was so painfully suggestive.
"The second night," continued Vyner, "they prevailed on me to go to
bed; but I could not sleep. No sooner did I drop into an uneasy
doze, than some horrible dream aroused me. My waking thoughts were
worse. I was continually fancying the rats would--would--ugh! At
last, I got up and went into the room. Who should be there, but
Violet! The dear child was in her night-dress, praying by the side
of the bed! She did not move when I came in. I knelt down with her.
We both offered up our feeble prayers to Him who had been pleased to
take her from us. We prayed together, we wept together. We kissed
gently the pale rigid face, and then the dear child suffered me to
lead her away without a word. It was only then that I suspected the
depth of Violet's grief. She had not cried so much as Rose and
Blanche. I thought she was too young to feel the loss. But from
that moment I understood the strange light which plays in her eyes
when she speaks of her mother."
He stooped over the bed and kissed it; and then, quite overcome, he
threw himself upon a chair, and buried his face in his hands. The
ceaseless wash of the distant waves was now distinctly heard, and it
gave a deeper melancholy to the scene. Captain Heath's feelings were
so wound up, that the room was becoming insupportable to him, and
desirous of shaking off these impressions, he endeavoured to console
his friend.
"I ought to be more firm," said Vyner, rising, "but I cannot help it.
I am not ashamed of these tears--
Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus
Tam cari capitis?
But I ought not to distress others by them."
He led the way down stairs, and, as the children were out, made Heath
promise to return to dinner; "it would help to make them all more
cheerful."
Captain Heath departed somewhat shocked at the pedantry which in such
a moment could think of Horace; and by that very pedantry he was
awakened to a sense of the ludicrous figure which sorrow had made of
Vyner.
We are so constituted that, while scarcely anything disturbs our
hilarity, the least incongruity which seems to lessen the earnestness
of grief, chills our sympathy at once. Vyner's quotation introduced
into the mind of his friend an undefined suspicion of the sincerity
of that grief which could admit of such incongruity. But the
suspicion was unjust. It was not pedantry which dictated that
quotation. Pedantry is the pride and ostentation of learning, and at
that moment Vyner was assuredly not thinking of displaying an
acquaintance with the Latin poet. He was simply obeying a habit; he
gave utterance to a sentence which his too faithful memory presented.
Captain Heath walked on the sands musing. He had not gone far before
his eye was caught by the appearance of two girls in deep mourning; a
second glance assured him they were Vyner's daughters. Walking
rapidly towards them, he was received with affectionate interest.
Quickly recovering from the depression which the sight of him at
first awakened, they began with the happy volatility of childhood, to
ask him all sorts of questions.
"But where is my little Violet?" asked the captain.
"Oh! she's sitting on the ledge of a rock yonder, listening to the
sea," said Blanche.
"Yes," added Rose, "it is very extraordinary--she says the sea has
voices in it which speak to her. She cannot tell us what it says,
but it makes her happy. But she cries a great deal, and that doesn't
look like happiness, does it, Captain Heath?"
"No, Rosebud, not very. But let me go to her."
"Yes, do; come along."
The three moved on together, and presently came to the rock, on a
ledge of which a little girl was lounging. Her hat was off, and her
long dark brown hair was scattered over her shoulders by the wind.
Her face was towards the horizon, and she seemed intently watching.
From the two little traits of her drawn by her father and her
sisters, Captain Heath, who had not seen her since she was a merry
little thing of seven, anticipated a sickly precocious child, in whom
reading or conversation had engendered some of that spiritual
exaltation, which is mostly three parts affectation to one part
disease. He was agreeably disappointed. She had not noticed their
arrival, but on being spoken to, embraced the captain with warmth,
and received him in a perfectly natural manner.
To set his doubts at rest, he said:--
"Well, Violet, has the sea been eloquent to-day, or is it too calm?"
She looked up at him, then at her sisters, and coloured. "I see they
have been making fun of me," she said; "but that's not fair. I love
to sit by the sea because--" she hesitated, "mama loved it. It isn't
foolish of me, is it Captain Heath?"
"No, my dear, not at all--not at all."
"Oh, Captain Heath!" exclaimed Rose, "you said just now it was."
He pinched her little cheek playfully, and was about to reply, when
Blanche said:--
"Look, there is Mary Hardcastle walking with Mrs. Henley. Let us go
and speak to them. I will introduce you, Captain Heath; she's very
pretty."
"Another time," replied he; "they seem to be talking very earnestly
together."
"That they are."
"I hate Mary Hardcastle," said Violet.
"Why?"
"I don't know, but I hate her."
"Silly child!" said Rose; "she's always saying kind things to you."
"And always doing unkind ones," rejoined Violet, sharply.
"Hate is a strong word, Violet," said Blanche.
"Not stronger than I want," replied the high-spirited little girl.
All this while the captain was following with his eye the retreating
form of the said Mary Hardcastle.
Let us follow also.
"It is hopeless for me to expect my guardian will allow him to come,"
said that young lady, with great emphasis, to her companion; "you
know how much he dislikes Marmaduke. So, unless you consent--you
will, won't you?"
"I cannot resist you, Mary. But how is this interview to be
arranged?"
"It _is_ arranged. I was so sure of your goodness--I knew you would
not let him leave England without seeing me once more, to say
farewell; so I told him to call on you this very afternoon, because I
was to spend the day with you. Thus, you see, it will all happen in
the most natural manner."
Mrs. Henley smiled, shook her forefinger at her young friend; so they
walked on, both satisfied.
Having gained this point, it soon occurred to Mary, that Marmaduke
might be asked to dine and spend the evening; but as this would
expose Mrs. Henley to the chance of some one dropping in, and she was
very averse to be supposed to favour these clandestine meetings, a
steady refusal was given. Mary inwardly resolved that she would have
a farewell meeting with her lover, and alone; but said nothing more
on the subject. To have a lover about to sail for Brazil, and to
part with him coldly before others, was an idea no young girl could
entertain, and least of all Mary Hardcastle. She was too well read
in romance to think of such a thing.
It does not occur to every girl, in our unromantic days, to have a
stern guardian who dislikes her lover, and forbids him the house.
Mary, therefore, might consider herself as greatly favoured by
misfortune; her misery was as perfectly select as even her wish could
frame, and the great, the thrilling climax--the parting--was at hand.
That it should be moonlight was a matter of course--moonlight on the
sea-shore.
Mary Hardcastle was just nineteen. There was something wonderfully
attractive about her, though it puzzled you to say wherein lay the
precise attraction. Very diminutive, and slightly humpbacked, she
had somewhat the air of a sprite--so tiny, so agile, so fragile, and
cunning did she appear; and this appearance was further aided by the
amazing luxuriance of her golden hair, which hung in curls, drooping
to her waist. The mixture of deformity and grace in her figure was
almost unearthly. She had a skin of exquisite texture and whiteness,
and the blood came and went in her face with the most charming
mobility. All her features were alive, and all had their peculiar
character. The great defects of her face were, the thinness of her
lips, and the cat-like cruelty sometimes visible in her small, grey
eyes. I find it impossible to convey, in words, the effect of her
personal charms. The impression was so mixed up of the graceful and
diabolic, of the attractive and repulsive, that I know of no better
description of her than is given in Marmaduke's favourite names for
her: he called her his "fascinating panther," and his "tiger-eyed
sylph."
She had completely enslaved Marmaduke Ashley. With the blood of the
tropics in his veins, he had much of the instinct of the savage, and
as when a boy he had felt a peculiar passion for snakes and tigers,
so in his manhood were there certain fibres which the implacable eyes
of Mary Hardcastle made vibrate with a delight no other woman had
roused. He was then only twenty-four, and in all the credulity of
youth.
Everything transpired according to Mary's wish, and at nine o'clock
she contrived to slip away in the evening, unnoticed, to meet her
lover on the sands. True it was not moonlight. She had forgotten
that the moon would not rise; but, after the first disappointment,
she was consoled by the muttering of distant thunder, and the dark
and stormy appearance of the night; a storm would have been a more
romantic parting scene than any moonlight could afford. So when
Marmaduke joined her, she was in a proper state of excitement, and
felt as miserable as the most exacting school-girl could require.
The sea, as it broke sullenly upon the shore, heaved not its bosom
with a heavier sigh, than that with which she greeted her lover, and
nestled in his arms. She wept bitterly, reproached her fate, and
wished to die that moment. Marmaduke, who had never before seen such
a display of her affection, was intensely gratified, and with
passionate protestations of his undying love, endeavoured to console
her.
But she did not want to be consoled. As she could not be happy with
him, her only relief was to be miserable. Self-pity was the balm for
her wounds. By making herself thoroughly wretched, she stood well in
her own opinion. In fact, without her being aware of it, her love
sprang not from the heart, but from the head. She was acting a part
in her own drama, and naturally chose the most romantic part.
The storm threatened, but did not burst. The heavens continued dark;
and the white streaks of foam cresting the dark waves were almost the
only things the eye could discern. The lovers did not venture far
from the house, but paced up and down, occasionally pausing in the
earnestness of talk.
Their conversation need not be recorded here; the more so as it was
but a repetition of one or two themes, such as the misery of their
situation, the constancy of their affection, and their sanguineness
of his speedy return and their happy union.
"Marmaduke," she said at last, "it is getting late; Mrs. Henley will
miss me; I must go."
"A moment longer; one moment."
"Only a moment. Dearest Marmaduke, will you never forget me? Will
you think of me always? Will you write as often as you can? Let us
every night at twelve look at the moon; it will be so sweet to know
that at that moment each is doing the same thing, and each thinking
of the other. You will not lose my locket? But, stay; you have
never given me a lock of your hair. Do so now."
He took a penknife from his pocket, and, with noble disregard to his
appearance, cut off a large lock of his black hair, which he folded
in a piece of paper and gave to her. She kissed it many times, and
vowed its place should be upon her heart. Then, after throwing
herself into his arms, in one last embrace of despair, she broke from
him and darted into the house, rushed up into a bed-room, threw
herself outside the bed, and gave way to so vehement a fit of crying,
that when Mrs. Henley came in to look for her, she found her in
hysterics.
_Nota bene_.--Sixteen months afterwards, Mary Hardcastle became Mrs.
Meredith Vyner.
BOOK I.
CHAPTER I.
FOUR YEARS LATER.
Messire Bon l'a prise en mariage,
Quoiqu'il n'ait plus que quatre cheveux gris;
Mais comme il est le premier du pays
Son bien supplée au défaut de son age.
LAFONTAINE.
My heroines have grown up into young women since we last saw them
idling on the sands; and it is proper I should at once give some idea
of their appearance. Rose and Blanche, children by the first wife,
are very unlike their sister Violet, the only child of the second
Mrs. Vyner: they are fair as Englishwomen only are fair; she is dark
as the children of the south are dark. They are plump and
middle-sized; she is thin and very tall. They are settling into
rounded womanhood; she is at that undeveloped "awkward age" when the
beauty of womanhood has not yet come to fill the place of the
vanished grace of childhood.
Two prettier creatures than Rose and Blanche, it would be impossible
to find. There were sisterly resemblances peeping out amidst the
most charming differences. I know not which deserved the palm; Rose,
with her bright grey eyes swimming in mirth, her little piquant nose
with its nostrils so delicately cut, her ruddy pouting lips which
Firenzuola would with justice have called 'fontana de tutte le
amorose dolcezze,' her dimpled cheeks; and the whole face, in short,
radiant with lovingness and enjoyment. Shakspeare, who has said so
many exquisite things of women, has painted Rose in one line:--
Pretty and witty, wild, and yet, too, gentle.
But then Blanche, with her long dreamy eyes, loving mouth, and
general expression of meekness and devotion, was in her way quite as
bewitching. As for poor Violet, she was almost plain: it was only
those lustrous eyes, so unlike the eyes of ordinary mortals, which
redeemed her thin sallow face. If plain, however, it has already
great energy, great character, and a strange mixture of the most
womanly caressing gentleness, with haughtiness and wilfulness that
are quite startling. Those who remember her as a lovely child,
prophesy that she will become a splendid woman.
From the three girls, let us turn our eyes to the strange stepmother
which fate--or rather foolishness and cunning--had given them.
Mary Hardcastle, at the age of twenty, was placed in perhaps the most
critical position which can await a young woman, viz. that of
stepmother to girls very little younger than herself. In that
situation, she exhibited uncommon skill; the very difficulties of it
were calculated to draw out her strategetical science in the
disposition of her troops; and certainly few women have ever arranged
circumstances with more adroitness than herself. She was a
stepmother indeed, and the reader anticipates what kind of
stepmother; but she was too cunning to fall into the ordinary mistake
of ostensibly assuming the reins of government. Apparently, she did
nothing; she was not the mistress of her own house; she never
undertook the management of a single detail. A meek, submissive
wife, anxious to gain the affection of her 'dear girls;' trembling
before the responsibilities of her situation, she not only deluded
the world, but she even deceived Captain Heath, and almost reconciled
him to the marriage. Nay, what was more remarkable, she deceived the
girls--at least, the two elder girls. They were her companions--her
pets. Before people, she adored them; in private, she gave them
pretty clearly to understand that all their indulgences came from
her; and all their privations from their father. It was her wish,
indeed, that her dear girls should want for nothing, but papa was so
obstinate--he could not be persuaded.
Strange discrepancies between word and deed would sometimes show
themselves, but how was it possible to doubt the sincerity of one
whose language and sentiments were so kind and liberal? She herself
trembled before her husband, and often got the girls to intercede for
her. The natural consequence was that they soon became convinced
that papa was very much altered, and that as he grew older he grew
less kind.
Altered he was. Formerly he had secluded himself in his study,
interfering scarcely at all in family arrangements, making few
observations upon what his children did; and if not taking any great
interest in them, at least behaving with pretty uniform kindness.
Now he was for ever interfering to forbid this, to put a stop to
that; discovering that he "really could not afford" that which
hitherto he had always allowed them; and, above all, discovering that
his daughters were always trying to "govern" in his house.
Violet alone was undeceived. She had always hated Mary Hardcastle,
without precisely knowing why; now she hated her because occupying
the place which her dear mother had occupied, and that, too, in a
spirit of hypocrisy evident in her eyes. Violet, therefore, at once
fixed the change in her father upon her stepmother. How it was
accomplished, she knew not; but she was certain of the fact.
The mystery was simple. Meredith Vyner, like all weak men, had an
irresistible tendency to conceal his weakness from himself, by what
he called some act of firmness. He would have his own way, he said.
He would not be governed. He would be master in his own house. Mrs.
Vyner saw through him at a glance. Wishing to separate him from his
children, and so preserve undisputed sway over him, she artfully
contrived to persuade him that he had always suffered himself to be
governed by his children, and that he had not a will of his own.
Thus prompted, he was easily moved to exert his authority with some
asperity whenever his wife insinuated that it was disregarded; and he
established a character for firmness in his own eyes, by thwarting
his daughters, and depriving them of indulgences.
Moreover, Mrs. Vyner was, or affected to be, excessively jealous of
his affection for the girls. He neglected her for them, she said; of
course she could not expect it to be otherwise, were they not his
children? were they not accustomed to have everything give way to
them? What was she? an interloper. Yet she loved him--foolishly,
perhaps, but she loved him--and love would be jealous, would feel
hurt at neglect.
Vyner, delighted and annoyed at this jealousy, assured her that it
was groundless; but the only assurance she would accept was acts, not
words; accordingly, the poor old man was gradually forced to shut his
heart against his girls; or, at any rate, to cease his demonstrations
of affection, merely to get peace.
In a few sentences I convey the result of months of artful struggle;
but the reader can understand the process by which this result was
obtained, especially if I indicate the nature of the empire Mrs.
Vyner had established.
Vyner was completely fascinated by the little coquette. It was not
only his senses, but his mind, that was subdued. She had early
impressed him with two convictions: one, the extreme delicacy of her
nerves; the other, her immense superiority to himself. The first
conviction was impressed upon him by the alarming hysterics into
which contradiction, or any other mental affliction, threw her. If
any thing went wrong--if the girls resisted her authority--if her own
wishes were not gratified, she did not command, she did not storm;
she wept silently, retired to her room, and was found there lifeless,
or in an alarming state, by the first person who went in.
The second conviction took more time to establish, but she
established it by perpetually dinning into his ear that he could not
"understand her." Nor, in truth, could he. She had a lively
imagination, and was fond of the most imaginative poetry;--the less
disposition he manifested towards it, the more she insinuated how
necessary a part it was of all exalted minds. In her views of art,
of life, and of religion, she was always exaggerated, and what the
Germans call _schwärmerisch_. Vyner was as prosaic as prose, and
owned his incapacity for "those higher raptures" which were said to
result from "an exalted ideal." What we do not understand, we always
admire or despise. Vyner admired.
One admirable specimen of her tactics was to make him feel that,
although she loved him, she did not love him with all the ardour of
her passionate nature; and a hope was adroitly held out, that upon
him only depended whether she should one day acknowledge that he had
her entire affections. To gain this end, what man would not have
made himself a slave? If any man could resist such an attraction,
Vyner was not that man; and he submitted to every caprice, in the
deluded hope of seeing his submission crowned with its reward.
In effect, Mrs. Vyner's will was law; yet so dexterously did she
contrive matters, that it always seemed as if Vyner was the sole
ordainer of everything. He was the puppet, moving as she pulled the
wires, and gaining all the odium for her acts.
Violet, as I said, was the only one who saw this. She read her
stepmother's character aright; and by her Mrs. Vyner knew that she
was judged. She used her best arts to gain Violet's good opinion,
tried to pet her in every way, but nothing availed: the haughty girl
was neither to be blinded nor cajoled.
One day Vyner found his wife in tears. He inquired the cause. She
wept on, and could not be induced to speak. He entreated her to
confide her sorrows to him, which, after long pressing, she did as
follows:--
"Oh! it is very natural," she said, sobbing; "very--I have no right
to complain: none. I ought never to have married."
"Dearest Mary, _what_ is the matter?"
"I have no right to be afflicted. I ought to have been prepared for
it. Of course, it must be so. Yet I did hope to make them love me.
I love them so. I tried all I could; but I am a stepmother--every
one will tell them that a stepmother is unkind."
"The ungrateful things!"
Vyner was really incensed against his daughters before he knew what
they had done, simply because they were the cause of his conjugal
peace being disturbed.
"Rose and Blanche, indeed," sobbed his wife, "do give me credit
sometimes, but Violet hates me--hates me because I married you. She
is jealous of your regard for me. She says you ought never to have
married again--perhaps she is right, but it is cruel for me to hear
it."
"The wretched girl!"
"She will never forget I am not her mother--she looks upon our
marriage as a crime, I believe!"
A spasm, short but sharp, was visible on his face; but the touch of
remorse quickly gave way to anger. He felt, indeed, that he had
acted wrongly in marrying again, especially in marrying one so young.
He knew that well enough, knew what the world must think of it; but
nothing, as she knew, made him so angry as any allusion to it. The
sense of his fault exasperated his sense of the impertinence of those
who ventured to speak of it. He had surely a right to do as he
pleased. He loved a charming, a "most superior" woman, and he
"supposed _he_ was to be considered, no less than his children." It
was very strange that he should be expected to sacrifice everything
to them. Other fathers were not so complaisant.
And yet, through all the arguments which irritated self-love could
suggest, there pierced the consciousness of his error. That Violet
should resent his marriage was no more than natural; but his wife
well knew the tender chord she touched, when she thus alluded to his
daughter's feelings.
That day she said no more. She allowed herself to be consoled. But
by bringing up the subject again from time to time, she contrived to
instil into his mind a mingled fear and dislike of his favourite
child.
Whenever Violet and her stepmother had any "difference"--which was
not unfrequent--Vyner always sided against his daughter; and his
wife's demeanour being one of exasperating meekness, as if she were
terrified at Violet's vehemence, he always told people that "his
youngest daughter was unfortunately such a devil, there was no living
with her, and that his wife was tyrannized over in a way that was
quite pitiable."
At last, Violet was sent away from home--that she might not corrupt
her sisters, it was said--in reality, that she might be got out of
the way. Vyner thereby secured peace, and his wife got rid of an
unfavourable judge. The poor girl was placed under the care of two
"strong-minded" women, who had been duly prejudiced against her, and
whose cue it was to work upon her religious feelings, and awaken her
to a sense of the duty she owed her parents. She soon detected their
object, and rebelled. Disagreeable scenes took place, which ended in
Violet escaping from their odious care, and flying to her fox-hunting
uncle's, in Worcestershire, where she was received with open arms.
Being very fond of his niece, he wrote to Vyner, requesting
permission to be allowed to keep her with him for some time,
promising she should not want masters, and that her education should
be carefully attended to. The permission was granted, after some
difficulty, and Violet was happily settled in Worcestershire, while
her two sisters, grown too handsome and too old to be kept longer at
home, were despatched to the establishment kept by Mrs. Wirrelston
and Miss Smith, at Brighton.
Before accompanying them, I have one more point to dwell on, and that
was the sudden fit of economy which had seized Mrs. Vyner. The
estate, though large, was greatly encumbered, and it was, moreover,
entailed. Vyner, always "going" to make some provision for his
girls, had never done so; he had,--weak, vacillating, procrastinating
man as he was,--"put it off," and trusted, perhaps, to the girls
marrying well. Mrs. Vyner determined to economize; to save yearly a
large sum, which was to be set aside. In pursuance of this plan, she
began the most extraordinary retrenchments, and dressed the girls in
a style of plainness and economy by no means in accordance with their
feelings. In justice, I should add, that she dressed herself in the
same style. People were loud in their praises at her generous
self-sacrifice; but, as she sentimentally observed, "for her dear
girls she could do anything." Perhaps, of all her efforts at
securing the reputation of an exemplary stepmother, none met with
such universal approbation as this economical fit. I am sorry to be
forced to add, that while economizing even to meanness, in some
departments, she was so lavish in her expenditure in others, as, in
effect, to plunge Vyner deeper into debt than ever.
CHAPTER II.
ROSE WRITES TO VIOLET.
DEAREST Vi.,
Your letter amused us very much; and we have both for a long while
been going to answer it, but have not found time. Don't be angry at
our silence.
We left home rather low spirited. Home, indeed, was no longer the
happy place it had been, though mama, say what you will, is not to
blame for that; but, nevertheless, leaving it made us unhappy.
Having grown up into young women without being sent to school, we did
not like the idea of going at last.
The snow was falling fast when we arrived; and a dreary January day
by no means enlivened our prospects. We looked wistfully out of the
carriage-windows, and saw the steady descent of the countless
snow-flakes darkening the air, and making the day miserable. Nothing
met our eyes but the same endless expanse of snow-covered
ground,--cheerless, cold, and desolate--the uncomfort of winter
without its picturesqueness. But, cold and cheerless as the day was,
it was nothing to the cheerlessness of the frigid politeness and
patronizing servility of Miss Smith and Mrs. Wirrelston, our
school-mistresses. I am a physiognomist, you know, and from the
first moment, I disliked them. Blanche thought them very kind and
attentive. I thought them too attentive: the humbugs!
They froze me. I foresaw the mistresses they would make, and that is
why I instinctively felt that the miserable day was more genial and
clement than they. The snow would cease; in a few hours, gleams of
sunshine would make it sparkle; in a few weeks, it would disappear.
But the wintry frost of their politeness would deepen and deepen into
sterner cold; there was no hope of sunshine under that insincere
manner.
I hope you admire that paragraph! But for fear you should imagine I
am about to turn authoress, I must let you into the secret: it is an
application to my situation of a passage I met with yesterday in a
novel one of the girls has smuggled in.
It was about four o'clock when we arrived. We were shown into the
school-room, where we found about nine other girls, from twelve to
seventeen years old, with whom we soon made acquaintance. We first
asked each other's names; then communicated our parentage; then
followed questions as to previous schools, and as to what sort of
place this was. Accounts varied considerably. Some thought it very
well, and liked Mrs. Wirrelston. Some thought it detestable, and
detested Mrs. Wirrelston. One and all detested Miss Smith.
The elder girls seemed very nice; but, from always having been at
school I suppose, they struck me as excessively ignorant of the
world, compared with us, and still more ignorant of books. They were
children to us. Our superior knowledge, which was quickly
discovered, made us looked up to, and we were assailed with
questions. But if we were for a moment looked up to on that account,
we speedily lost our supremacy on another. One of the younger girls
asked me how much pocket-money we had brought?
"Twenty shillings each."
"Twenty shillings! what only twenty shillings! Why I brought five
pounds."
"And I, ten," proudly ejaculated another.
I felt deeply ashamed; the more so as I observed the girls
interchange certain looks, which were but too intelligible. Next day
we had the mortification of hearing each new comer informed, and in a
tone of disgusted astonishment, that "the Vyners had only brought
twenty shillings each. Only think!"
I instantly wrote home to papa. But his answer was, that we must
learn to be economical, that he was learning it himself, and that
mama thinks it highly necessary we should early learn to submit to
small privations. I hate economy!
To return to our school, however. The first afternoon was spent in
chat and games. Lessons were not to commence till the morrow. And
as the morrow was very much like other days, I may sketch our
routine. While dressing, we have to learn a verse of scripture out
of a book called "Daily Bread." (I got punished the other day for
saying it was "very dry bread, too." That odious, little, pimply
Miss Pinkerton told Miss Smith of it.) This verse we all repeat one
after the other when prayers are finished; and as I seldom know my
verse when we come down, I contrive to sit at the end of the table
and learn it by hearing all the others say it before me. One of the
elder and one of the little girls then collect the bibles and put
them away; while the rest of us, rank and file, begin to march, heads
up, chests expanded, toes out. This military exercise is not, I
believe, to fashion us into a regiment of grenadiers--the
Drawing-room Invincibles--because, when I suggested that we ought to
have moustachios and muskets, I received a severe reprimand for my
levity. Besides, we vary the march with little operations scarcely
to be called military: touching, or trying to touch, the floor with
the tips of our fingers without bending our knees, making our elbows
meet behind our backs, &c. We then go into breakfast, and are
allowed to exchange our merciless slaughter of French idiom, for the
freely flowing idiom of our mother tongue. I have not had the French
mark yet, except for speaking English; my French, I am happy to say,
is beyond the criticism of the girls: what _their_ mastery of the
language is, you may guess by that! You may also gain a faint idea
of it from these specimens. I passed the mark to little Miss
Pinkerton only yesterday, because she asked me for my penknife in
this elegant style: "_Madle. voulez vous pretez moi votre COUTEAU?_"
Whereupon I whipped the mark into her hands with a generous "_Le
voilà._" Last week she said, "_Je n'ai pas encore FAIT_;" for "I have
not done (finished) yet"--and pointed out to me, "_Comme vous avez
mal coupé vos CLOUS_"--meaning, that I had not cut my finger nails
well!
At meals, we are permitted to speak like Christians. After breakfast
we have half an hour's recreation. We play, or read, or work, or,
twining an arm round our confidant's waist, interchange confidences
respecting the loves we have had, and the husbands we intend to have.
Then come lessons. There are five pianos--and five unhappy girls are
always practising on them. We arrange our lessons so as to take the
pianos in turns, and by this means, we all get our practice, and the
thumping never ceases. What a life those pianos lead! How I wish
Miss Smith were one of them!
The drawing-master comes at eleven. We don't learn. Papa allows no
extras, except dancing,--he says they're "so foolish." I am sorry we
don't learn, for Mr. Hibbert, our master, is a perfect duck!--such a
nice face, with glossy hair, turned into a sweet little curl on his
forehead; large whiskers, rosy complexion, and we all say he is
consumptive. Then he draws so well--so boldly! His strokes are as
straight, and as broad and black as--I haven't got a simile, But you
should see the copies he sets; boats on the sea-shore, turned on
their sides, with handsome fishermen standing by, occupied with their
nets, and pretty, fat children dotting the sands; or nice little
cottages, with smoke (so natural!) coming from the chimneys, and
large trees by them, and a dog or a cow, or else a splendid castle,
with turrets, and drawbridges, and knights in armour on horseback.
Mr. Hibbert ought to be an academician!*
* This last sentence makes me suspect that the whole paragraph is a
bit of the saucy Rose's irony, and that she is quizzing the
admiration of her schoolfellows for Mr. Hibbert. But school girls
have such strange idols, that she may be serious here.--_Author's
Note_.
At twelve, when the weather permits, we go out for a walk. In
formidable files of twos and twos, we gravely tread the esplanade and
_circumambient_ streets (isn't that a nice word?--I got it from Miss
Smith). We there see withered old Indians, invalids in chairs,
wheeled about in search of Hygeia, dowagers, and some officers, with
such moustachios--the darlings! We quiz the passers-by, and
sometimes discuss their attractions. Some of the men look so
_impudent_! And one always blows a kiss to us as we pass--that is,
he blows it to me. I'm sure he's a rake.
At half-past two, we dress for dinner. At three, we dine. The food
is plain, but good, and abundant. After dinner we have more lessons,
till six. Then tea; then we amuse ourselves, if we have learned all
our lessons and tasks, either with books or fancy-work. At eight, to
bed.
All the days are like this, except Sunday; and oh! what a dreary day
is Sunday! What with twice church, Collects to learn, explanations
of the Psalms and Catechism, our day is pretty well occupied. We
take no walk--we are allowed no recreation. "Bunyan's Pilgrim's
Progress," and a few religious tales, are the only things allowed to
those who have said Collect and Catechism, and have time to spare. I
hate Bunyan!
But this is not all. If any one has had the three bad marks during
the week, the punishment is to sit in the corner all Sunday, and
learn a sermon: she is not allowed to speak all day, except to the
governesses. Miss Smith has more than once punished me in that way,
and you may imagine how it increases my love for her!
Well, after this long dreary day, comes evening lecture. Oh, Vi.!
if anything could make school more odious than it is, that evening
lecture would be the thing! Picture to yourself eighteen weary
girls, after a day's absence from any recreation, having swallowed
their tea, and then forced to sit in the school-room on hard benches,
without backs, in prim silence, awaiting the arrival of the Rev.
Josiah Dutton, who sometimes keeps us waiting for at least an hour.
We are not allowed to speak. We are not allowed to read. We sit
there in silent expectation; which a figuratively historical pen
would liken (by way of a new simile) to the senators of Rome awaiting
the Gauls. We sit and look at the candles, look at the ceiling, look
at the governesses, and look at each other. At last the door opens,
and the reverend Dutton appears. He takes his place at a desk, and
begins in a droning voice, meant to be impressive, a lecture or
sermon which we do not attend to. I sit opposite to him, and am
forced to keep my eyes fixed upon him, because I know Miss Smith's
are fixed upon me. There I sit, my back aching from want of support,
my eyes drawing straws in the candles, till I feel as if I should
grow blind, weaned with the unvaried occupation of the day, and still
more wearied by the effort to keep up my attention to what I cannot
interest myself in, what indeed, for the most part, I cannot
comprehend.
There, my dear Vi., you have a return for your long letter, and an
encouragement to write again. I'm literally at the end of my paper,
for this is the last sheet I have in the world. Blanche is to write
to you to-morrow.
P.S.--Unless you have an opportunity of getting your letter delivered
by private hand, mind what you say! All ours are opened. This will
be put in the post, in London, by one of my companions, who goes
there for a couple of days; otherwise, I dare not have sent it.
CHAPTER III.
THE HAPPY SCHOOL-DAYS.
Rose and Blanche remained three years at Mrs. Wirrelston's.
Rose's letter has disclosed to us a sufficiently detailed account of
their school existence; but she has omitted one very important
point--for the very excellent reason that, at the time she wrote, it
had not shown itself. She speaks, indeed, of the surprise and
contempt of the girls when they learned how scantily her purse was
furnished; but the full effects of that were only developed some time
afterwards.
A school is an image of the world in miniature, and represents it,
perhaps, in its least amiable aspect. The child is not only father
to the man, but the father, before experience has engendered
tolerance, before suffering has extended sympathy. The child is
horribly selfish, because unreflectingly so. Its base instincts have
not been softened or corrected. All its vices are not only
unrestrained, but unconcealed. Its egotism and vanity are allowed
full play.
Rose's schoolfellows were quite aware of the beauty and mental
superiority which distinguished her and Blanche; and envied them for
it. But they were also fully aware of the scantiness of their
allowance, and the inferiority of their dress; and despised them
heartily, undisguisedly. Poverty, which is an inexcusable offence in
the great world, becomes a sort of crime at school. The love of
tyranny implanted in the human breast, and always flourishing in
children, gratified itself by subjecting Rose and Blanche to endless
sarcasms on that score. The little irritations which arose, in the
natural course of things, between them and their schoolfellows, were
sure to instigate some sarcasm on "mean little creatures"--"vulgar
things"--"penniless people," &c. It was a safe and ready source of
annoyance: a weapon always at hand, adapted to the meanest capacity,
and certain to wound.
Beyond the indignities which it drew down upon them, the absence of
pocket-money was a serious inconvenience. They had only two
shillings a week each as an allowance; out of which they had to find
their own pens, pencils, paper, india-rubber, sealing-wax, and
trifles--indispensable trifles of that kind; besides having to put
sixpence every fortnight into the poor-box. The hardship of this was
really terrible. The word may seem a strong one, but if we measure
the importance of things by the effects they produce, it will not
seem too strong. To men and women, all this inconvenience may seem
petty. It was not petty to the unhappy girls: it was the cause of
constant humiliation and bitter sorrow.
Parents little imagine the extent of their cruelty, when, to gratify
their own ambition, they send children to expensive schools, and
refuse to furnish them with the means of being on a footing of
equality with their school-fellows. The effects of such conditions
are felt throughout the after life. The misery children endure from
the taunting superiority of their companions, is only half the evil;
the greater half is in the moral effects of such positions.
Upon natures less generous, healthy, and good than those of Rose and
Blanche, the evil would have been incalculable. Even upon them, it
was not insignificant. It over-developed the spirit of opposition in
Rose; it crushed the meek spirit of Blanche. Rose with her vivacity
and elasticity could best counteract and forget it; but it sank
deeply into the quiet, submissive soul of Blanche, and made her
singularly unfitted to cope with the world; as the sequel of this
story will show.
I do not wish to exaggerate the influence of this school experience;
I am well aware of the ineradicable propensities and dispositions of
human beings; but surely it is right to assume that certain
dispositions are fostered or misdirected by certain powerful
conditions; and no disposition could be otherwise than damaged by
being subjected to distressing humiliation from companions, and on
grounds over which the victim had no earthly control.
A miserable life Rose and Blanche led. Disliked by Mrs. Wirrelston
and Miss Smith, because they learned no extras--that fruitful source
of profit--and because they were so ill-dressed as to be "no credit
to the establishment;" they were taunted by their school-fellows,
because unable to join in any subscription which was set on foot. To
any one who knows the female mind, I need not expatiate on the
contempt which frowned upon their shabby attire. To be ill dressed;
to have none of the novelties; to continue wearing frocks out of the
season, and which were out-grown; to be shivering in white muslin in
the beginning of December.
Yes, reader, in December; for winter clothing they had none, and
their parents were abroad.
Mrs. Vyner's neglect is perhaps excusable when we reflect how young
she was, and how unfit for the position she occupied; but the effects
of that neglect were very important.
"Poor things!" exclaimed Letitia Hoskins, a citizen's daughter, in
all the insolence engendered by consols; "their father can't afford
to clothe them."
"Yet why doesn't he send them to a cheaper school?" suggests Amelia
Wingfield.
"Vulgar pride. I dare say he's some shop-keeper. He wishes his
daughters to be educated with ladies."
"Meant for governesses, I shouldn't wonder."
"Most likely, poor things!"
In vain did Rose and Blanche repeatedly answer such assertions, by
declaring their father's family was one of the most ancient in
England (Miss Hoskins gave an exasperating chuckle of ridicule at
that), and was worth twelve thousand a year. A derisive shout was
the only answer. The girls _would_ not have believed it, however
credible; and it was on the face of it a very incredible statement,
coming from girls who, as Letty Hoskins once observed, "had the
meanness to come there with a sovereign each, and one pot of bears'
grease between them. Girls who were never dressed half so genteelly
as her mama's maid."
"And learn no extras," added little Miss Pinkerton, with a toss of
her head. "When I told Rose that I had got on so well with my
drawing (especially the _shading_!) that Mr. Hibbert said I might
soon begin drawing with _Creoles_, she burst out laughing, and said
she had never heard of that branch of the art before. Fancy a girl
of nineteen never having heard of drawing with Creoles!"
"With _crayons_, I suppose you mean," suggested Amelia Wingfield,
contemptuously.
"Well, it's all the same; she had never heard of it."
Rose was witty enough to take fearful reprisals on those who offended
her; but, although she thus avenged herself, she was always sure to
be worsted in the war of words. Nothing she could say cut so deep as
the most stupid reflection on her dress or poverty. No sarcasm she
could frame told like the old--but never too old--reference to
governesses. Nevertheless, her vivacity and humour in some measure
softened the ill impression created by her poverty. She amused the
girls so much, that they never allowed their insolence to be more
than a passing thing. Often would she make the whole school merry
with some exquisitely ludicrous parody of Mrs. Wirrelston or Miss
Smith. The latter was her especial butt. She revelled in quizzing
her. She knew well enough that the laughers, with the treachery of
children, first enjoyed the joke, and then repeated it to Miss Smith,
to enjoy the joker's punishment, and to curry favour with the
governess. No matter; Rose knew she was sure to be betrayed, yet her
daring animal spirits were constantly inciting her to make fun of her
ridiculous mistress.
Miss Smith was a starch virago. Bred to the profession of governess,
she had considerable acquirements--of which she was very vain--and
great sense of the "responsibility" of her situation, which showed
itself in a morbid watchfulness over the "morals of her young
charges." Her modesty was delicate and easily alarmed; nothing, for
instance, would induce her to mention sparrows before
gentlemen--those birds having rather a libertine reputation in
natural history--she called them "little warblers." Again: the word
_belly_ was carefully erased from Goldsmith's History of England, and
_stomach_ substituted in the margin. Rose once pointed this out to
the girl standing next to her at class, and was duly punished for her
"impropriety."
Miss Smith was not handsome. Her complexion was of a bilious brown,
mottled with pimples. Her nose was thin and pointed; the nostrils
pinched up, as if she were always smelling her own breath, and that
breath stronger but not sweeter than the rose. Her lips thin and
colourless. Her figure tall and fleshless. There was a rigidity and
primness in her whole appearance, which lent itself but too easily to
caricature; and Rose, whose good nature would have spared a kinder
person, had no remorse in ridiculing the ungenerous mistress, who
visited upon her and her sister the sins of their father.
On the day selected for our glimpse into this school, Rose was
shivering over a long task, which had been given her for the
following audacity. Miss Smith had been "reviling in good set terms"
the character of Meredith Vyner. Rose's blood had mounted to her
cheek, but she was silent, conscious that any retort would only
indulge her mistress, by showing that the abuse of her father was a
sore subject. She affected to have lost her copy of Goldsmith, and
to be in great concern about it. As it was only a common schoolbook,
bound in mottled calf, Miss Pinkerton could not understand her
anxiety about it, sarcastically adding, "_My_ papa doesn't care how
many books I have. He can afford it." "Oh, it isn't the book,"
replied Rose confidentially, "it's the _binding_! Real _Smithskin_!"
Blanche and Miss Pinkerton both laughed; and the latter immediately
informed Miss Smith of the joke, and of Blanche's participation. For
this offence they were both punished; but the name remained: to this
day the mottled calf binding is by the girls called Smithskin.
It was near the breaking up, and the elder girls, with the horrible
servility of children of both sexes when at school, had set on foot a
subscription to present Mrs. Wirrelston and Miss Smith with some
token of their regard. Miss Hoskins had put her name down for thirty
shillings. Others had subscribed a pound, and others ten shillings;
even the younger girls had put down five shillings each. When the
list was brought to Rose and Blanche, they said they had no money.
"Of course not," said Miss Hoskins; "what's the use of asking them?
You will ask the servants next."
Blanche raised her mild face, and said,--
"I would subscribe if I could; but how is it possible? You girls
come to school with ten pounds or more in your pockets, and you have
other presents besides. Papa refuses to allow us pocket-money--says
we can have no use for it."
"All that is true," added Rose; "but if we had money I would not
subscribe. I have no regard for them, and the only token I would
offer them is a copy of 'Temper,' bound in Smithskin."
"Oh!" ejaculated several, pretending to be very much shocked.
"Or 'Don Juan,'" pursued Rose, "binding ditto. I'm sure Miss Smith
reads it, because it's called improper."
The girls were so much shocked at this that they moved away; but they
did not dare repeat it, so fearful did it seem!
Mrs. Wirrelston entered. Anger darkened her brow, though she
endeavoured to be calm and dignified. They all read what was
underneath that calmness, and awaited in silence till she should
speak. She held in her hand an open letter, which she passed to Miss
Smith, who, having read it, looked starcher and more bilious than
ever.
The letter was from Meredith Vyner to his children, and this was the
postscript:--
"As you are to leave school at Christmas, mind you don't forget to
bring away with you your spoons and forks."
It was the custom at Mrs. Wirrelston's, as at most schools, to exact
from each pupil, that she should bring her own silver spoons and
fork, also her sheets and towels; a very satisfactory arrangement,
which saved the school-mistress from an expense, and, as the pupils
always left them behind, was the foundation of a respectable stock of
plate when the mistress should retire into private life. But the
enormity of a pupil taking away her own spoons and fork, had hitherto
been unheard of; and the _meanness_ of a parent who could remind his
children of their property, appeared to Mrs. Wirrelston and Miss
Smith something exceeding even what they had anticipated from
Meredith Vyner. And yet they had formed an exalted view of his
capacity in that way, from the odious criticisms which he permitted
himself on certain charges in the half-yearly accounts--charges which
had always been admitted by the parents of other pupils, and which,
if difficult to justify, no man of "common liberality" would
question. This "tradesmanlike spirit" of examining accounts had
greatly irritated the two ladies, and they paid off, in ill treatment
to Rose and Blanche, the annoyance caused by their father's pedantic
accuracy.
The way in which this postscript was received may be readily
imagined. It was the climax of a series of insults. 'One would
imagine that Mrs. Wirrelston and Miss Smith wanted to _keep_ the
paltry spoons--which were very light after all. As if it were the
custom at that establishment to retain the young ladies' property.'
"But be careful, young ladies," said Mrs. Wirrelston, with great
sarcasm in her tone; "be careful that the Misses Vyner leave nothing
behind them. It might be awkward. We might be called upon.
Everything is of some value. Be sure that the ends of their lead
pencils are packed up."
"Yes," interposed Miss Smith, "and don't forget their curl papers.
The Misses Vyner will certainly like to pack up their curl papers."
Blanche, unable to endure these unjust taunts, burst into tears. But
Rose, greatly incensed, said--
"All that should be said to papa, not to us; since he is to blame, if
there _is_ any blame."
"You are insolent. Go to your room, Miss Vyner!" exclaimed Mrs.
Wirrelston.
Miss Smith lifted up her eyes in amazement at such audacity.
"I do not see," pursued the undaunted Rose, "why we are to be
taunted, because papa wishes to see his own property."
"You don't see, you impertinent girl!"
"No, I do not, unless our taking home our own spoons should be a
ruinous precedent."
The sarcasm cut deeply. Both mistresses were roused to vehemence by
it; and, vowing that such insolence was altogether insupportable,
ordered her boxes to be packed up, and expelled her that very
afternoon.
Rose was by no means affected at the expulsion; but poor Blanche, who
was now left alone to bear the spite and malice of two mistresses for
three weeks longer, greatly felt the loss of her sister's company,
the more so because the other girls, at all times distant, had now
sided with their mistresses, and actually refused to associate in any
way with her.
But the three weeks passed. Breaking up arrived. It is needless to
say how many prizes were adjudged to Blanche Vyner at the
distribution. She only thought of the joy of being once more at home.
CHAPTER IV.
ROSE AND BLANCHE AT HOME.
No doating mother could have seemed kinder to her daughters than was
Mrs. Meredith Vyner to Rose and Blanche, for the first three weeks
after their arrival from school. She insisted upon their each having
a separate allowance; but contrived that it should be totally
inadequate to the necessary expenses. She shopped with them, but
recommended, in a tone which was almost an insistance, colours which
neither suited their complexions, nor assorted well with each other.
She made them numberless little presents, and was always saying
charming things to them. If they thought her pleasant before, they
now declared her quite loveable. They looked up to her, not only as
one having a mother's authority, but also as a superior being, for
she had made a decided impression on them of that kind, by always
condemning or ridiculing their own tastes and opinions as "girlish,"
and by carefully repeating (with what amount of embroidery I will not
say) all the compliments which men paid her on her own supreme taste.
The latter were not few. Partly because a pretty, lively woman never
is in want of them: the more so, because Mrs. Meredith Vyner not only
courted admiration, but demanded it. What more natural, therefore,
that two girls, hearing from their father, who was so learned, such
praises of their step-mother's talents, and observing such submission
from other men to her taste, should blindly acknowledge a superiority
so proclaimed?
As if to make "assurance doubly sure," Mrs. Meredith Vyner would
occasionally repeat to them, with strong disclaimers, as
"unwarrantably satirical," certain depreciatory comments which had
been made to her, she said, by men, the gist of which was, that they
were not admired. After a while, the poor girls actually believed
they were wanting in attractions. Rose's brilliant colour was a
milkmaid's coarseness, and Blanche's retiring manners were owing to a
want of grace and style. Rose, who was merry, was given to
understand that she was loud and vulgar. Blanche, who was all
gentleness, had learned to consider herself as an uninteresting,
apathetic, awkward girl.
To effect such impressions was only half a victory. The real triumph
was to manage that the admiration which such beauty and such manners
as theirs were sure to call forth, should not efface these
impressions. This was done by a very simple, but ingenious
contrivance. Mrs. Meredith Vyner never gave balls, seldom accepted
invitations to them, or to any dancing fêtes. She went out a great
deal, and often received company. But her society was limited to
dinners and conversaziones. The men were almost exclusively
scientific, or members of Parliament, or celebrities. No specimen of
the genus "Dancing Young Man" was ever asked. Nothing could suit
Meredith Vyner better; neither his age nor his habits accorded with
balls, while literary and scientific men were always welcome guests;
so that he applauded his wife's wisdom in giving up the
"frivolities," and hoped his girls would gladly follow her example.
By such and similar means she had got them, as the vulgar phrase
goes, "completely under her thumb;" and that, too, without in any
instance giving the world anything to lay hold of which looked like a
stepmother's unkindness. Indeed, the girls themselves, though they
at last began to suspect something, could make no specific
accusation. Mrs. Meredith Vyner might occasionally be said to err,
but never to do anything that could be interpreted into wilful
unkindness.
It may, perhaps, be wondered that considering how much it was her
desire to gain the golden opinions of the world as an exemplary
stepmother in a peculiarly trying situation, she did not see the
simplest plan would have been real, not pretended, kindness.
But by her line of conduct she secured all she wanted--the
appearances; and she secured two objects of more importance to her.
One of interest, and one of _amour propre_. The first object was the
complete separation of the children from their father. Determined to
have undisputed sway over her husband, she isolated him from the
affection of every one else, by a calculation as cruel as it was
ingenious. The second object was the complete triumph she obtained
over her daughters, whose age and beauty made them dreaded rivals.
If mothers cannot resist the diabolical suggestions of envy, but must
often present the sad spectacle of a jealousy of their own children,
how much more keenly must the rivalry be felt with their
stepdaughters, especially in England, where the unmarried women have
the advantage? And the pretty little tiger-eyed Mrs. Vyner was too
painfully conscious of her humpback, not to dread a comparison with
the lovely Rose and Blanche.
I have to observe also, that the economical fit no longer troubled
Mrs. Vyner; she had launched into the extravagances of London
society, with the same thorough-going impetuosity characteristic of
all her actions. No fit ever lasted long with her; this of economy
had endured an incredible time, and was now put aside, never again to
be mentioned.
CHAPTER V.
MARMADUKE MEETS MRS. VYNER.
Everybody was at Dr. Whiston's, as the phrase goes, on one of his
Saturday evenings. Dr. Whiston was a scientific man, whose great
reputation was founded upon what his friends thought him capable of
doing, rather than upon anything he had actually done. He was rich,
and knew "everybody." His Saturday evenings formed an integral part
of London society. They were an institution. No one who pretended
to any acquaintance with the aristocracy of science, or with the
scientific members of the aristocracy, could dispense with being
invited to Dr. Whiston's. There were crowded lions of all countries,
pretty women, bony women, elderly women, strong-minded women, and
mathematical women; a sprinkling of noblemen, a bishop or two, many
clergymen, barristers, and endless nobodies with bald foreheads and
spectacles, all very profound in one or more "ologies," but cruelly
stupid in everything else--abounding in "information," and alarmingly
dull. Dr. Whiston himself was a man of varied knowledge, great
original power, and a good talker. He passed from lions to doctors,
from beauties to bores, with restless equanimity: a word for each,
adapted to each; and every one was pleased.
The rooms were rapidly filling. The office of announcing the
visitors had become a sinecure, for the very staircase was beginning
to be invaded. Through the dense crowd of rustling dresses and
formidable spectacles, adventurous persons on the search for friends
made feeble way; but the majority stood still gazing at the lions, or
endeavouring by uneasy fitful conversation to seem interested.
Groups were formed in the crowd and about the doorways, in which
something like animated conversation went on.
In the centre of the third room, standing by a table on which were
ranged some new inventions that occupied the attention of the bald
foreheads and bony women, stood a young and striking-looking man of
eight and twenty. A melancholy listlessness overspread his swarthy
face, and dimmed the fire of his large eyes. The careless grace of
his attitude admirably displayed the fine proportions of his almost
gigantic form, which was so striking as to triumph over the miserable
angularity and meanness of our modern costume.
All the women, the instant they saw him, asked who he was. He
interested everybody except the bald foreheads and the strong-minded
women; but most he excited the curiosity of the girls dragged there
by scientific papas or mathematical mamas. Who could he be? It was
quite evident he was not an ologist. He was too gentlemanly for a
lion; too fresh-looking for a student.
"My dear Mrs. Meredith Vyner, how d'ye do? Rose, my dear, you look
charming; and you too, Blanche. And where's papa?"
"Talking to Professor Forbes in the first room," replied Mrs.
Meredith Vyner, to her questioner: one of the inspectors of Dr.
Whiston's inventions.
"I am trying to get a seat for my girls," said Mrs. Vyner peering
about, as well as her diminutive form would allow in so crowded a
room.
"I dare say you will find one in the next room. Oh, come in; perhaps
you can tell us who is that handsome foreigner in there; nobody knows
him, and I can't get at Dr. Whiston to ask."
They all four moved into the third room, and the lady directed Mrs.
Vyner's attention to the mysterious stranger.
It was Marmaduke Ashley.
Mrs. Meredith Vyner did not swoon, she did not even scream; though, I
believe, both are expected of ladies under such circumstances, in
novels. In real life, it is somewhat different. Mrs. Vyner only
blushed deeply, and felt a throbbing at her temples--felt, as people
say, as if the earth were about to sink under her--but had too much
self-command to betray anything. One observing her would, of course,
have noticed the change; but there happened to be no one looking at
her just then, so she recovered her self-possession before her
acquaintance had finished her panegyric on his beauty.
She had not seen Marmaduke since that night on which she parted from
him, in a transport of grief, on the sands behind Mrs. Henley's
house, when the thunder muttered in the distance, and the heavy,
swelling sea threw up its sprawling lines of silvery foam,--the night
when he had hacked off a lock of his raven hair for her to treasure.
She had not seen him since that night, when the wretchedness of
parting from him seemed the climax of human suffering, from which
death--and only death--could bring release.
She had not seen him since she had become the wife of Meredith Vyner;
and as that wife she was to meet him now.
What her thoughts would have been at that moment, had she ever really
loved him, the reader may imagine; but as her love had sprung from
the head, and not the heart, she felt no greater pangs at seeing him,
than were suggested by the sight of one she had deceived, and whom
she would deceive again, were the past to be recalled. Not that she
cared for her husband; she fully appreciated the difference between
him and Marmaduke; at the same time she also appreciated the
differences in their fortunes, and that reconciled her.
The appearance of Marmaduke at Dr. Whiston's rather flurried than
pained her. She dreaded "a scene." She knew the awful vehemence of
his temper; and although believing that in an interview she could
tame the savage, and bring him submissive to her feet yet that could
only be done by the ruse and fascination of a woman; and a soirée was
by no means the theatre for it.
She began to move away, having seated Rose and Blanche, trusting that
her tiny person would not be detected in the crowd. But Marmaduke's
height gave him command of the room. His eye was first arrested by a
head of golden hair, the drooping luxuriance of which was but too
well known to him: another glance, and the slightly deformed figure
confirmed his suspicion. His pulses throbbed violently, his eyes and
nostrils dilated, and his breathing became hard; but he had
sufficient self-command not to betray himself, although his feelings,
at the sight of her whom he had loved so ardently, and who had jilted
him so basely, were poignant and bitter. He also moved away; not to
follow her, but to hide his emotion.
Little did the company suspect what elements of a tragedy were
working amidst the dull prosiness of that soirée. Amidst all the
science that was gabbled, all the statistics quoted, all the small
talk of the scientific scandal-mongers (perhaps the very smallest of
small talk!), all the profundities that escaped from the bald
foreheads and the strong-minded women, all the listlessness and ennui
of the majority, there were a few souls who, by the earnestness and
the sincerity of their passions, vindicated the human race--souls
belonging to human beings, and not to mere _gubemouches_ and
ologists. These have some interest to the novelist and his public;
so while the gabble and the twaddle are in triumphant career, let us
cast our eyes only in those corners of the rooms where we may find
materials.
To begin with Marmaduke. What a world of emotion is in the breast of
that apparently unoccupied young man, carelessly passing from room to
room! What thoughts hurry across his brain: thoughts of wrong, of
vengeance, of former love, and present hate! Then Mrs. Meredith
Vyner, all smiles and kind words, passing from group to group,
throwing in a word of criticism here, a quotation there, listening to
the account of some new discovery, as if she understood it and cared
about it--who could suppose that a thousand rapid plans were
presenting themselves to her fertile ingenuity, and all quickly
discarded as too dangerous? It was indeed a question of some moment,
how was she to meet Marmaduke? Should she give him the cut direct?
Should she be sentimental? Should she be haughty?
Her resolution was still unformed when Marmaduke stood before her.
Accidentally as they had approached, they were both too much occupied
with each other to be in the least surprised. With a sudden impulse,
she held out her hand to him. He affected not to see the charming
frankness of her greeting, and when she said,--
"I hope I must not recall myself to your recollection, Mr. Ashley!"
He replied with exquisite ease,--
"I know not what will be thought of my gallantry, madam, but, indeed,
I must own the impeachment."
"Then how must I be changed! To be forgotten in so short a time.
Oh, you terrible man! I can never forgive you."
"I can never forgive myself; but so it is."
So perfectly was this epigram delivered, that those standing around
could never have suspected he had said anything but a common-place.
She was deeply wounded by his manner, and he read it in her cruel
eyes; but the smile never left her face, and she introduced herself
as Mrs. Meredith Vyner, with playfulness, throwing his forgetfulness
on the lapse of time since they had met.
"You have the more reason to forgive me," said Marmaduke, "as my
memory is so very bad, that, under the circumstances, I should have
almost forgotten my own sister."
She winced, but laughingly replied,--
"Well, well, there are many virtues in a bad memory. I suppose you
forget injuries with the same Christian alacrity."
He laughed, and said,--
"Oh, no! I have not the virtues of bad memory: do not invest me with
them. If I easily forget faces, I never forget injuries."
She winced again, and this time felt a vague terror at the diabolical
calmness and ease with which he could envelope a terrible threat in
the slight laugh of affected modesty. Confusion, even bitterness,
would have been more encouraging to her. She felt that she was in
the presence of an enemy, and of one as self-possessed as herself.
"Have you been long in England?"
This was to get off the perilous ground on which they stood.
"A few months only."
"And do you intend remaining?"
"Yes; I fancy so. I have one or two affairs which will keep me here
an indefinite time."
"I suppose it would be proper to assume that one of those is an
_affaire de cœur_?"
"Well," he replied, laughing gently, "that depends upon how the word
is used."
"I must not be indiscreet, but a mutual friend of ours told me there
was a lady in the case."
She said this with a peculiarly significant intonation, as if to give
him to understand that jealousy had driven her into marrying Meredith
Vyner. He did not understand her meaning, but saw that she meant
something, and replied,--
"I confess to so much. In fact, one of the affairs I spoke about is
the conclusion of a little comic drama, the commencement of which
dates before I left England. Ah, Cecil! how d'ye do?"
This last sentence was addressed to Cecil Chamberlayne, an old
acquaintance of Marmaduke's. During their conversation, Mrs.
Meredith Vyner was enabled to pass on, and to reach the third room,
where, with more agitation in her manner than the girls had ever
remarked before, she summoned them to accompany her, saying that she
felt too unwell to remain longer.
Blanche arose hastily, and with great sympathy inquired about the
nature of her illness; to which she only received vague replies.
Rose was evidently less willing to leave. Though why she was
unwilling was not at first so apparent. By a retrospective glance at
another little group in Dr. Whiston's salons, we shall be able to
understand this.
CHAPTER VI.
HOW ROSE BECAME ACQUAINTED WITH OUR UGLY HERO.
About three quarters of an hour before, Rose and Blanche were seated
on an ottoman, between two elderly women, ugly enough to be erudite,
and repulsive enough to forbid any attempt at conversation. Silent
the girls sat, occasionally interchanging a remark respecting the
dress of some lady; and as a witticism was sure to follow from Rose,
which Blanche was afraid might be overheard, even this sort of
conversation was sparing, though so much food was offered. Not a
soul spoke to them. They knew scarcely any one, for their stepmother
studiously avoided introducing them. The consequence was, that many
habitual visitors at their father's knew them by sight, but had no
idea who they were; and many were the invitations in which they were
not included, simply because their existence as young ladies who were
"out" was not suspected.
While they sat thus alone, it was some relief to them to espy Mrs.
St. John, whom they knew slightly, and who had recently purchased the
Grange, an estate adjoining Wytton Hall. She came towards them,
leaning on the arm of a young man, whom she introduced as her son;
and one of the erudite women rising at that moment to go, Mrs. St.
John took possession of her seat, next to Blanche, leaving her son
standing talking to Rose. In a very few minutes, a withered little
man in large gold spectacles came up, and offering his arm to the
other erudite female, carried her off, thus leaving a place, which
Mr. St. John at once seized upon.
Julius St. John had not a person corresponding to the beauty of his
name. Do not, my pretty reader, turn away your head; do not shrug
your shoulders; do not skip the next page or so, because truth bids
me inform you Julius was remarkably plain. I would have him handsome
if I could. You may believe me, for I am perhaps a greater
worshipper of beauty than you are; but it is, nevertheless, true,
that I am now going to demand your admiration for a young man, who is
undisguisedly, unequivocally plain. Not ugly--ugliness implies
meanness, or moral deformity--yet absolutely without any feature
which could redeem him from being familiarly called "a fright."
Strikingly plain is the proper expression; so striking as, perhaps,
to be the next best thing to beauty, from the force of the impression
created. No one ever forgot his face. No one could casually
perceive it without having the gaze arrested for a moment. Let me
hasten to add, that the effect was almost repulsive, it was so
powerful. I add this, lest you should suppose that I am going to
trifle with the truth, and to soften my description by certain
intimations of an expression of such exquisite sweetness and such
delicate sensibility--such ideality--or such intellectual fire
illuminating his face, that to all intents and purposes, my plain
hero becomes a handsome man. No, reader, no; while I am perfectly
aware that some plain features are rendered handsome by the
expression, I am also aware that some faces--and the faces of very
noble creatures--are irredeemably plain; and such was Julius St.
John's. Judge:--
A head of enormous size was set upon the miserable shoulders of a
diminutive body, which, though not deformed, was so thin and small,
that an energetic deformity would have been preferable. This head
was covered with a mass of black, crisp, curly hair, which fell
carelessly over a massive but irregular forehead, ornamented with two
thick eyebrows, which, meeting over the nose, formed but one dark
line. The eyes that looked underneath these were bright, but small.
They looked through you; but what they expressed themselves it was
seldom easy to guess. The nose was insignificant; the mobility of
the nostrils alone attracted attention to it. The mouth was
large--not ill-cut--but the lips full and sensual. The chin large;
firmly, boldly cut. The complexion dark and spotted.
These features were not even redeemed by the look of a gentleman, or
the look of an artist. Common he did not look, nor vulgar, but
striking; and, on the whole, repulsive. The best point about him was
his consciousness of his ill looks, and the freedom from any
coxcombical effort to disguise it. He did not bring out his ugliness
into relief by a foolish attention to dress, as most ugly men do. He
was neither a dandy nor a sloven. That he was a "fright" he knew,
and accepted his fate with manliness.
"Have you been looking at those?" he said to Rose, as he sank into
the chair by her side, and pointed to the table on which the
inventions were laid. "Perhaps you can explain them to me?"
"No, indeed, not I. I never understand anything of that sort."
"Seriously?"
"Seriously! it's very stupid, I know; but I am stupid. What I am
able to understand it would, perhaps, be difficult to say; but there
can be no hesitation in excluding everything like science or
manufactures. They are my detestation."
"Whisper it not in Gath!" he said, with mock horror. "Only conceive
where you are!"
"Very much out of place; but mama has a fancy for coming here, and we
are obliged to like it."
"Well, it is a comfort for me to find some one as ignorant as myself.
Everybody here is so alarmingly instructive. I find nobody ignorant
of anything but their own ignorance. Even the young ladies have
attended Faraday, and the Friday evenings at the Royal Institution,
till----"
She held up her finger threateningly, and said, "Now don't be severe,
I am one of those young ladies: I never miss a Faraday, and am never
allowed to miss a Friday evening. Oh! you need not look astonished.
I sleep very comfortably there, believe me."
He laughed, and continued,--
"Then I can forgive your attendance. Science ought to be quite
content with female votaries of dubious ages. I am sure if it has
the _bogies_, it may leave us idlers the beauties for our comfort. I
quite sympathize with you in your aversion to manufactures. They are
very wonderful, doubtless; but as I am not going to set up a mill or
a factory of my own, the processes are superlatively uninteresting."
"And if I may be so bold as to ask it, why do I see you _here_?"
"Upon my word, I can hardly tell. Why does one go anywhere? Mere
idleness and imitation. Wherever I go, it is almost always dull, and
this house is duller than most; but one occasionally meets with a
recompense, as I have this evening."
"In sitting next to me, eh? I accept the compliment, though it might
have been newer."
"Well, at any rate, it bears out my confession of ignorance. I know
not even how to turn a compliment!"
"Is not that Dr. Lindley?"
"I believe so. You are a disciple of his of course? One may know
botany without being formidable."
"I am glad of that, because I am supposed to be learned in that
department."
"Then you have not the claim I set up for the new degree of C.I.D."
"Pray, what is that?"
"Doctor of crass ignorance, for which my pretensions are better than
yours, as I scarcely know a rose from a rhododendron."
"But I only told you I was _supposed_ to be learned, not that I am
so. My reputation is very simply acquired. Whenever people are
puzzling their memories about some flower, I boldly call it a
something _spirans_, if it is of the twirligig kind, or else a
something _elegans_, or if it is bright-coloured, a something
_splendens_. My name is instantly adopted, and my wisdom meets with
respect. Many other reputations are no better founded. Impudence
may always reckon on the ignorance of an audience."
He laughed at this, and then said--
"Am I to presume you know something of Latin, then?"
"About as much as of botany. Papa, you know, is a great scholar, and
has tried to teach us all Latin, though with mediocre success. But
mind, it is a secret that I know even the little I do. Think of the
injury it would do me. Who would waltz with a girl who was known to
understand Latin?"
"True, true. Men don't like it. They are proud of their wives or
lovers speaking all the continental languages, but a tinge of Latin
is pronounced too _blue_. The secret of this male outcry is this:
all men are supposed to understand Latin, and very few do;
accordingly they resent any attempt to invade their prescriptive
superiority. I remember my noble friend Leopardi used to say that
only in a woman's mouth could the true beauty of Latin be properly
recognised."
"Do you know Leopardi, then?"
"I did know him, poor fellow; but he has been dead these two years.
He was a grand creature. Have you read his poems? I have never
before met with any English who had heard of him."
"Read them, no. He is too difficult."
"Difficult?"
"Why, we girls, as you are perhaps aware, are taught to distinguish
_sospiri_ from _ardiri_, and _lagrime_ from _affanni_, after which we
sing Bellini, and are said to know Italian. But when a poet a little
more difficult than Metastasio is placed into our hands, we are at a
stand-still."
In this way they chatted merrily enough. Julius was eloquent in his
praise of Leopardi, from whom he went to Dante, to Byron, to Bulwer,
Scott, and Miss Austen. Rose was delighted to find so many tastes
and opinions shared in common with this pleasant young man, and could
have sat all night talking to him. She had forgotten his ugliness in
the charm of his conversation; but he had not forgotten her beauty,
which was shown to greater advantage by the liveliness of her manner.
It was a delicious _tête-à-tête_. One of those accidental enjoyments
which from time to time redeem the monotony of soirées, and for the
chance of which one consents to be bored through a whole season. Not
_what_ was said, but _how_ it was said, made the talk so delightful.
The charm of sympathy, the comfort of finding yourself, as it were,
mirrored in the soul of another, the easy unaffected flow of words
dictated by no wish to shine, but simply suggested by the feeling,
made Rose and Julius as intimate in that brief period, as if they had
known each other many months.
Cannot Rose's unwillingness to leave now be appreciated? Cannot the
reader understand her impatience at having such a _tête-à-tête_
disturbed? But there was no help for it. She was forced to say
adieu, and she held out her hand to him with a frankness which almost
compensated him for the pain of seeing her depart. He went home and
dreamt all night of her.
Mrs. Meredith Vyner, followed by her daughters, sought her husband,
who was listening to a humorous narrative given him by Cecil
Chamberlayne, of the elopement of the wife of a distinguished
professor, with an officer almost young enough to be her son.
Meredith Vyner laughed mildly, brushing the grains of snuff from his
waistcoat with the back of his hand, and observed:--
"Egad! I always suspected it would end in that way. Such an
ill-assorted match! Well, well, as Horace says, you know,
"Felices ter et amplius
Quos ...."
Here he was interrupted by the appearance of his wife, who, hurriedly
intimating that she felt the rooms too hot, desired him to take her
home.
"Directly, my dear, directly," he said, and then turned to Cecil, to
finish his quotation.
"Quos irrupta tenet copula, nec malis
Divulsus querimoniis
Suprema citius solvet amor die."
"Good-evening..... Now, my dear," offering his arm to his wife, "I
am at your service."
"_He_ talks of ill-assorted marriages!" said Cecil Chamberlayne to
himself, as they left the room.
The ride home was performed in silence. Meredith Vyner was trying to
recollect a passage in Horace, which would have enabled him to make a
felicitous pun on something Professor Forbes had said to him, and his
forgetfulness of which had teazed him all the evening. His wife was
meditating on the words, looks, and manner of her jilted lover,
astonished at his calmness, and alarmed at his threats. The calmness
of vehement men is always more terrible than their rage; and the
vagueness of Marmaduke's threat made it more formidable, because it
suggested a thousand things, and intimated none. What _would_ he do?
What _could_ he do?
Rose was thinking of Julius St. John, and her charming _tête-à-tête_.
Blanche was weary and sleepy.
Marmaduke, as he jumped into his cab, and drove to the club,
reproached himself for having been led away by his anger so far as to
threaten. He had put her on her guard, and thereby rendered his
vengeance more difficult. It was, indeed, a proof of the violence of
his agitation, that he should have so far forgotten himself; and he
determined, if possible, to recover that false step.
Marmaduke Ashley was one of those
"Children of the sun whose blood is fire;"
and looked upon the treachery of his mistress with very different
feelings from those of a calmer-blooded northern. His transports of
rage and anguish when he heard of her infidelity almost killed him,
and they only settled down into a fierce lust for vengeance. His
father dying bequeathed to him a small fortune, which, instead of
endeavouring to increase, he brought with him to England, and there
awaited, with all the patience of an Indian, the hour when he should
be able to wreak full vengeance on her who had humbled his pride,
shattered his illusions, and lacerated his heart.
He had formed no plan. Time would, he doubted not, bring forth some
opportunity, and for that he waited; enjoying himself, meanwhile, as
a young man about town, with time on his hands and money in his
pocket, best can enjoy himself. He was no moody Zanga, with one
fixed idea. He did not go scowling through society like the villain
of a tragedy, solacing himself with saturnine monologues, and talking
of nothing, thinking of nothing, but of his wrongs and his revenge.
Such monomaniacs may exist, but they are rare, and he was not of
them. His heart swelled, and his temples throbbed, whenever he
thought of his hated mistress, and the thirst for vengeance was not
slaked by thinking of it. But this dark spot was only a spot in his
life, other thoughts occupied him, other interests attracted him,
throwing this quite into the background.
CHAPTER VII.
ROSE VYNER WRITES TO FANNY WORSLEY.
"Oh! about gaieties, I assure you I have little to tell. We go to
very few parties. Mama says dancing is so frivolous: though I
observe she dances all the evening when we do by chance go to a ball.
Papa sides with her, and says _he_ cannot conceive what pleasure
people take in it. Perhaps not; but we can! However, we dare not
complain, and mama is so kind to us that, on the whole, we get on
very well, though I long to be in the country. Last Saturday week,
we were invited to Dr. Whiston's; a wise place where every one looks
like an oracle, where there are few young men, and those generally
sickly, fewer nice men, and scarcely any one Blanche and I know to
speak to. Mama likes these sort of places. She is so clever, and
manages to talk with all the oracles upon their separate sciences,
though she never opens a scientific book from one month to another;
but somehow she can dispense with knowledge, and yet contrive that
people should believe her deeply-read. But then she is so strange!
I must interrupt my narrative to tell you something which I can't
make out in her. She gets more admiration, in spite of her
deformity, than we could ever pretend to; and her style of beauty
seems to be exactly what men delight in.
"How she manages to persuade us, I don't know, but the result is, we
never look well when we go out to a party. This, and our not being
overwise, prevents our finding much enjoyment at Dr. Whiston's; so we
went on that memorable evening prepared for a yawn. Mama quickly got
us seats, and then sailed about the room talking to her friends.
This she does invariably. It is called chaperoning. Though what
protection young girls need at such places, and how this can be
considered as protection, are two things I have not yet comprehended.
Well, I seem as if I were never coming to the point, eh? And yet all
this preparation is to usher in no adorably handsome young man with
bushy whiskers and sleepy eyes, like him we used to see at church
when we were at Mrs. Wirrelston's, and when you persuaded me I was in
love with that little humpbacked lawyer, in nankeens, who used to
ogle us so (do you remember?)--but, on the contrary, to tell you my
evening was rendered perfectly delightful by a certain Julius St.
John, who sat by my side and chatted away so pleasantly, that my
evening fled as rapidly as Cinderella's. And it was his
conversation--nothing else; for I declare he was unreasonably
hideous...
"I am almost ashamed of that last line. Why should I say he was
hideous? He wasn't. He was _adorably ugly_. I never cared for
beauty, as you know, or you would not have persuaded me into a little
sentiment for my nankeened humpback; and it is very foolish in us all
to make such a fuss about it: the plainest men are certainly the most
agreeable! But, however, it is no use preaching to you on this
subject; you who refuse to dance with every man whom you don't think
good-looking!
"Enough for you to know that my dear, little, ugly man was
unaffectedly chatty, and very clever; and that our conversation was
so pleasant, I was quite impatient for yesterday, the second Saturday
for which we were invited to Dr. Whiston's,--expecting to see him
there and to renew our tête-à-tête. I had arranged all sorts of
topics. In my mind's eye, I prefigured his animated pleasure at
espying me, and then his coming up and securing a seat, and chatting
more charmingly than before. Some of my replies were so clever that
they astonished me. How brilliantly I _did_ talk! How many little
scenes of this kind were rehearsed in my imagination, I leave you to
guess, if you have ever been impatient for any meeting. They were
delicious; but they made the reality only more cruel.
"Conceive my disappointment: he was there, yet never came to sit
beside me! When first he saw me, his welcome was so warm that it was
the realization of what I had expected; but he suffered us to pass on
into the last room without once thinking of accompanying us. I was
mortified, I confess. I expected to find him as anxious to renew our
tête-à-tête as myself, and began to be ashamed of having thought so
much of him, when it was clear he had not bestowed a thought on me.
"We sat in our sullen seats, and looked on in no very amiable mood;
that is, I was cross; Blanche, dear creature, had nothing to ruffle
her sweet equanimity. It then occurred to me that he would assuredly
soon find us out; but he did not. I sat there in vain. The people
never before seemed so dull and stupid. The rooms never were so hot.
I longed for mama to fetch us away.
"At last he did condescend to approach us and ask us some trivial
questions, which irritated me so much that I hardly deigned to answer
him. He did not seem in the least surprised by my behaviour; and
that made me angrier. It was quite a relief to me when he turned
round to speak to some one and went away.
"I don't understand it at all. I suppose I have been making a little
fool of myself; yet, in spite of his rudeness--no, not rudeness,
but--what shall I call it?--I should like to see him again. His
mother has purchased the Grange, so when we are at Wyton, we shall
perhaps see a good deal of him, and I shall then be able to
understand him."
CHAPTER VIII.
MRS. LANGLEY TURNER, AND HER FRIENDS.
While Rose was writing the foregoing letter, Mr. and Mrs. Meredith
Vyner were driving towards Eaton-square, on a visit to the well-known
and well-worth-knowing lively widow, Mrs. Langley Turner.
London society abounds in subjects curious to the observer; and, in
spite of its general uniformity, is so split up into opposite and
opposing sections, that a painter of manners, whose observation had
been confined to a few of those sections, would be accused of
ignorance or of caricature by nine-tenths of the English public.
This is the reason of the numerous failures in the attempt to
describe English society, both by natives and foreigners. To
foreigners, indeed, the task must be hopeless. How should they avoid
taking their standard of the whole from the circle in which they
move? They see the interior of houses where wealth, talent,
political influence, and sounding names meet together in habitual and
familiar intercourse: how can they imagine that what they see there
are not the acknowledged manners of the "upper classes?" Yet nothing
can be more erroneous. Portland-place differs as much from
Belgravia, as Regent-street does from Bond-street. What a world is
that of Belgravia, and what a variety of worlds within it! Things
are there done, and accepted as matters of course, which would make
the rest of England incredulously stare; and we may safely affirm
that any sketch of English society taken from the pleasant circles of
Belgravia, would seem quite as preposterous as any Frenchman's
"impressions" of England taken from Leicester-square.
These few remarks were necessary to prevent the reader's indignant
rejection of the description of Mrs. Langley Turner as a
caricature,--as opposed to the whole constitution of English society.
And we beg him therefore, if he have not travelled so far as Pimlico,
to retire into his ignorance, and, while staring as much as he
pleases, to believe it.
Mrs. Langley Turner's set was one of the small orbs within the
greater sphere of Belgravia, and her house was one of the gayest, if
not the most exemplary, in it. Her Sunday evenings were celebrated.
Her picnics, her breakfasts, her snug dinners, and multitudinous
parties, were each and all agreeable enough; but the Sunday evening
was her _cheval de bataille_--therein she distanced all competitors.
There was something piquant in the audacity of the thing in
puritanical England, where, unlike all other Protestant countries,
the Sunday is a day on which all amusement, except plethoric dinners,
is supposed to be a sin; and, in 1839, such a thing was more unusual
than it has since become. This saucy defiance thrown in the face of
Puritanism, was joyfully accepted by all those whose residence abroad
had made it familiar, as well as by those whose opinions were in
favour of a less rigid adherence to a code which other Protestant
nations repugned. And though many women went to Mrs. Langley
Turner's Sunday evenings, and enjoyed them greatly, yet very few had
the courage to imitate her.
Never were pleasanter parties than hers. The rooms were always
crowded with pretty women and _somebodies_. Foreigners abounded;
literary men and artists of celebrity, Italian singers, travellers,
diners out, guardsmen, wits, and roués, formed the heterogeneous and
amusing society. People with "slurs" upon their reputation were to
be met there; and they were not the least amusing of the set. I know
not whether it is that the women whose virtue is not absolutely
intact, and the men whose conduct is of the same easy class, are
really more amusing and better natured than the incorruptibly
virtuous and the sternly conscientious; or that public envy more
readily pounces upon any slips made by the clever, amusing,
good-natured people; but the social fact is indisputable, that the
pleasantest companions are not always the most "respectable."
Mrs. Langley Turner had a sneaking regard for those black sheep; and
Cecil Chamberlayne once laughingly declared, that she never took any
notice of a person until his or her reputation had been damaged. "In
her paradise," he said, "all the angels will be fallen angels."
With all due allowance for the exaggeration here, certain it is that
the truth of the _bon-mot_ gave it its success. Everybody said it
was "_so_ good!" And she did not disown it.
"I like people for themselves," she would say; "and, as their virtue
does not affect me, so long as I like them and see nothing
dishonourable in them, I will open my doors to them."
This un-Britannic audacity of thinking for herself, without reference
to the opinion of Mrs. Grundy, and of actually "receiving" women
about whom scandal had been busy, very naturally gave scandal a sort
of licence with her; but it never rose above whispers. Mrs. Langley
Turner herself was a prodigious favourite with all classes of men.
The wits liked her, she was so lively; the guardsmen, she was "so
larky;" the talkers, she was so chatty; the authors, she was so
clever, without ink on her thumb, and knew so much of the world; and
everybody, because she was so quiet and good-natured. A genuine
woman; frank, hearty, gossipy, flirty, kind, forgiving--in a word,
loveable.
It was to her house that the Vyners were driving, Sunday afternoon
being a sort of levée with her. When the Vyners arrived the little
drawing-room was tolerably full. First on the sofa, by Mrs. Langley
Turner, sat a dowager-countess with her young, handsome, and
uninteresting daughter. Opposite them, in an easy chair, sat the
broken, gouty, but still charming Sir Frederick Winter; a name
celebrated in the annals of gallantry, and one of the now almost
extinct species of _roués_, in whom exquisite manner and courtly
elegance made vice the very chivalry of vice, so that, in losing all
its grossness, it did really seem to lose half its deformity. By his
side sat Cecil Chamberlayne, and next to him the pedantic and bony
Miss Harridale and her mother; the former seemed to have absorbed the
dregs of her ancient family for several generations, so cruelly
vulgar was every look and movement. She was talking atrocious French
to a bearded dandy, whom Cecil called "some very foreign count;"
occasionally entrapping young Lord Boodle into the conversation by an
appeal to his judgment, which, after smoothing his blonde moustache
with the ivory handle of his riding-cane, he reluctantly drawled out.
Mrs. Meredith Vyner, in her very affectionate and sprightly greeting
of Mrs. Langley Turner, had time to perceive that Marmaduke, for whom
she came, was not there. It was her first appearance in Eaton-square
on a Sunday, for Mrs. Meredith Vyner never missed afternoon service,
and nothing but the hope of seeing Marmaduke, whom she was told was a
constant visitor, would have induced her to break in thus upon her
habits. She comforted herself with the expectation that he might
still come.
"Mr. Chamberlayne," said Mrs. Langley Turner, when they were seated,
"is giving us an enthusiastic account of a new tragic actress, whom,
he says, the Duchesnois, the Dorval, and the Mars--three single
ladies rolled into one--would not equal."
"Who is that?" said Mrs. Meredith Vyner, restlessly turning upon
Cecil.
"A little Jewess they call Rachel, quite a girl, picked up from the
streets, but an empress on the stage. Till I had seen her, I did not
believe the human voice capable, in mere speech, of expressing such
unutterable sadness, such sobs of woe."
"And you have seen Edmund Kean?"
"Yes, Edmund Kean; but Rachel is something quite incomparable."
"That is true," said the very foreign count; "her acting is not
acting."
"No," replied Cecil, "it is _suffering_."
The bony Miss Harridale nodded approval of the epigram, and then
informed the company that for her part she saw nothing in French
tragedy.
"Surely," said Cecil, "Racine is an exquisite writer."
"No," replied the confident young lady, "he has no _ideas_!"
There was something so vague yet so crushing in this dictum, which
was delivered with amazing _aplomb_, that no one replied for a few
seconds.
"I fancy," said Sir Frederick Winter, "we are scarcely inclined to do
justice to French tragedy, because we always compare it with that
which it least resembles--our own."
"For my part, I never presume to have an opinion on so delicate a
subject," said Mrs. Vyner, who hated Miss Harridale, and never lost
an opportunity of saying something disagreeable; "because I feel we
English do not understand the language sufficiently to judge of that
which depends upon the grace and beauty of language. I do not, of
course, mean to imply Miss Harridale in that observation--she is
_such_ a Frenchwoman!"
Miss Harridale looked daggers, and said, "I do not pretend to feel
the graces of Racine, about which they talk so much. I dare say they
are all very well. I only speak of the substance: he has no ideas;
and what is a poet without profound ideas? I am for ideas above
everything."
"But how Racine understood the heart--especially woman's heart!" said
the count. "What insight into the passions! what tenderness! what
subtlety! what sublimity!"
"I never saw them," dogmatically pronounced Miss Harridale.
"Then Corneille," added the count; "le grand Corneille, there is a
genius! Has he not painted Romans?"
"Not to my apprehension," said Cecil. "His Romans are Gascons. The
old Horace, for example, who is so much admired, seems to me to have
more rhodomontade than grandeur. He is not a man, but a figment!"
Miss Harridale smiled her approbation of this, and declared that the
celebrated _qu'il mourût_ was not an "idea."
The count failing to understand that profound objection, asked if she
did not regard the _qu'il mourût_ as sublime?
"Not at all."
"Well, I suppose I am a heretic," said Meredith Vyner; "but to speak
the honest truth, French sublimity always seems to me to fall very
wide of the mark."
"Surely, not _very_," said Cecil; "only a _step_."
A general laugh greeted this sally, which made Mrs. Vyner remark
Cecil, whom she now remembered as the young man Marmaduke spoke to at
Dr. Winston's. She resolved to invite him.
"Is this Rachel--I think you call her--handsome?" asked Lord Boodle,
tapping his lips with his cane.
"Yes, and no--the beauty of mind."
"The only beauty worthy of the name," said Miss Harridale,
sententiously.
It was the only style of beauty to which she could lay claim.
"She is beautiful enough," continued Cecil, "for the parts she
plays--you never feel any contradiction between the poet's idea and
her representation of it. You should see her in Phèdre. I think I
never can forget the desolation in her utterance of the four grand
opening lines; or the fine horror of her 'C'est Vénus tout entière à
sa proie attachée;' which by the way," he added, turning to Vyner,
"is only a magnificent paraphrase of what your favourite Horace says
in his ode to Glycera--
"In me tota ruens Venus
Cyprum deseruit."
Meredith Vyner, who had a high opinion of any man who could quote
Horace appositely, suspended a pinch of snuff which he had for some
minutes been heaping up between his thumb and forefinger, to assure
Cecil that he was perfectly correct in his conjecture, and as no
commentator had noticed it, he should certainly do so in his
forthcoming edition--"the work of twenty years' labour, sir!" Vyner
added, clenching the observation with a sonorous pinch.
In a few seconds, Cecil and Vyner were engaged together upon the
nullity of commentators in general, and those on Horace in
particular. Talk of contempt! there is no scorn like the scorn of
one commentator for another.
Vyner wound up a tirade against Burmann, Dacier, Sanadon, and
Bentley, by saying, "If you will do me the pleasure of calling, Mr.
Chamberlayne, I will show you my edition, together with some of my
marginal corrections. Bentley boasted that he had made eight hundred
corrections of the text,--sir, I have made more than a thousand in
Bentley's edition. You shall see it: it will delight you."
Cecil thought that few things would delight him less, but he was glad
to have an invitation to the Vyners upon any pretext.
During this talk, Miss Harridale was harassing Lord Boodle with her
criticisms on modern English literature, which she found deplorably
deficient in "ideas."
Mrs. Vyner was paying great court to the old roué, Sir Frederick--his
opinion being a verdict.
A knock at the door made her heart beat a little faster. To her
disappointment, however, it was only Julius St. John's name she heard
announced. She shortly overheard Julius informing Mrs. Langley
Turner, that he had left Mr. Ashley stretched on his sofa, devouring
_Ruy Blas_, just received.
"And I am to be neglected for Victor Hugo, I presume!" said Mrs.
Langley Turner.
Julius shrugged his shoulders significantly.
"I shall scold him well for it."
"Not when you hear his excuse. He told me that no attraction could
drag him from _Ruy Blas_ till he had finished it; it was such a
splendid tale of vengeance."
A cold shiver ran over Mrs. Meredith Vyner, as she heard St. John
carelessly and laughingly let fall those words full of terrible
significance to her.
"But he will be here this evening, I hope?" inquired Mrs. Langley
Turner.
"Yes."
Finding it was useless waiting any longer, Mrs. Vyner rose to
withdraw.
"Do come round this evening, dear," said Mrs. Langley Turner; "only a
few friends, and Pellegrini is to give us some recitations from
Alfieri--will you?"
"With pleasure."
"That's a dear little woman, I'm so glad."
Meredith Vyner handed Cecil his card, and repeated how glad he should
be to show him all his notes on Horace.
"A very clever fellow, that young Mr. Chamberlayne," said Meredith to
his wife, as they got into their carriage, "with remarkably sound
ideas on the subject of commentators."
"Charming person--so witty. I am glad you gave him your card. By
the way, I have said we would go to Mrs. Turner's this evening, to
hear Pellegrini recite from Alfieri."
"Very well, my dear," said the astonished Vyner, not venturing to
make any further remark on so singular a communication.
It was indeed enough to make him silent. It was something so
enormous, so unexpected, that it sounded like a mystification. She
had always pretended to be very strict on religious subjects; without
affecting fanaticism, she was as rigid as was compatible with her
being a woman of the world. This relaxation from her usual rigidity,
therefore, was the more surprising, because it seemed motiveless.
Her husband at last thought that the temptation was Pellegrini's
recitations. He knew she was a great student of poetry, which she
always declared he knew very little about, and had the naïveté to
believe, that to hear poetry well recited would be as great a
temptation to her, as a new edition of Horace would be to him.
Her motive really was an anxiety to come to an "explanation" with
Marmaduke, whose threats terrified her the longer she thought of
them. She wished at least to know his game, if she could not look
over his cards; and as the sooner she knew that the better for her
own defence, she was restless till she had seen him.
CHAPTER IX.
TWO PORTRAITS.
"Look on this picture, and on that."
SHAKSPEARE.
It was no small gratification to Mrs. Meredith Vyner, as, leaning on
the arm of her ponderous husband, she glided into Mrs. Langley
Turner's rooms that evening, to distinguish amongst the first group
that met her eye, Marmaduke Ashley, resting against the doorway of
the second salon, talking to Cecil Chamberlayne and Julius St. John.
He was, indeed, a figure not to escape even an indifferent eye.
There was lion-like grace about him; a certain indefinable something
in his attitudes and movements, which, in their oriental _laisser
aller_, were in sharp contrast to the stiffness and artificiality of
even the least awkward of our northern dandies. When our young men
are careless, they have a slouching, sprawling manner, which is more
offensive to the eye than stiffness. It is only the children of
warmer climates who can afford to let their limbs fall naturally, and
be graceful. Marmaduke, whose prodigious chest and back betokened
the strength of a bull, seemed to have united with it the agility of
a deer, and was the very model of manly grace.
He was well dressed, without overdress; but he had committed one
error in taste, which might, perhaps, be set down to coxcombry, in
wearing a white waistcoat, somewhat larger than the fashion
permitted. His chest was so expansive, and he was so tall, that this
vast expanse of staring white, while it fixed all eyes upon him, made
them remark how much too large the chest was for symmetry. It was
_trop voyant_, to adopt the jargon of the French dandies. The effect
was further increased by his wearing a white cravat, which at that
time had only just began to replace the black, introduced by that
puffy potentate, so wittily characterized by Douglas Jerrold as the
"most finished gent. in Europe."
How many women sighed for him on that evening, I cannot tell; but
certain it is, that a shadow of regret fell on Mary's heart as she
remarked the beauty of her former lover, and silently compared him
with her heavy, snuffy husband. Nor did he gaze on her unmoved. She
was a striking figure, and would have been so even in an assembly of
beauties. Perhaps the most striking part about her was her neck and
bosom, with the whiteness and firmness of marble,--with its coldness
too; beautiful it was, and yet repulsive; hard, cold, immodest,
unvoluptuous; no blood seemed to beat in its delicate, blue veins--no
heart seemed to move its rise and fall; this, the most womanly beauty
of a woman, was in her unwomanly; it arrested the eye, without
charming it. There was something about her whole appearance which
was singularly fantastic: her golden hair, drooping in ringlets to
her waist, and her dazzling skin and tiny figure gave her the
appearance of a little fairy; nor did her deformity destroy this
impression. She was so pretty, or rather so _piquante_, and unlike
other women, that her crooked shoulder only gave a piquancy the more
by the sort of compassionate feeling it raised. "What a pity such a
sweet creature should be deformed!" was the universal exclamation;
and this very exclamation made people think more of the charms which
redeemed that deformity.
In truth, the great deformity was not in the back--it never is--but
in the eyes and mouth. Theoretically, we may all declaim against
faults of proportion and of outline, but, practically, it is the eyes
and mouth that carry the day: according as they look and they smile,
do we feel that people are beautiful or ugly; because in them lies
the expression of the heart and soul. This I take to be the secret
of those astounding differences in taste upon a subject of which
there is a distinct standard--beauty. True, there is a standard of
form and colour. We are all agreed upon the face that would make the
handsomest picture; but the best part of beauty is that which the
painter can never express, because he is condemned to one expression;
and the beauty of the loving heart and noble soul is visible in the
changing lustre of a thousand smiles and glances. Now, although we
might all agree that a certain face has exquisite purity of outline,
and gratifies the æsthetical sense of proportion, yet we should feel
and say that some less perfect face has charmed us more.
Why?--because we are indifferent to perfection? No: but because in
some less harmoniously proportioned face, we have read a more
loveable soul--a soul with which we can better enter into communion.
Thus it is that men get distractedly enamoured of women, whose beauty
is more than problematical, because without having had many
opportunities of knowing their characters, but mostly from what the
faces express, they read there the signs of unalterable goodness and
lovingness, of high nobility of soul, or, perhaps, only of some
voluptuous and passionate tendencies; and all these are qualities
more fascinating than purity of outline. In support of my argument,
let me mention the fact, that the women most celebrated as beauties
have seldom, if ever, been picture-beauties. It is impossible from
any picture of Mary Queen of Scots, for example, to imagine wherein
lay the enchantment of her beauty.
Therefore, my ill-favoured reader, take courage; if your mind is
honest, and your heart loving, you will have true beauty--yes, the
positive effect of beauty on all those who can read the signs of
honesty and loveliness.
These signs were not legible in the eyes and mouth of Mrs. Meredith
Vyner; and there, as I said, lay her real deformity, though people
did not call it so. Those light, grey eyes, so destitute of
voluptuousness, but so full of light--so cunning, so cruel, so
uncomfortable to look upon; and that small mouth, with its thin,
irritable, selfish lips, which a perpetual smile endeavoured to make
amiable, created a far more repulsive impression, when first you saw
her, than any hump could have created: and yet she fancied that her
hump was her only deformity.
She was, as I said, repulsive at first sight; but most people got
over that impression after a while, as they generally do when
familiarity has blunted their perceptions. It was not necessary to
be a great physiognomist to see at once the nature of the soul her
eyes expressed; and yet, when people heard her amiable sentiments,
and noticed the meekness of her manner, they yielded to the popular
sophism of its being "unjust to judge from first impressions," and
they believed in her _professions_ rather than in her
_expressions_--that is, in her calculated utterances rather than her
instinctive and unconquerable emotions.
"But," objects the reader, "first impressions are so often false,
that it would be madness to rely on them." I answer: first
impressions--at least those of a broad and simple kind--are rarely,
if ever, false; though often _incomplete_. The observer should not
rely on them; but he should never absolutely reject them. They may
be modified--greatly modified--but not contradicted. Human character
is marvellously complex, and this very complexity serves to confound
the observer, if he have not a clue; and that clue is best attained
on a first interview, because then the perceptions are least biassed
by the opinions. If he understand human nature, he will soon be able
to modify his first impressions, and complete the general outline of
a character.
Physiognomy is very fallacious, I know, in its details; but in its
broad principles, which almost all human beings instinctively employ,
there is no more infallible guide. The mistake physiognomists
commit, is in not leaving sufficient margin for education. A man may
have cruelty or bad temper very legible in his face, and yet not in
his acts be cruel or bad-tempered; but if you interrogate his
boyhood, you will find that, however he may have subdued the demon
within him, he once had the quality which his face expresses, and, in
the depths of his nature, he has it still: the wild beast lies
chained within him, but may at any time break loose.
If physiognomy betrays us into rash judgments, far more erroneous are
those into which we are betrayed by an observation of conduct or of
speech, if we have not previously a clue to the character: because it
is a tendency in us all to attribute importance only to important
acts--only to great occasions, when as we say, a man's true nature is
called forth. Nothing can be more false. Trifles are the things by
which men are to be judged. If we would know them _as they are_, we
should observe them in their unguarded moments, in the routine of
daily and familiar life, when no man's eyes, as it were, are on them.
If we would know them _as they wish to be considered_, then we may
observe them when the importance of the occasion turns men's eyes
upon them. Taking the most liberal view of the question, one can
only say that great occasions show what men are capable of in
extraordinary circumstances, not what the men are.
I am tempted to quote the remarkable words of a remarkable writer on
this very point: "In our judgment of men," says Henry Taylor, "we are
to beware of giving any importance to occasional acts. By acts of
occasional virtue weak men endeavour to redeem themselves in their
own estimation, vain men endeavour to exalt themselves in that of
mankind. It may be observed, that there are no men more worthless
and selfish, in the general tenor of their lives, than some who from
time to time perform feats of generosity. Sentimental selfishness
will commonly vary its indulgences in this way, and vain-glorious
selfishness will break out into acts of munificence. But
self-government and self-denial are not to be relied on for any real
strength, except in so far as they are found to be exercised in
detail."*
* "The Statesman."
The first impression Mrs. Meredith Vyner made, was that of a cold,
cunning, cruel woman; with plenty of nervous energy and sensibility,
but no affection. If you disregarded that, and attended only to her
conduct, and to the sentiments she generally expressed, you thought
her an enthusiastic, affectionate, child-like creature, whose very
faults sprang from an excess of warmth and impulsiveness; and so good
an actress was she, that it required a keen observer, or a long
intimacy with her, to detect her real character.
It has been remarked that deformed people are singularly noble,
delicate, and generous in their natures; or singularly mean, cunning,
and malicious. The scorn of the world so powerfully influences them,
that it brings out into greater relief the features of that moral
physiognomy with which nature has endowed them, making them much
better or much worse than their fellows. Mrs. Meredith Vyner
belonged to the latter class; but so cunning was she, that most
people were entirely deceived by her; and if they were occasionally
startled by some great contradiction, they got over it with the usual
remark, "Oh, she is such a very strange woman!"
CHAPTER X.
DECLARATION OF WAR.
Mrs. Meredith Vyner had not long been in the room before she had
spoken to Marmaduke, who, perfectly on his guard, replied with
respectful politeness to the observations she from time to time
addressed to him. It was impossible for the acutest observer to have
suspected there was any _arrière pensée_ in her slightly flurried
manner (she was always restless), or in his dignified ease. Two
gladiators in the arena never faced each other with greater
watchfulness, than this tiny, lively woman--confident in her
skill--and this self-possessed magnificent Brazilian.
Pellegrini placed himself with his back to the fire and coughed as he
thrust one hand into his breast, previously to beginning his
recitations. The guests crowded from the other rooms, and disposed
themselves to listen, as if they were to understand and greatly
relish Alfieri. Mrs. Vyner, taking advantage of this movement,
beckoned Marmaduke to follow her, and seating herself at a small
table in the inner room, began turning over the leaves of the
Keepsake, and then addressing him in an under tone, said:--
"So you wanted to cut me the other night?"
"I did. Surely it was the best thing I could do." As he said this,
he sat down on an ottoman opposite her.
"What! before any explanation?" she inquired, endeavouring to throw
a tenderness into her tone, which she could not throw into her eyes.
"All explanation is useless when the facts are so eloquent. I
neither ask for explanation, nor would I accept one."
"And you think me----" She could not proceed.
"A woman," he said, gravely.
"And what motives do you attribute?"
"Very natural and powerful motives, or they would not have influenced
you. I know not what they were. I do not desire to know. Either
you love me----"
"Mr. Ashley, remember I am a married woman, and this language----"
"I was only putting an hypothetical case: your conduct and the
present interruption convince me it was unnecessary to put such a
case."
He rose, but she motioned to him to be reseated. She sighed, and
continued hurriedly turning over the leaves of the book she held.
Expecting every moment that she was going to speak, he watched her in
silence. This was exactly what she wished; confident in the
influence of her beauty over him, she thought it more effective than
any argument; besides, it did not inculpate her in any way.
She miscalculated. The contemplation only served to irritate him the
more. If his temples throbbed at the mere recollection of her having
jilted him, the sight of her called up bygone scenes of tenderness,
which made her inconstancy the more odious.
"Do you not hate me?" she said at last, keeping her eyes fixed on the
book, not daring to look at him.
"I do," he replied, in a whisper, like the hiss of a serpent.
She started at the sound, and raised her terrified head to see if his
face contradicted or confirmed the words. But she could read nothing
there. The light which for a moment had flashed from his dark eyes
had passed away, like the flush which had burnt his cheek. He had
been unable to repress that movement of anger; but no sooner were the
words escaped than he repented them, and endeavoured to do away with
their effect, by adding,--
"That is, I _did_; now hate has given place to contempt. When I
hated you, it was because I still felt a lingering of that love which
you had outraged; but I soon overcame that weakness, and now I think
only of you as one who _sold herself for money_."
At this very bitter speech, made the more galling from the tone of
superb contempt in which it was uttered, she shook back her golden
ringlets, and bent on him her tiger eyes with an expression which
would have made most men tremble, but which to Marmaduke had a savage
fascination, stirring strange feelings within him, and making him
almost clutch her in a fierce embrace. She looked perfectly lovely
in his eyes at that moment; and it is impossible to say what might
have been the result of this scene, had not her husband appeared. He
had just missed her, and astonished at not finding her listening to
Pellegrini's recitations, for which alone he supposed her to have
come there, he began fidgeting about, till he espied her in earnest
conversation with the handsome Marmaduke.
"My dear," said he, preparing a pinch with slow dignity, "won't you
come into the next room, to hear Alfieri?"
"No; I came away, unable to listen to Pellegrini's affected
declamation."
Meredith Vyner stood there somewhat puzzled what to say. He
flattered his nose with a series of gentle taps, and in his
abstraction, let fall more of the snuff than usual. Not even his
pinch, however, could clear his ideas. He felt something like
jealousy, though the handsome young man was a perfect stranger to
him; and wished to get his wife away, without exactly knowing how it
was to be done.
He was relieved from his perplexity by an influx of the company from
the other room at the conclusion of the recitation. The tête-à-tête
was broken up. Mrs. Vyner took her husband's arm, and moved away,
not without a parting smile at Marmaduke, who received it with
supreme indifference.
CHAPTER XI.
ONE OF OUR HEROES.
On the following morning, Cecil Chamberlayne was busy over his
edition of Horace, "cramming" for his interview with Meredith Vyner,
whose acquaintance he was the more anxious to cultivate, now he knew
that he had three marriageable daughters.
Cecil has been introduced once or twice before, but I have not yet
had an opportunity of sketching his portrait, so let me attempt it
now.
He was a social favourite. He had considerable vivacity, which
sometimes amounted to wit, and always passed for it. He drew well,
composed well, sang well, dressed well, rode well, wrote charming
verses and agreeable prose, played the piano and the guitar, and
waltzed to perfection: in a word, was a _cavalier accompli_.
But with all these accomplishments there was no genius. He could do
many things well, but nothing like a master. He painted better than
an amateur, but not well enough for a professed artist.
Indeed, there was in him, both physically and morally, a sort of
faltering greatness which arrested the attention of the observer.
The head and bust were those of a large man, but the body and legs
were small and neatly made. In his face there was the same
contradiction: a boldness of outline, with a delicacy amounting to
weakness in the details. His brow was broad and high, without being
massive. His eyes were blue and gentle. His nose aquiline, and
handsomely cut. The mouth would have been pretty had it not been too
small. In appearance he was somewhat over neat--dapper.
At school, the boys called him "Fanny."
It is not often that the physical corresponds so well with the moral,
as in Cecil Chamberlayne; but in him the accordance was perfect. You
could not look at his white hand without at once divining, from its
conical fingers, and the absence of strongly marked knuckles, that it
belonged to one in whom the emotions predominated, and in whom the
intellect tended naturally to art; it was, in truth, an artistic
hand, the largeness of which showed a love of details, as the broad
palm and small thumb showed an energetic sensuality and a wavering
will.
Lively, good-natured, and accomplished, he was a great favourite with
most people, and, indeed, the very attractiveness of his manners had
been the obstacle to his advancement in life. His time and talents,
instead of being devoted to any honourable or useful pursuit, were
frittered away in the endless nothings which society demanded, and he
had reached the age of seven and twenty, without fortune and without
a profession. He flattered himself that he should be made consul
somewhere, by one among his powerful friends, or that some sinecure
would fall in his way; and on this hope he refrained from applying
himself to the study of any profession, and only thought of
sustaining his reputation as an amusing fellow. Meanwhile his small
patrimony had dwindled down to the interest of four thousand pounds,
which was preserved only because he could not touch the capital: a
misfortune which he had frequently declaimed against, and to which he
now owed the means of keeping a decent coat on his back.
He went to Vyner, listened to his remarks on Horace, sympathized with
his hatred of editors, wondered at the beauty and rarity of his
editions, expressed strong and lively interest in his commentary,
and, in short, so ingratiated himself with the old pedant, that he
was invited down to Wytton Hall, whither the family was about to go.
BOOK II.
CHAPTER I.
CECIL CHAMBERLAYNE TO FRANK FORRESTER.
MY DEAR FRANK,
I am alone in the house; everybody is gone somewhere, except that
prosy, respectable gentleman, Captain Heath, who is in the library,
reading Seneca or Hannah More, I dare say; and in consequence of this
solitude I obey the call of friendship, and devote my unoccupied time
to you.
I have been here three days without a yawn. That is enough to tell
you how different the place is from what I expected. On the other
hand, I must confide to you my suspicions, that I shall return to
town perfectly heart-whole. There are only the two elder girls at
home; and, though very pretty, they are not at all my style. Rose,
the eldest, is satirical, and far too lively to get up any sentiment
with. She makes the place ring with her merry, musical laugh; but I
never get on with laughing women. Her sister Blanche is better; but
she is shy, and, I suspect, stupid. Violet, the youngest, is
expected home in a few days; but both her father and stepmother give
fearful accounts of her temper; and, without making any positive
charge, Mrs. Vyner has, from time to time, said things which convey a
very unfavourable impression of the girl's disposition.
As this is the case, I must look at Wytton Hall from a totally
different point of view. It is now only a country house to me, and I
must criticize its attractions accordingly.
My first impression was anything but favourable. I arrived here
about half-past six, and was received by--the butler! He showed me
to my room in silence, and I did not feel disposed to question him.
As he asked me whether I wanted anything, I inquired after the
dinner-hour.
"Dinner will be ready, sir, as soon as you are dressed," he replied,
and left me.
The house seemed very quiet, but I dressed myself with care, all the
time speculating on the cause of my singular reception, or rather,
nonreception. By the time I was ready, I had made up my mind that
everybody must have been dressing for dinner on my arrival, and that
perhaps I had been keeping them waiting half an hour.
I rang, and the servant lighted me down a complicated course of
corridors and oak staircases; very sombre, very rococo, but very
superb. The wind shook mysterious tapestries. Banners drooped by
the side of complete sets of steel armour, looking like prodigiously
uncomfortable knights, stiff as steel and the middle ages could make
them. Formidable griffins of finely-carved oak glared at me, with
heraldic fury, from the balustrades; and endless ancestors, of
unheard-of bravery and incorruptibility, looked stiffly at me from
their dim canvass; each and all haughtily eyeing me, as if my
intrusion on the scene was one of the inexplicable facts of modern
progress. In short, I could have fancied myself in a _Castle of
Otranto_ some centuries ago, instead of in a gentleman's country
house, in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and forty. And I
assure you, as the solemn flunky strode before me, his candle
throwing but a dubious light amidst all this sombre splendour, I felt
quite romantic, and should not have started if, in some gusty
movement, the tapestry had opened, and one of the faded-visaged
ferocious ancestors had stepped from his frame.
At length I reached the dining-room: there the silent butler
condescended to explain to me that the family and visitors were all
out at a pic-nic. I was to dine by myself. And never did I sit down
to a stranger or more uncomfortable dinner. You know the dinner hour
is the period at which I shine; my best stories are inspired by the
cheerful scene, the lights, the clatter of glasses, and the sparkle
of the champagne. It is then I feel myself possessed of all my
faculties. Well, then, fancy me seated at a solitary silent meal,
without even the advantages of solitude and silence. The vast
saloon, with its carved oak-panels, its high and vaulted roof, its
heavy antique furniture, required all its three chandeliers to be
properly lighted; instead of which, a massive candelabra threw light
just on the table and its immediate neighbourhood, but left the
greater part of the room in deep obscurity. In this Rembrandtish
picture, which I could have painted with greater gusto had it not
disagreeably affected me, you are to fancy me in the light silently
eating, and in the surrounding shadows two silent flunkies, silently
bringing and taking away the various dishes which represented dinner;
as if dining consisted solely in eating.
You often laugh at me, Frank, for my gourmandize--and you, too, such
a perfect gourmand--but if you had seen me on that occasion, you
would have credited my fundamental maxim, which Brillat Savarin has
omitted in his _Physiologié du Gout_, viz., What the _chef de
cuisine_ is to the raw materials, that is the company to the _chef de
cuisine_.
I never ate less, nor with such profound contempt for the process of
eating, reduced to the mere satisfaction of hunger. Besides, the
sombreness and silence of the scene oppressed me.
I was shown into the drawing-room; a handsome, well lighted,
comfortable-looking place, which quite cheered me. A log was blazing
joyously in the fire-place, for the autumnal nights down here are
keen; and, altogether, the contrast with the dark, grandiose,
majestically-uncomfortable dining-room, made this drawing-room
delightful.
I threw myself on an ottoman, and tried to amuse myself with a book;
but you know, I dare say, how impossible it is to read in such
uncertain moments. Expecting the family to arrive every minute, it
was in vain I tried to fix my interest in anything I read.
I threw down the book, and gazed thoughtfully at the crackling log.
The wind sighed mournfully without, the clock on the mantel-piece
ticked with a sort of lively monotony, the embers fell with a cozy
familiar sound, and I sank into one of those exquisite reveries
wherein the past is curiously enwoven with the future, and, treading
the imaginary stage, we play such brilliant parts.
I must have passed from these waking dreams into dreams of a less
coherent kind, and have fallen asleep, for I was aroused by the
barking of a dog, and noise of considerable bustle in the hall, which
was quickly followed by the entrance of Meredith Vyner, his wife, his
daughters, and his guests. He apologized for being absent on my
arrival, but had accepted the engagement before my note reached him
to say I should be down on that day. His welcome was warm enough;
but the others seemed to me disagreeably cold and constrained. They
were all very tired, and went early to bed, except Vyner, who sat up
with me discussing Horace; and Captain Heath, who was reading the
paper.
I retired to bed somewhat disgusted, and resolved to receive a letter
which should call me up to town on urgent business; I felt so lonely
in that great house full of uncongenial people. Sleeping in a
strange house is always rather unpleasant to me. I am bothered by
unfamiliarity in familiar things. I could sleep in a wigwam
comfortably enough; but in a bedroom which is substantially the same
as all other bedrooms, and which, nevertheless, wears an air of
strangeness, I feel out of my _assiette ordinaire_. This was
peculiarly so on the night I speak of, from my unpleasant impression
of the people I was thrown among.
It happened, however, that my impression of the people was similar to
my impression of the place--at first repulsive, afterwards
attractive. What the well-lighted drawing-room was to the
dining-room, that was the next morning's hilarity to the over night's
frigidity. Breakfast was charming. Everybody seemed in high
spirits--the first freshness of morning--and my opinion was
completely changed. You know how intimate one becomes after having
spent a night under the same roof: it seems as if you breakfasted
only with old friends. I felt myself at home; and kept the table in
a roar of laughter. This success operated favourably on my own
spirits; and in consequence, I have established myself as a general
favourite.
Now for my companions, Vyner himself promises to be more of a bore
than I anticipated. His wife is very charming, and seems to agree
wonderfully in all my views, which I, of course, regard as a sign of
excellent taste and judgment. The daughters I have already spoken
of. Captain Heath is handsome, gentlemanly, but confoundedly
"sensible," and, though a guardsman, has no idea of "life." I can't
say I like him; though _why_, I don't know; as Martial says,
Non amo te Sabidi: nee possum dicere quare;
Hoc tantum possum dicere: Non amo te.
(I hope you remember enough Latin to understand that, eh, Frank? The
truth is, I charmed Vyner yesterday with it, by quoting it as the
original of "I do not love thee, Dr. Fell," which he quoted to me.
He was so pleased, that I would wager he introduces it into his
commentary on Horace, which already amounts to nearly three octavos!)
To return to Heath, I think something of my dislike may be the mere
re-action against the immense liking, I almost said veneration, which
every one feels for him here. They are always telling some story of
his goodness. "Goodness!" and in a guardsman!
Mrs. Langley Turner, who arrived yesterday, Sir Harry Johnstone, and
Tom Wincot, I need not describe to you. But there is a young fellow
named Lufton who ought to be under your hands; he would be an
admirable fellow if "formed." To convey to you his stupendous
innocence, he told me yesterday at billiards, when I asked him what
was his usual stake, that "he had never played for money." Is not
this something fabulous--a myth? Let me add, however, that he had
enough _savoir vivre_, to propose that I should name the stakes, as
he was quite willing to do what I did. That re-established him in my
opinion. He won a pony from me, which I am not likely to regain, as
he plays decidedly better than I do.
I must also not forget George Maxwell, a saturnine, stupid, fanatical
individual, in love with Mrs. Vyner, or I am vastly mistaken,
savagely jealous of every one she notices, but by no means rewarded
by any notice from her. I can't tell whether she observes his
passion; but she certainly does not return it. Nobody likes _him_.
There are, besides, a merry little widow, a Mrs. Broughton, and her
niece, an inoffensive girl with a happy simpering visage, radiant
with foolishness.
This is our party: rather mixed, but very agreeable. I can't tell
you now how we pass our time, for here am I at the end of my paper
and patience.
Good-bye, Frank,
Ever yours,
CECIL.